Luke 13: Luke's three hot and cold tactics with Theophilus
Luke 13: Luke's three hot and cold tactics with Theophilus
1 At that time, some people came and told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?
19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.
29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.
30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.
34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
Chapter 13 is where Luke employs a strategy of tough love with Theophilus. Through a hot and cold approach, Luke moves beyond persuasion to pressure Theophilus. In verses 1-5, Theophilus might have felt a chill. However, Luke tempers the harsh reality of Pilate's massacre of Galileans, which could seem like a religious and political overreach, by offering a different religious interpretation from Jesus, thus cooling the heat of the situation. Pilate, the Galileans, the people of Jerusalem, Luke himself, and ultimately Theophilus are all like the fig trees in the vineyard that Jesus, the caretaker, has been expecting fruit from for three or four years (verses 6-9). This is Luke's first instance of tough love.
Interestingly, the owner planted a fig tree in the vineyard (verses 6-9). Just one tree. If the vineyard represents the community of Jesus' followers, Theophilus cannot help but see himself as that single fig tree in the vineyard. Luke begins to apply real pressure on Theophilus. The attempt to persuade Theophilus could be halted by the one who commands Luke (verse 7). Yet, just as the woman who had been crippled for eighteen years was healed on the Sabbath, free from the constraints of the Sabbath law, so too could Theophilus, who has been spiritually crippled for eighteen years, receive healing from Jesus on the Sabbath (verses 10-17). Luke shakes Theophilus once more. God's power will work in Theophilus like a mustard seed or yeast, small but capable of breaking through (verses 18-21).