We’re doing a study of Luke’s gospel at Tenth Street. Our goal is to interact with the text in a way that results in us gaining a clear sense of how God is using it to speak to us today. Of course, this should be the goal of all Bible study, but it can sometimes get obscured by our quest for knowledge of certain topics, exploring the original context, and other factors. In this class, we’re concerned about the original context only as it relates to helping us understand how the text relates to us (i.e., we will have trouble with how it relates to us today if we don’t have some sense of what it meant to the original audience!).
By design the class is small and intimate, so discussion can be maximized. Several eyes on the text almost always results in greater insights and applications in our lives—and this class has been no exception. Toward the end of last week’s class, we started looking at the story where Jesus and his family went to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast when He was twelve years old (2:41ff). When we got to the part where Joseph and Mary lost track of Jesus—well, that’s where it really got interesting.
Everyone in the class is a parent, so we were in complete empathy with Joseph and Mary about what it would like to not be able to find your child. Of course, Joseph and Mary went back to Jerusalem in their search for Jesus and, after three days, found Him in the temple courts. The mothers let me know that Mary’s words to Jesus, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you,” were read by me with nowhere near the correct intonation and effect (and they were right). Tomorrow night we will finish this story, and I can hardly wait.
One of the truths we’ve arrived at from the text is we can leave church and forget to take Jesus with us. Ouch! It’s easy to see how this happened to Joseph and Mary, but it’s much more painful to admit it can happen to us. Still, this is the point of our study—to allow God’s powerful word to speak all aspects of our lives.
Another challenging lesson came from Jesus’ response, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (v. 49). In essence, Jesus was reminding Joseph and Mary that ultimately, He didn’t belong to them—He belonged to God and consequently needed to be about His Father’s purposes. If we allow God’s word to speak to us, it tells us that our children don’t belong to us either—ultimately they belong to God. And we need to raise and release them to whatever purposes He has for them. That’s tough because if we’re honest, most of us have our own purposes for our children (i.e., go to school where we did, live three blocks away, or work in the family business).
Janice and I were at a conference recently where a grandfather and grandmother were honored. Why? Because both their sons and their families (eleven grandchildren), were living in Africa in order to spread the good news of Jesus. They were being recognized because as difficult as it was, they had raised and released their sons to be used by God for whatever purpose He had in mind.
And that brings us to the last lesson: Determining what God is saying to us is important. Acting on it is where the blessing begins (John 13:17).
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 