Conversation Points for Luke 13:31-35

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Are the Pharisees who came to Jesus seen as positive or negative? On one hand, these Pharisees could be warning Jesus to try to protect him from Herod, an example of how Luke presents a more positive view of the Pharisees than the other Gospels. On the other hand, could the Pharisees be attempting to trap him or trick him? Luke 11:54 talks of how the Pharisees began “lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.”
• Luke’s Gospel has set up a conflict between the power of God, as displayed through Jesus, and the power of the world, personified in Herod. Here, Jesus demonstrates that he has nothing to fear from Herod, and that Herod only thinks he is a player, but in fact Jesus is always in control.
• “I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.” This could have a thickness of meanings. That Herod cannot keep Jesus from accomplishing his goal, a reference to Jesus journey to Jerusalem, and a foreshadowing of the three days between his death and resurrection.
• Last week’s text (Luke 4:1-13) had the devil taking Jesus to Jerusalem to tempt death and not die. This week, Jesus talks about how he must go to Jerusalem, not to escape death but in fact to die.
• Jesus’ words about prophets and Jerusalem are both reminders of Old Testament prophets who died in Jerusalem (Uriah (Jer. 26:20-23) Zechariah (2 Chr 24:20-22), among others), and a foreshadowing of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7.
• The image of God as a bird mothering her young has many Old Testament references (Deut 32:11; Ruth 2:12; Pss 17:8; 36:7; 91:4; Isa 31:5).
• The “house” in v. 35 is possibly a reference to the Temple. The Gospel of Luke was written in the late 70s/80s. Jerusalem was sacked and the temple destroyed in 67 CE. So, the readers of Luke’s Gospel are living in the time where these words have come true.
• “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (v. 35) is a reference to Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Luke 19:38. The words might sound familiar, as they are the words we shout during the Palm Sunday procession.

Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.