Conversation Points for Luke 12:32-40

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:
• Verse 32 is an awkward place to enter into this reading, because it cuts the first half of Jesus’ speech, where he talks about anxiety. Read in context, verse 33-34 become an antidote to anxiety. If concern over stuff is causing stress, one solution is to not have stuff. Says Culpepper, “If there are only two impulses, either to grasp or to give, then the alternative to anxiety over what we do not possess or control is to release our grasp of that which we do control.” Jesus is encouraging the disciples to deal with their feelings of insecurity not by putting their trust in themselves, but in God.
• V. 35 “Be dressed for action” literally is to draw up the long outer garments and tuck them into the sash around one’s waist to be prepared for vigorous action. We might today translate, “get your work shoes on” or something like that.
• Rev. Thompson wrote: “this text is about vocation, not justification. These texts do not point to a simple quid pro quo of “be prepared and you will be saved.” Instead, the idea here is to be ready so that when God calls you to action, you seize the opportunity and spread the good news. Being alert and being ready are like potential energy, ready to be turned into kinetic energy when prompted. The energy produced here is gospel centered: healing, justice, love, grace, peace, etc.”
• It is a common theme in Luke that the disciples are sleeping when they should be praying.
• The master’s result of the servants preparedness was to serve them, the opposite of what would have been expected.
• There is an apocalyptic tone in this passage, that we see in all the Gospels as Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem. Apocalypse, remember literally means “unveiling.” Apocalyptic literature was written as a comfort to people in times of chaos, it unveiled how even here, God was in control.

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

Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Luke 12:32-40.” Working Preacher. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2950>. Accessed 1 August 2016.