Dianne wonders about the tension between Jesus’ statements in Luke 11:23 and 9:50.
Here are those verses:
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Luke 11:23)
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:50).
Let’s take the passage from Luke 11 first. The occasion is Jesus driving out a demon from a man who had previously been mute. After the demon was evicted, the man spoke and “the crowd was amazed” (v. 14).
But there were some who weren’t and claimed that Jesus got His power from “Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (v. 15). Jesus pointed out the fallacy of such thinking (v. 17-18), also asking them where they thought the exorcists among them got their power (v. 19). Finally, He informed them that His work was a sign “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (v. 20). He then explained His power in terms of the being the stronger man who attacked the house of the fully armed strong man and took away his possessions (v. 21-22).
To this He added, “Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.”
The meaning of this seems clear enough. There were people “gathering” with Jesus (i.e., the Jewish exorcists He referred to in v. 19). Then there were those who were clearly working against Him—those who claimed His power came from Beelzebul. So, you were either working with Jesus or against Him—there was no middle ground.
Now to Luke 9:50.
The disciples had been arguing about which one of them “would be the greatest” (v. 46). This was not the spirit that Jesus wanted to cultivate among them. So, He took a child and made accepting the child the standard of greatness.
To appreciate this, we have to understand that contrary to our culture today, children in Jesus’ time essentially had no status. Therefore, to accept a child was the opposite of accepting someone of great status (i.e., the “great” people the apostles aspired to be). Furthermore, by accepting the one of no status, they were accepting the Father and the Son, who made it their business to accept the unacceptable. By saying this, Jesus moved the bar of greatness from ambition and self-glorification to the humility of accepting the unaccepted. In doing this, He turned the kingdom upside down from what many people’s perceptions had been.
This meant if there was someone outside of Jesus and His apostles who was doing good, they weren’t to be rejected but accepted. Maybe they didn’t share the status of the apostles but they were working for them in the sense that they were working for the kingdom of God as they were.
There’s no contradiction between Luke 9 & 11. Those opposing Jesus were not for Him but against Him. Those involved in similar work were for Him and not against Him. It’s only when you divorce these statements from their contexts and pit them against each other in a vacuum that they cause us trouble.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 