Lucas 16

Lucas 16

Phillips - We cannot be a slave to material possessions and at the same time own the lordship of Christ in our lives. No compromise is possible. We have to decide which world we are going to live for and which master we are going to serve. For either he will hate (miseo) the one and love (agapao) the other or else he will be devoted (antechomai) to one and despise (kataphroneo) the other - For (term of explanation) introduces the following explanation of why we cannot serve two masters and/or what happens when we try to do so.The principle is that you will hate and despise one you are not serving and love and be devoted to the one you are serving. So if you are laying up for yourself treasure on earth you can be sure that you are hating and despising servitude to God! There is no middle ground. No neutral position. Stated another way you are either for or against God's will and plans. THOUGHT - Of course, no believer is perfect in this area, so the question is what is the general direction of your life? And if you answer it is earthward and temporal, then perhaps you need to soberly, prayerfully ponder Paul's exhortation in 2 Cor 13:5+ "Test (present imperative) yourselves (notice this a command to take a personal inventory - we are not to go around judging others) to see if you are in the faith; examine (present imperative) yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test (adokimos)?" Jesus deals with the attitudes or affections - hate versus love, then devotion versus despising. Christ says you cannot be loyal to both or honor both.\ Adam Clarke makes the point that "The word hate has the same sense here as it has in many places of Scripture (cp Luke 14:26); it merely signifies to love less—so Jacob loved Rachel, but hated Leah; i.e. he loved Leah much less than he loved Rachel. God himself uses it precisely in the same sense: Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated; i.e. I have loved the posterity of Esau less than I have loved the posterity of Jacob: which means no more than that God, in the course of his providence, gave to the Jews greater earthly privileges than he gave to the Edomites, and chose to make them the progenitors of the Messiah, though they ultimately, through their own obstinacy, derived no more benefit from this privilege than the Edomites did. How strange is it, that with such evidence before their eyes, men will apply this loving and hating to degrees of inclusion and exclusion, in which neither the justice nor mercy of God are honored! (Luke 16) H A