Luke 11:45-54 The Key of Knowledge
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: September 7, 2018 Luke 11:45-54
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
(Understanding the Text) One of the lawyers tried to interject himself into Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees’ ways as if Jesus did not understand what He was saying and doing. Jesus then began telling the lawyers what they were doing wrong. He gives three charges against the lawyers. First, that their interpretations of the law caused the common people to have too many burdens. By being nitpicky with God’s commands and extending the interpretations beyond what Jesus had originally given, they restricted people’s lives and brought stress, but acted as if it were from God. They themselves, however, did not feel it necessary to follow these burdensome restrictions. Second, Jesus said that they built tombs for the prophets that were killed in the past. Since these men were not literally building tombs for the past prophets, this has to be figurative language. I think maybe it means that they reverence the prophets so much that they have made the prophets into caricatures of the real men. I think maybe it is like what many people do to Ellen White trying to make her into something she is not and hitting people over the head with her words. Third, Jesus accuses the scribes of removing the ability to understand God’s word through their interpretations (“removed the key of knowledge”). They did not understand the scriptures through a relationship to God, and in the process of their interpretations, they created more misunderstanding for others so that others could not understand either. Thus, the three accusations were burdening people with too many rules, misrepresenting the prophets of the past, and teaching people misinterpretations that kept them from God. I think these accusations could be made of many people today.
(Revelation of God / Understanding the Text) Jesus said that they would be judged for the deaths of the prophets from Abel until the present day. Why? Because their abuse of God’s word would lead their people to reject the Messiah. Jesus linked the people’s rejection of Him to their leaders’ misreading and false teaching of the scriptures that had been written by all those reverenced martyrs. The prophets died serving a God they loved, and these men had twisted the prophets’ words, which they had died for, into meaningless barriers keeping the people away from the very God that the prophets loved and served.
(Application) My application to myself is that I should not let modern-day scribes and Pharisees misrepresent Jesus and the Father and the Spirit to my fellow humans. In the past, I allowed myself to be cowed by their “superior knowledge and Adventist experience.” Now, God has taught me better. I need to speak the truth of His character and protect my fellow believers against the misrepresentations of the past and adding to the scriptures that results in burdens and barriers to a relationship to Jesus. I must not just fall into their system, but stand apart from it. There is a fine line between accommodating a person’s weakness about meat offered to idols and letting that person dictate their fears and burdensome rules to others. I must allow God to work through me to hold that line without letting myself be drawn into their false beliefs and false systems of worship.
(Prayer) Give me understanding to see You clearly and wisdom to communicate that knowledge to others so that they will honor and love You and follow You wherever You lead.