Bible Study: Luke 12:32-48. Jesus is teaching the disciples in this passage, and starts by saying (verse 33 GNT):
Sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor. Provide for yourselves purses that don’t wear out, and save your riches in heaven, where they will never decrease, because no thief can get to them, and no moth can destroy them.
Jesus then uses two consecutive parables. The first is about servants at a wedding feast:
35 “Be ready for whatever comes, dressed for action and with your lamps lit, 36 like servants who are waiting for their master to come back from a wedding feast. When he comes and knocks, they will open the door for him at once. 37 How happy are those servants whose master finds them awake and ready when he returns! I tell you, he will take off his coat, have them sit down, and will wait on them. 38 How happy they are if he finds them ready, even if he should come at midnight or even later!
The second parable is about a thief breaking into someone’s house:
39 And you can be sure that if the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, he would not let the thief break into his house. 40 And you, too, must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.”
It’s intriguing that these parables seem quite unrelated on the outset, but Jesus is making a point by using them both together.
Questions
- Verse 32-34. What do you think ‘Provide yourselves purses that don’t wear out’ means?
- Verse 35-40. Why does Jesus allude to the master analogy and the thief analogy to make the same point?
- Verse 41-48. What does the master do for the faithful and wise servant?
- What attitude makes the beginnings of a bad servant?
- Bonus question: Exodus 32. Discover another time when the people thought the master wasn’t returning. What did they do, how were they dealt with by God?