Passage: Luke 12:13-34

The Story

•    You can tell a lot about a person from their questions
•    Take the question in verse 13 for example.

o    The questioner is clearly in a position where he wants Jesus to solve the problem
o    He is in the middle of a dispute with his older brother

*    I say “older” brother as the law of the time dictated that the eldest brother would be in charge of the estate after the father died
*    This, therefore, would be the younger brother who wants Jesus to force the older brother into giving him some of the property and/or coin

o    The question also reflects how this man saw Jesus

*    Not as someone who came to change lives, but as a legal expert
*    We do this sometimes in our prayers when we pray, not for changed hearts – our and others – but for Jesus to force others to do what we want them to do

•    Jesus responds in a way that cut to the heart of the questioner

o    He told the man that he wasn’t going to go down the path of forcing people to do anything
o    He also warned the man about his soul and about chasing things

•    The parable

o    There was a rich man whose crops produced a great yield

*    Notice that the man is already rich

•    This wasn’t a man who was trying to get rich
•    But a story about the abundance given to him by God

o    In other words, being rich is not a sin
o    It is a state of one’s heart and what one does with the wealth that matters, as well will soon see

*    I say, “given to him” because the wealth came from his crops,

•    Crops that he did not cause to grow
•    God is the one who causes all living things to grow

Continue reading Be on your guard against all kinds of greed… →