Luke 12

Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees


Don't be a hypocrite. Things you try to hide will be revealed at some point. Don't be secretive, your whispers will be shouted from the rooftops.

Good advice. I like it.


Have No Fear


Don't be afraid of someone who can simply destroy the body, be afraid of he who can cast you into hell afterwards.

Good advice I suppose if you believe in the afterlife.


Acknowledge Christ Before Men


Acknowledge christ before men and you will be acknowledged before angels. Deny Christ and you will be denied by angels. Everyone who speaks against Jesus will be forgiven but he who blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven.

Now that is interesting, I have heard that blasphemy against the holy spirit is unforgivable, but didn't know that everyone who speaks against Jesus will be forgiven.


The Parable of the Rich Fool


Someone from the crowd asked Jesus to get his brother to divide the inheritance with him. Jesus said it was not his problem. Then Jesus told a parable about a rich guy whose land was very plentiful. He didn't have enough space to store it all, so he tore down his barns and built bigger ones. Once this was done he relaxed, ate, drank and was merry. But he is a fool, he hasn't prepared his soul for the afterlife since he spent his time on worldly things.

It seems to me like 2 separate things, the guy is rich and also he is lazy and not cultivating his soul. I can imagine a rich guy also preparing for the afterlife (whatever that means) and I can imagine a poor person being lazy and not doing those things.


Do Not Be Anxious


In several different ways, it basically says to not prepare for tomorrow, but to instead spend all of your time focusing on God and everything will be provided for you. It also says to give all of your possessions away to the poor.

God either exists or he does not. If he does not exist this is clearly horrible advice. Give away all of your stuff, then if hard times hit and people cannot share enough with you, you might starve. This might be a bit hard to imagine living in such a rich country, but my understanding is people die of starvation in poor countries all the time.


What if God is real? This is saying that you should give all of your stuff away to the poor and God will provide for you. How can you tell if this is really true? I suppose if you got manna from heaven as food that would do it, but let's suppose that doesn't happen (since poor people don't appear to get manna to eat). If a religious poor person goes without eating but stays alive you can say that he has enough, he just doesn't have a surplus and that is ok. What if he dies? I imagine you can either say he is in heaven now, or that he was following the wrong religion, or he didn't have enough faith. I find passages like this dangerous because if you buy into it there is no way for it to go wrong, it is not falsifiable.






You Must Be Ready


You should be like a servant who is ready for his master to come home from a wedding feast. Basically it is saying you should be ready for the Jesus to come at an hour you do not expect, it will not be at a time when people are expecting it.

Basically anyone preaching end times prophecies are in contradiction to this story


Not Peace, but Division


Jesus came to cast fire on the earth and found it already kindled. He has not come to give peace but division. He will set family against each other.

So much for bringer of peace, here he explicitly says he is not peaceful.


Interpreting the Time


Jesus points out that people can look in the sky and predict the weather in the near future. Then he says they are hypocrites because they cannot "interpret the present time".

I'm assuming he is talking about end times coming up. I'm not sure Jesus knows what hypocrite means.


Settle with Your Accuser


Try to settle things up before you go to court.

Now this is good advice. If you can manage to be reasonable and settle things up before you go to court it is better for everyone.