When we talk to people about Jesus, how do we frame Him? How do we explain to people what it means to become His disciple?
A lot depends on this. How we set this up will determine how and why people become Christians, and what they anticipate will happen when they do? Birth is a complex thing, and when things go wrong there can be consequences that last a lifetime. The same is true spiritually. How we are born can affect our whole experience of being a Christian, and even what we think that experience should or will be. Many of the problems the Church is facing today is in fact the consequences of badly birthed Christians. That isn’t to say we aren’t Christians, but speaking personally, I have faced many problems and difficulties as a Christian, and latterly as a pastor, that could easily have been avoided if we had been taught well about the Gospel before, as, or immediately after we became Christians.
For many of us, we may have heard a Gospel about the forgiveness of our sins. That is true – gloriously true – as our passage this week shows. ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’ (5:20). But if that is where our grasp of the Gospel stopped, it is fundamentally incomplete, and that inadequacy may never have been addressed (Please note: I am not saying that this isn’t part of the Gospel, but that it is only part, whilst many think it is the entirety). We may have spent years hearing again and again that the Gospel is about the (once and for all) forgiveness of our sins. We are told that over and over again, and we hear others told that, and it simply reinforces the idea that this is the full message of the Gospel of Christ. It isn’t. But it would explain why we struggle to understand why we need to grow as Christians, or to even conceptualise what that means... It might explain why we find it so hard to believe the critical centrality of the Church to my spiritual vitality. It might even explain why – as a generation of Christians – we value the kind of Churches we do... the kind of worship we do... the kind of teaching we do... and why we can’t for the life of us see why any of it might be a problem. It certainly does explain why the British Church is haemorrhaging, and why so many young people simply walk away from the faith altogether.
We might not be able to share the whole Gospel every time, but there are key facets of it that need to be communicated clearly, so that when people do become disciples of Jesus they understand what they are getting in to.
Questions:
When you explain the Gospel to others, how do you describe it?
Based even on what we have seen of Jesus, and heard from him, so far in the Gospel of Luke, what would you say was the full message of the Gospel?
What do you think of when you think of ‘holiness’? How has that view been challenged as we have watched Jesus over the last couple of chapters?
Do you think that this passage is teaching us that spiritual healing and care is more important (urgent?) that physical healing and care? Is that the same as saying that caring for someone physically isn’t important? How does Jesus keep balance in this passage?
In 5:21, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law think to themselves: ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’. Are they right? How does Jesus teaching that we must forgive sins (e.g. Matt.6:14-15) fit with this? How would you help someone who was struggling to forgive (or to be forgiven)?
Look ahead to Luke 17:3-6 where Jesus teaches about forgiveness. What are the conditions of forgiveness? How does that challenge our thinking about forgiving and being forgiven?
Why does Jesus have authority to forgive sins? Why do you need authority to do that? Where does that authority come from?
This is the first time Jesus uses the title: ‘Son of Man’ (5:24)? What do you think He is telling us about Himself in using that title? How does the use of that title in passages such as Ezek.2:3-8 (and 93 times altogether in Ezekiel), and Dan.7:13-14 help us understand why Jesus chooses to refer to Himself in this way?
Why is the reaction of the people in 5:26 so hopelessly inadequate to what they have seen? What should they have said and done?
