Luke 14
Luke 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records one miracle performed by Jesus Christ on a Sabbath day, followed by His teachings and parables.[1] The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles.[2]
Luke 14 | |
---|---|
The Latin text of Luke 11:35–14:30 in Codex Gigas (13th century). | |
Book | Gospel of Luke |
Category | Gospel |
Christian Bible part | New Testament |
Order in the Christian part | 3 |
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 35 verses.
Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
- Papyrus 75 (AD 175-225; verse 27 contains a staurogram)
- Papyrus 45 (~250)
- Codex Vaticanus (325-350)
- Codex Sinaiticus (330-360)
- Codex Bezae (~400)
- Codex Washingtonianus (~400)
- Codex Alexandrinus (400-440)
- Papyrus 97 (~600; extant verses 7-14).[3]
Jesus being carefully watched
The chapter opens on a Sabbath day, where Jesus goes into the home of one of the rulers of the Pharisees, presumably directly after the synagogue service.[4] He is 'watched carefully' [5] or 'craftily'.[6] F. W. Farrar in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges notes a resonance with the words of Psalm 37:32:
- The wicked watches the righteous, and seeks to slay him.[7]
Take the Lowly Place
This pericope (verses 7 to 14), also known as the Parable of the Wedding Feast, is one of the parables of Jesus which is only found in the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament and directly precedes the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-24.[9][10] In Matthew's Gospel, the parallel passage to Luke's Parable of the Great Banquet is also set as a wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14).[11]
Jesus always made his parables relatable to the layman. A wedding, in the days of the Jews, was a very sacred and joyous thing. Some even lasted up to or more than a week. When Jesus told this parable, many people were able to understand the picture he was trying to create because he used a Jewish wedding as the setting of the story.[12]
Luke's saying that "Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" [13] is also found in Luke 18:14 and Matthew 23:12. It is similar to Matthew 18:4.[10]
Parable of the Great Supper
The Parable of the Great Banquet or the Wedding Feast or the Marriage of the King's Son is a parable told by Jesus in the New Testament, found in Matthew 22:1-14 and Luke 14:15-24. The eschatological image of a wedding also occurs in the parable of the Faithful Servant and the parable of the Ten Virgins. Here, it includes the extension of the original invitation (to Jews) to also include Gentiles.[14] In Luke, the invitation is extended particularly to the "poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame" (Luke 14:21), evidencing explicit concern for the "poor and the outcasts."[14]
A variant of the parable also appears in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (Saying 64).[15]
Leaving All to Follow Christ
Counting the Cost, or in the NIV: The Cost of Being a Disciple or in the NRSV: The Cost of Discipleship or in the NKJV: Leaving All to Follow Christ, are titles given to this part of the chapter which includes a pair of illustrations of the importance of deliberating in advance "whether they were able and prepared to bear all their losses and persecutions to which the profession of the gospel would expose them".[16] The first title comes from the phrase "count the cost", which occurs in the King James Version of the passage, as well as some other versions.
Eric Franklin argues that the requirement to "hate" in verse 26 is "Semitic exaggeration",[17] and Joseph Benson envisages that hatred "signifies only an inferior degree of love".[16]
American New Testament scholar Joel B. Green suggests that it is unclear what kind of tower is being referred to in the first illustration,[18] but notes that the message is that a "thoroughgoing fidelity to God's salvific aim" is required, "manifest in one's identity as a disciple of Jesus".[18] This involves putting family and possessions second,[19] as in Matthew 8:18-22 and Luke 9:57-62. This command is interpreted and practised in different ways by different Christians. Some groups, such as the Bruderhof or Hutterites see it as a call to forsake all possessions to follow Jesus.[20] Others read it simply as a matter of having Christ be the center of one's heart.[21]
Salt is 'good' in biblical thought for giving taste where there is none (Job 6:6: Can flavorless food be eaten without salt?) and for preserving what otherwise would perish (Numbers 18:19).[22]
See also
- Sermon on the Mount
- Sermon on the Plain
- Ministry of Jesus
- Parables of Jesus
- Other related Bible parts: Matthew 5, 22, 23
References
- Halley, Henry H. Halley's Bible Handbook: an Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962.
- Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
- Aland, Kurt, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum. Locis parallelis evangeliorum apocryphorum et patrum adhibitis edidit, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1996, p. XXIΙΙ.
- Buls, H., The Sermon Notes of Harold Buls, text from Luke 14:1-11, for Trinity XVII, accessed 26 June 2018
- Luke 14:1: ESV translation
- Bengel, J. A., Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament on Luke 14, accessed 1 August 2020
- Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on Luke 14, accessed 26 June 2018
- Luke 14:3
- J. Dwight Pentecost, 1998 The Parables of Jesus: lessons in life from the Master Teacher ISBN 0-8254-3458-0 pages 85-86
- Luke by Sharon H. Ringe 1995 ISBN 0-664-25259-1 page 195
- Aland, Kurt, ed. Synopsis of the Four Gospels: Completely Revised on the Basis of the Greek Text of the Nestle-Aland, 26th Edition, and Greek New Testament, 3rd Edition, English Edition. 1st ed. United Bible Societies, 1982. Print. pericope 216.
- Bauckham, Richard (Autumn 1996). "The Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14) and the Parable of the Lame Man and the Blind Man (Apocryphon of Ezekiel)". Journal of Biblical Literature. 115 (3).
- Luke 14:11
- Robert H. Stein, An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus, Westminster John Knox Press, 1981, ISBN 0-664-24390-8, pp. 82-91.
- Gospel of Thomas: Lamb translation and Patterson/Meyer translation.
- Benson, J., Benson Commentary on Luke 14, accessed 2 August 2020
- Franklin, E., Luke in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001), The Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 946
- Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans, 1997, ISBN 0-8028-2315-7, pp. 566-567.
- Charles McCollough, The Art of Parables: Reinterpreting the Teaching Stories of Jesus in Word and Scripture, Wood Lake Publishing, 2008, ISBN 1-55145-563-3, pp. 94-95.
- "Learning from the Bruderhof: An Intentional Christian Community". ChristLife. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
- "Commentary on Luke 14:25-33 by Jeannine K. Brown". Retrieved 2017-10-27.
- Franklin, E., Luke in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001), The Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 947
External links
- Luke 14 King James Bible - Wikisource
- English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate
- Online Bible at GospelHall.org (ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English)
- Multiple bible versions at Bible Gateway (NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.)
Preceded by Luke 13 |
Chapters of the Bible Gospel of Luke |
Succeeded by Luke 15 |