Luke 14:7-14
What is the strangest or most memorable dinner you've ever attended?
If you could each invite one person (living or dead) to share dinner with your connect group next week, who would you invite?
Read Luke 14:7-11 [1]
Why do you think the guests wanted to pick the places of honour at the table? And why does Jesus encourage them not to do this?
Luke seems to think that this is more than just helpful advice - he calls it a 'parable'. How do you think think Luke wants us to interpret these words as a 'parable'? [2]
Compare verse 11 with the parable Jesus tells in Luke 18:9-14. How does this help us to interpret what Jesus is teaching here in Luke 14?
Read Luke 14:12-14
What is Jesus teaching his host here about humility?
Besides inviting people to a meal, what other practical examples do you have of 'pure generosity', giving to those who can not (or will not) repay you?
How do humility and generosity intersect in these verses? What does that mean to you as a Jesus follower?
Read 1 Peter 5:5b-6
How does Peter's teaching here refer back to the teaching of Jesus that we've already looked at today?
Why do you think God 'favours the humble'? [3]
What makes humility difficult to put on every day like clothing? Where do we naturally find ourselves resisting this?
Spend some time praying for one another, that we would be able to humble ourselves before God and towards one another, and pray as well that we would find ways practice pure generosity.
[1] Amongst Jews, Greeks, Romans and others, there were various systems for ranking the positions of guests at a banquet. Leon Morris outlines the Jewish form of this custom:
At banquets the basic item of furniture was the couch for three, the triclinium. A number of triclinia were arranged in a U-shape round a low table. Guests reclined on their left elbows. The place of highest honour was the central position on the couch at the base of the U. The second and third places were those on the left of the principal man (i.e. reclining behind him) and on his right (i.e. reclining with the head on his bosom). After this there seems to have ranked the couch to the left (with the places as on the first couch), then that to the right of the first and so on.
[2] Hint: parables always provide us with a picture of what God's Kingdom is like: what are King Jesus' values, or what is He doing in His ministry, or what it looks like for us to follow Him rightly.
[3] Wayne Grudem writes:
Why does God act this way? Apparently because the proud (those who are haughty or arrogant, thinking of themselves as more important than everyone else) trust in themselves, while the humble trust in God, and God delights in being trusted. Moreover, the proud seek glory for themselves while the humble give glory to God – and glory rightfully belongs to God, not us (1 Cor. 4:7; also 1 Cor. 1:26–31; Rev. 4:11). Grace is God’s undeserved favour toward us, and is needed not only to save us from eternal judgment but also to enable us to live the Christian life. The whole quotation applies well to daily Christian living, since the present tense verbs give the sense ‘God is continually opposing the proud but continually giving grace to the humble’.