Luke 16:19-31 Don’t Ignore the Poor

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: October 7, 2018 Luke 16:19-31

Note 1: 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.

Note 2: I was reading a book by Alfred Eidersheim at the time I wrote this devotional. I think it was The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, but I’m not sure. Eidersheim was a Jewish convert to Christianity in the 1800s. He has a lot of good background information about Jewish thinking. I highly recommend his books. The parable reminded me a lot of what I had read, so I quote extensively from him here.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

(Understanding the Text) I am always uncomfortable with this parable.  I know that it’s a parable and not necessarily true-to-life, but it just seems too Greek with the idea of a fixed chasm where the dead in hades and the living in heaven can see each other and speak to each other.  The way it shows Father Abraham as the center of the afterlife instead of God also troubles me.  The angels are only there to carry a dead man to Abraham’s side rather than as an integral part of the whole picture.  It just does not resonate with me in any way, and it feels fake, yet it is a “proof text” for those who want to point to evidence of the eternal life of the soul after death. In addition, the contrast between the poor putrefying man with dogs licking his sores wanting to catch the scraps off of the table laying right outside the rich man’s gate seems over-the-top, like a caricature of a poor person.  It makes me feel sympathy for the rich man.  It seems as if someone put Lazarus there to harass the rich man, so that he could not feel comfortable.  The rich man almost appears to be punished for being rich, not for committing evil (except, of course, the evil of ignoring the poor).  In some ways, the rich man seems to have more compassion because when he knows that there is no hope for himself, he is concerned about his five brothers.  Edersheim points out an interesting idea about this plea for compassion that sheds a different light on it.  “At the same time, the request seems to imply an attempt at self-justification, as if, during his life, he had not had sufficient warning.”  Part of why I am uncomfortable with this parable is because I feel sympathy for the rich man and not much sympathy for Lazarus.   In addition, the parable almost smacks of karma-good in life, bad in after life and vice versa.  There is just a lot that does not feel like Jesus to me here, yet Jesus spoke this parable.

What was Jesus’ purpose in telling this parable?  Was this the way the Pharisees viewed life?  Was Jesus showing us life through the viewpoint of the Pharisees and showing that even then their way of viewing life made no sense?  Maybe, that’s it.  Maybe this parable feels shallow like a caricature and too Greek because that was the very mindset of the Pharisees.  Jesus was trying one more way to reach the Pharisees and show them the idiocy of their ways by giving them a story from their mindset.

Edersheim agrees that the parable was told according to the Pharisees’ point of view.  He also stated that it has limited application for doctrines.  “On the other hand, it will be necessary in the interpretation of this Parable to keep in mind, that its Parabolic details must not be exploited, nor doctrines of any kind derived from them, either as to the character of the other world, the question of the duration of future punishments, or the possible moral improvement of those in gehinom. All such things are foreign to the Parable, which is only intended as a type, or exemplification and illustration, of what is intended to be taught. And, if proof were required, it would surely be enough to remind ourselves, that this Parable is addressed to the Pharisees, to whom Christ would scarcely have communicated details about the other world, on which He was so reticent in His teaching to the disciples.”  I have never heard this reasoning before.  Jesus was very reticent about describing life after death in detail, so why would he reveal it to the Pharisees in detail?  Later Edersheim almost contradicts himself in that he seems to be drawing conclusions based on the parable, but he never quite outrightly does.

I have heard it said that Abraham’s bosom was a common Jewish belief of Jesus’ day and that He was simply taking a Pharisaical belief and applying to a parable for them.  Edersheim confirms this idea.  “Thus, the carrying up of the soul of the righteous by Angels is certainly in accordance with Jewish teaching, though stripped of all legendary details, such as about the number and the greetings of the Angels. But it is also fully in accordance with Christian thought of the ministry of Angels. Again, as regards the expression ‘Abraham’s bosom,’ it occurs, although not frequently, in Jewish writings. On the other hand, the appeal to Abraham as our father is so frequent, his presence and merits are so constantly invoked; notably, he is so expressly designated as he who receives (מקבל) the penitent into Paradise, that we can see how congruous especially to the higher Jewish teaching, which dealt not in coarsely sensuous descriptions of gan Eden, or Paradise, the phrase ‘Abraham’s bosom’ must have been. Nor surely can it be necessary to vindicate the accord with Christian thinking of a figurative expression, that likens us to children lying lovingly in the bosom of Abraham as our spiritual father.”  Edersheim describes the common Jewish belief of the day.  “The next scene is in Hades or sheol the place of the disembodied spirits before the final Judgment. It consists of two divisions: the one of consolation, with all the faithful gathered unto Abraham as their father; the other of fiery torment. Thus far in accordance with the general teaching of the New Testament. As regards the details, they evidently represent the views current at the time among the Jews. According to them, the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life were the abode of the blessed. Nay, in common belief, the words of Gen_2:10 : ‘a river went out of Eden to water the garden,’ indicated that this Eden was distinct from, and superior to, the garden in which Adam had been originally placed. With reference to it, we read that the righteous in gan Eden see the wicked in gehinom, and rejoice; and, similarly, that the wicked in gehinom see the righteous sitting beatified in gan Eden, and their souls are troubled. Still more marked is the parallelism in a legend told about two wicked companions, of whom one had died impenitent, while the other on seeing it had repented. After death, the impenitent in Gehinnom saw the happiness of his former companion, and murmured. When told that the difference of their fate was due to the other’s penitence, he wished to have space assigned for it, but was informed that this life (the eve of the Sabbath) was the time for making provision for the next (the Sabbath). Again, it is consonant with what were the views of the Jews, that conversations could be held between dead persons, of which several legendary instances are given in the Talmud. The torment, especially of thirst, of the wicked, is repeatedly mentioned in Jewish writings. Thus, in one place, the fable of Tantalus is apparently repeated. The righteous is seen beside delicious springs, and the wicked with his tongue parched at the brink of a river, the waves of which are constantly receding from him. But there is this very marked and characteristic contrast, that in the Jewish legend the beatified is a Pharisee, while the sinner tormented with thirst is a Publican! Above all, and as marking the vast difference between Jewish ideas and Christ’s teaching, we notice that there is no analogy in Rabbinic writings to the statement in the Parable, that there is a wide and impassable gulf between Paradise and Gehenna.”  Edersheim believes that this is a New Testament belief also.  There, he is wrong.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.”  Edersheim says that this description was telling everyone how expensively dressed the rich man was.  “His dress is described as the finest and most costly, for byssus and purple were the most expensive materials, only inferior to silk, which, if genuine and unmixed – for at least three kinds of silk are mentioned in ancient Jewish writings – was worth its weight in gold. Both byssus – of which it is not yet quite certain, whether it was of hemp or cotton – and purple were indeed manufactured in Palestine, but the best byssus (at least at that time)came from Egypt and India.”  Edersheim paints a clear picture of the contrast between the two main characters of the parable.  He says that the rich man “was the feasting every day, the description of which conveys the impression of company, merriment, and splendour. All this is, of course, intended to set forth the selfish use which this man made of his wealth, and to point the contrast of his bearing towards Lazarus. Here also every detail is meant to mark the pitiableness of the case, as it stood out before Dives. The very name – not often mentioned in any other real, and never in any other Parabolic story – tells it: Lazarus, laazar, a common abbreviation of Elazar, as it were, ‘God help him!’ Then we read that he ‘was cast’ (ἐβέβλητο) at his gateway, as if to mark that the bearers were glad to throw down their unwelcome burden. Laid there, he was in full view of the Pharisee as he went out or came in, or sat in his courtyard. And as he looked at him, he was covered with a loathsome disease; as he heard him, he uttered a piteous request to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table. Yet nothing was done to help his bodily misery, and, as the word ‘desiring’ (ἐπιθυμῶν) implies, his longing for the ‘crumbs’ remained unsatisfied.”  The term “dives” in the quote is the Latin term for “rich man” as used in the Vulgate Bible.

Edersheim points out the meaning of the name Lazarus and how it relates to the parable.  “The very name – not often mentioned in any other real, and never in any other Parabolic story – tells it: Lazarus, laazar, a common abbreviation of Elazar, as it were, ‘God help him!’”  Lazarus represented the publicans and other sinners who the Pharisees ignored.  They passed by these pitiable people daily sneering at them and not giving even one crumb from their banquet of the Law and the Prophets to the needy ones.  They saw their Jewish brothers harassed by the Gentile dogs and did nothing.  They saw them starving for the word and did nothing.  They saw them dying for the word of God and did nothing.  Names in the Bible have meaning in the Old Testament, and it seems in Jesus’ parables also.  I wondered if the name was chosen because a real man named Lazarus would be later raised from the dead as a testimony to the Pharisees;  one they couldn’t deny and would decide to erase by murder.  Maybe, it was, but I am also sure that the name’s meaning played an important part in its inclusion in the parable.

The end lesson is that if they did not receive the message of salvation from the scriptures, the testimony of a dead man would not reach them.  This was a double message.  First, it was that no amount of signs had reached them already even though Jesus had been performing miracle after miracle.  Second, Jesus was going to give them testimony from a dead man named Lazarus, and their only response would be how to kill him again.  In addition, Jesus would be the witness who was raised from the dead also, and the religious leaders would still ignore the signs.  They had first rejected the lessons of the scriptures that they did not want to hear, especially the warnings that God had given about how to treat the poor.  The result of rejecting the scriptures was that even a great sign would not reach them.

(Revelation of God) Jesus spoke the language of the people He was with. With fishermen, He promised that they would be fishers of men; with people who were familiar with agriculture, He told parables of sowing and reaping. Jesus cared about the Pharisees, as much as the tax collectors. He wanted to reach them, so He used one of their own parables, but He twisted it to help them to see that their whole way of seeing the world was wrong. It didn’t matter whether the parable was a Pharisee or a tax collector. What mattered was that there was a poor man that could have been helped by the rich man, yet the poor man was ignored. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to see that being rich was not a sign of favor with God. True favor came because of a generous spirit. He was also preparing them so that they would not ignore the sign of a man raised from the dead.

(Application) My application for myself is to be careful not to reject the messages that the scriptures give me because that path leads ultimately to the rejection of God Himself.  I need to be faithful in the little things because they will lead to greater faith in God.  Rejecting one part of God leads to rejecting God totally.  I never want to do that.

(Prayer) My faith is so weak. Strengthen my faith and clear out my misunderstandings so that I will be prepared to receive Your messages.