killing the prophets

Good morning friends,
While hearing Jesus criticize the Pharisees for their focus on the details of the Law while missing the point, a lawyer complains that Jesus is insulting lawyers as well when he says things like that. (When Luke talks about lawyers here he's talking about experts in the Law of Moses, not secular lawyers.) Jesus responds by making it clear that the "insult" the lawyer complains about isn't by accident. His woes against the lawyers center on the idea that they use the law to make following God harder instead of easier; they keep people out instead of helping them to know God.

Jesus mentions here a tradition he talks about a few times, that the people kill the prophets God sends to call them back to righteousness. He mentions specifically Abel from way back in the beginning who was killed by his brother for bringing God a better offering. He also mentions Zechariah "who perished between the altar and the sanctuary." Zechariah was a priest who served in Judah in the 800's. His ministry was a time of turning away from God to idol worship, and he warned the people to turn back to God. For this ministry he was stoned to death. (The story is in 2 Chronicles 24.) It's hard to listen to voices that tell us we're doing the wrong thing, but often God sends those voices to help us. I pray that we would listen well to criticism and seek to hear what God might be trying to say to us.


Luke 11:45-54
45One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” 46And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. 47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.

52Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” 53When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.