The Authority with Which Jesus Spoke, Part 2

Luke 20, Part 1 (cont)

Today’s schools of higher learning instruct our young seminarians not to preach but rather to have a “talk” with the people. That may be a very egalitarian thing to do but it does not fit the modality of the example that Jesus gives. We need teaching AND preaching. We need genuine, bombastic, inspirational and rousing preaching done under the anointing. Teaching informs our walk with God, preaching inspires our walk with God. We need both, information and inspiration in the challenges of life. Preaching may offend the intellect, but remember that knowledge puffeth up, so let us be open not only to learn but to be inspired as well.

In verse 2 we see that Jesus teaching was different in that He spoke with authority. Even the scribes and chief priests could see the authority by which Jesus ministered and asked Him “by what authority are you doing these things?” The word “authority” here is “exousia” and it means “authority, mastery, privilege and jurisdiction”. We who preach the gospel should never do so in a timid, or insipid way. You have to know your authority. You have to speak from a posture of entitlement. You are not a simpering, anemic communicator. You speak as one ensconced in a specific jurisdiction that gives you the right to be heard, and not only to be heard but hearkened to. Edward Irving, an early Pentecostal in the church of Scotland was observed to be one who would mount the pulpit fully capable of proclaiming the verities of scripture, and it was said “in his God, more than able…” You cannot preach in a suggestive tone, as though you are unsure in anyway. You first of all must make up your mind if you actually believe what you are reading and then as one parishioner observed concerning my father, “preach as a dying man to dying men…”

In answering the scribes and chief priests, Jesus offers the men a question of His own. Did the baptism of John originate in men or in God? They knew they were in a quandary right now, because John had openly endorsed Jesus as the Messiah, the Lamb of God. If they say that John’s baptism was from heaven, then they would be compelled at least publicly to accept Jesus as the son of David and Messiah of the Jews. If on the other hand if they say that John’s ministry was not God breathed then the people would stone them for they all believed that John was a prophet. What an amazing thing that the city who would collude in the crucifixion of Christ accepted the prophetic, when the church that bears His name rejects the prophetic handed down the them in our day. In this respect the people of Jerusalem, whom the Revelator called spiritual Sodom and Gomorrah, had more respect for the gifts of God than men do today. The priests answer Jesus that they cannot answer His question, to which He promptly replies then that neither will He answer them.

Jesus then gives the parable of a man who plants a vineyard and goes into a far country. This is God Himself, planting Israel as His choice vineyard as the prophet Isaiah declared, so the priests and the people know Jesus is talking about them. The husbandmen of the vineyard left in charge are the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees. In the appointed time the own of the vineyard sends servants to gather the fruit of the vineyard. What is the fruit of the vineyard? We know that Jesus is the vine, according to John 15, but what is the fruit that God expects to see produced from the planting of Jesus in the soil of humanity, to suffer and die for the sins of the world? John the Baptist proclaimed loudly that the fruits God looks for are the fruits of repentance. When is the last time you repented about something in such a way that the change in your life was observable and remarkable? The repentance John preached meant to “abhor evil”. The repentance that Hebrew 6 says is a foundational teaching of the gospel is to “abandon evil”. Being a believer is more than feeling contrition but not doing anything about it. Being a believer results in us feeling contrition for the motions of the sin nature within us, and then prosecuting against ourselves on our own initiative a concerted effort to abandon and forsake all and anything within us in terms of conduct, conversation and behavior that is contrary to the character of Christ.

To Be Continued Tomorrow