{"id":14755,"date":"2017-12-04T09:28:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T14:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/?p=14755"},"modified":"2017-12-05T21:22:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T02:22:49","slug":"daily-bible-reading-devotional-luke-18-1-8-december-4-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/2017\/12\/04\/daily-bible-reading-devotional-luke-18-1-8-december-4-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Bible Reading Devotional [Luke 18:1-8] December 4, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Parable of the Persistent Widow<\/span><\/h2>\n
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18\u00a0<\/span>And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought\u00a0always to pray and not\u00a0lose heart.<\/span>\u00a02\u00a0<\/sup>He said,\u00a0\u201cIn a certain city there was a judge who\u00a0neither feared God nor respected man.<\/span><\/span>\u00a03\u00a0<\/sup>And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, \u2018Give me justice against my adversary.\u2019<\/span><\/span>\u00a04\u00a0<\/sup>For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself,\u00a0\u2018Though I neither fear God nor respect man,<\/span><\/span>\u00a05\u00a0<\/sup>yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

6\u00a0<\/sup>And the Lord said,\u00a0\u201cHear what the unrighteous judge says.<\/span><\/span>\u00a07\u00a0<\/sup>And\u00a0will not God give justice to\u00a0his elect,\u00a0who cry to him day and night?\u00a0Will he delay long over them?<\/span><\/span>\u00a08\u00a0<\/sup>I tell you, he will give justice to them\u00a0speedily. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes,\u00a0will he find faith on earth?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Observations & Reflections<\/h3>\n
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\"Justin-Holmes1.jpg\"The parable follows Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching about what the final days will be like. It is a parable about faith and persistence. But it is also about what Jesus is expecting from his followers. As with the previous teaching by Jesus, this parable only appears in Luke.<\/p>\n

The parable’s meaning is not about pestering God to get what you want. Rather it is a contrast between God and the ungodly. If even the ungodly will grant justice to the nagging widow then how much more would we expect the Lord to grant justice. It’s a teaching similar to Jesus’ teaching during the sermon on the mount.<\/p>\n

25\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cTherefore I tell you,\u00a0do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?<\/span><\/span>\u00a026\u00a0<\/sup>Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.\u00a0Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If even the unrighteous will grant justice then be assured that the Lord will do that and more. We have no need to be anxious about such things. Rather, we should have faith in the Lord and all that he says and our lives should reflect such a faith. When Jesus returns this is what he is looking for.<\/p>\n

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[Featured image by Lorenzo Otto, titled “St Lucy before the Judge<\/i><\/a>“, from 1532]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Parable of the Persistent Widow 18\u00a0And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought\u00a0always to pray and not\u00a0lose heart.\u00a02\u00a0He said,\u00a0\u201cIn a certain city there was a judge who\u00a0neither feared God nor respected man.\u00a03\u00a0And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, \u2018Give me justice against … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12227,"featured_media":14758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2280],"tags":[1900,7265,2344,7268,7266,7522,7523,7267],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}