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Copyright © 2012 J. Neely. All rights reserved.
Chapter 27 - Two Debtors
Two Debtors
Luke 7:36
36 And [de] one [tis] of the Pharisees [Pharisaios] desired [erotao] him [autos] that [hina] he would eat [phago] with [meta] him [autos] . And [kai] he went [eiserchomai] into [eis] the Pharisee's [Pharisaios] house [oikia] , and sat down to meat [anaklino] . KJV-Interlinear
36 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to dine with him. And He entered the Pharisee's house, and reclined at the table. NASB
The Pharisees were generally the leading clerics of the local synagogues throughout the countryside. The Sadducees were the group of priests who had control over the Temple in Jerusalem. The High Priest was a member of the Sadducees. The Pharisees promoted tradition. The Sadducees promoted organizational regulation. If the Pharisees lived in our world today, they would be considered the conservatives of our day, and the Sadducees would be considered the elite liberals.
In this parable, Jesus has been ministering for some time. He has been drawing huge crowds, sometimes they numbered as many as 20,000 people. This number is more than the population of most cities of the ancient world. Jesus' reputation has been spreading far and wide.
Now this Pharisee is having a party, and he is inviting Jesus to his home to have dinner with Him. There are other guests. Jesus is not the only invited guest. The Pharisee is more interested in his own reputation and in the impression made with his friends, and therefore he invites Jesus solely because Jesus is popular, is in the news, and having Him dine at his home will be a big deal. In all the social circles this Pharisee could truthfully state that Jesus dined at his home.
To get this social item on his resume' was his intention. To hear Jesus speak, or even to learn from Him was never on this Pharisees mind. We will see later on that the Pharisee's name is Simon, and there will be a woman entering into this parable, but her name is never mentioned.
At the moment, Simon is probably an unbeliever. He invited Jesus into his home for his own popularity designs, and not for the spiritual advantages of His visit.
Jesus entered into the home and was seated (He seated Himself). Typically in those days, when diner guests arrived they were given the courtesy of freshening up (washing of the feet) prior to sitting down at the dinner table. Sandals were the usual footwear of the day, and the roads were not paved as they are in todays culture. There were no sidewalks of concrete, no asphalt streets. Consequently the foot paths were dusty, rocky, and altogether dirty for the traveler.
To enter into someone's home as a guest, then one would expect to be offered the kindness and courtesy of washing the dust off of the feet. As the head of the household, it would be the Pharisees responsibility to see to it that all guests were attended to, unless of course the head of the house was not considerate of his guests.
Simon was not. He thought only of himself, he thought only of his reputation and how others perceived Him. Jesus sat Himself down at the table rather than being led to His place at the table. Typically when an honored guest comes to your home, you make an honored place for them to sit, such that everyone present can see them and even hear them if they speak.
Simon was self centered, and as such he deprived himself of the honor, pleasure and benefit of having God Himself, the infamous 'I Am' who spoke out of the burning bush to Moses, sit at his very own table. How would you behave if Jesus Christ, in the flesh, came knocking at your door and was there to eat dinner with your family?
We have the classic scene. Here is the long awaited Messiah. Messiah is a Hebrew word. Christ is the Greek equivalent of that word. Joshua is the Hebrew word equivalent of Jesus. Thus in the Hebrew His name would be Joshua Messiah. We call Him Jesus Christ in our English language. But the two sets of words are equal in their name.
The Pharisee is a learned expert in the scriptures, knowing of the Messiah, knowing of the prophecies concerning Him. Yet even with the very Son of God dining at his table, Simon demonstrates no special honors for the one and only Son of God.
Simon is naive with respect to the true meaning of the scriptures though he knows the words, the verses, the books forwards and backwards. Clueless, he is about to be so very close to God, and yet will miss the point entirely.
And only because he is more interested in his own lifestyle and reputation, than that of God.
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