Explaining the Parable of the Great Dinner Research Paper

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Exegesis of Luke 14:14-21

Luke 14:14-21 is situated within the larger context of the Messiah's time teaching the Pharisees and attempting to get them to understand why He would "eat with sinners" (Luke 15:2) and spend time in their company. It is connected to His overall Divine Mission, and MacArthur notes that this mission can be found in Scripture, where one sees the whole of the Will of God.[footnoteRef:1] The main idea of the Parable of the Great Dinner in Luke 14, however, is that the Pharisees are the original invitees -- they are of the chosen people; yet they do not wish to accept Christ's invitation. Their reason is rooted in pride, which is why Christ emphasizes the need for humility (Luke 14:11). [1: John MacArthur, How to Study the Bible (IL: Moody), 62.]

This exegesis will show why those who reject Christ are like those invited to the Great Dinner who make various excuses for why they cannot attend: they do not want to follow Christ and partake of the celebration that will be His in Heaven. Christ implies, in this parable, that if they do not accept His invitation, then He will turn to the less fortunate -- those in the streets (meaning the Gentiles). As Luke is said to have had a special relationship with the Gentiles, being depicted as a Syrian Gentile himself by the early historian Eusebius, these verses carry special weight.[footnoteRef:2] They signify that the Gentiles to whom Luke is writing have a special place in Christ's plan: they are the invitees to the Great Dinner in Heaven and should accept the request that Christ sends them. [2: Cornelius Aherne. "Gospel of Saint Luke." New Advent. Web. 22 Nov 2015.]

Background

The genre of these verses is Gospel and the sub-group is Parable. Thus, these verses may be read as a lesson or teaching story. In this sense, they are like a spiritual prescription that can be taken to help heal the soul. According to Christian tradition, Luke was a Syrian Gentile with a special gift in medicine. Morris asserts that Luke's purpose in writing correlates with the ultimate objective of God, which is spread the "love and mercy" of the Redeemer; this is a point that plays heavily in both Christ's appeal to the Gentiles as well as to His interactions with the Jews, especially the Pharisees to whom He repeatedly emphasized the need for humility, as in the parable of the Great Banquet.[footnoteRef:3] Morris's study is helpful in elucidating the concept that faith is linked to sacrifice which is linked to love of God and the withholding of judgment of others. [3: Leon Morris, Jesus is Christ: Studies in the Theology of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 16]

The gospel of Luke itself provides an understanding why many early Christian writers refer to Luke as a doctor: there are numerous points in the gospel where it appears as though he were a doctor of the soul, offering up spiritual remedies for the reader: Luke 14:14-21 is one such example (the solution to the Pharisees' pride being humility and the special attention paid to the less fortunate). Incidentally, Paul in the letter to the Colossians (4:14) observes that Luke was skilled in the practice of medicine and it should be considered as an important point, in terms of the spiritual medicine that Christ brings.[footnoteRef:4] [4: Rev. Joseph B. Frey, Introduction to the New Testament (NY: Ave Maria, 1948), 442.]

Acts gives a depiction of Luke's travels with Paul, around the year 51 AD in the Mediterranean. The two traveled extensively, visiting various places, such as Philippi and Samothrace, founding parishes along the way. As Paul says in a letter to Timothy, the companionship is clear: "Only Luke is with me" (2 Timothy 4:11). This constant presence with Paul is indicative of a man who has great fidelity not only to the Word of God but also to his friends in Christ.

Context

Kaiser observes that a solid basis for providing a valid exegesis is to pose the question: "Could the interpretation of a particular passage be supported even if we did not have the theory?"[footnoteRef:5] The question underscores the relevance of the whole of Scripture in interpreting the individual verses, which should not be divorced from the overall picture that the Bible presents. The whole is substantially more valuable and important any theory, which only serves to provide an approach to the work as a whole and is not meant to replace it. Kaiser emphasizes this point: "It is the text that must be ultimately determinative.

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"[footnoteRef:6] [5: Walter Kaiser, The Messiah in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zandorvan), 127.] [6: Ibid, 127.]

Therefore, a proper understanding of Scripture may help establish a proper understanding of Luke 14:14-21. If, as MacArthur notes, the will of God is evident in all of Sacred Scripture, to fully understand the parable found in these verses, it is necessary to contextualize the verses within the whole of Scripture. The whole of Scripture suggests that Christ's mission is two-fold -- to Redeem and to Teach. Thus, what we see Jesus doing at the dinner of the Pharisee is laying the foundation for His mission by teaching a parable in which the lesson is humility. As the Pharisees were constantly trying to attack Jesus's teachings, He recognizes their pride and their fear at being upset in the place within the Hebrew order. This fear is unfounded, as He admonishes them that His kingdom is not of this world. Thus, Christ is "leading" the Pharisees to the conclusion that He wishes them to draw in this Parable, just as an exegesis "leads" a reader through specific verses in order to arrive at a fuller and deeper understanding of the message.[footnoteRef:7] [7: John Hays, Carl Holladay, Biblical Exegesis: a beginner's handbook (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 1.]

The Verses

Luke 14:14 is the ending of a teaching in which Christ is telling the Pharisees that they should go after the "poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind" (Luke 14:13) -- which is of course what Christ does time again, healing the less fortunate (John 9:6, Luke 18:35; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 17:11-19). Why is he teaching this directly to the Pharisees? Christ wants to draw them near to Him because they are members of the chosen people, the Jews, with whom the various covenants have been made -- from the Adamic covenant on down to the Abrahamic, the Mosaic and the Davidic covenants. It is they Who Christ came to redeem. And yet He also comes to heal and uplift the Gentiles, which astonishes the Pharisees. They know they have a special relationship with God by virtue of their birth. What they do not understand is Who God Is. God is Love and Mercy -- as Christ shows time and again, and there is no limit on that love or mercy: it is for all. The Pharisees, in general, are jealous and sneer at Christ's compassion. It cannot be said that all the Pharisees were like this, however, as Nicodemus (who was a leader among the Pharisees) met Jesus by night and received individual teaching, one-on-one, and later was at the tomb of Christ, assisting in his burial, signifying that he had converted to Christianity along the way (John 3:1-21, John 19:39). Thus, Christ's Word does not fall on completely barren or rocky ground: in Nicodemus it finds fertile soil and grows. That is why Christ spends time with the Pharisees: He throws out the Word in anticipation of it finding good soil somewhere. With this in mind, Luke 14:14 speaks of the reward that awaits those who tend to the less fortunate: "And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." This reward relates to the "other kingdom" of Christ that is "not of this world" and which requires faith for admission (John 18:36).

This term "resurrection" is important to understanding the latent meaning of the verse, too. The Pharisees, historically speaking, had been in a fight with the Sadducees over whether or not there would be a resurrection of the body (the Pharisees believed there would be, the Sadducees did not) (Acts 23:8). Thus, by explicitly asserting that there will be a "resurrection," Christ is appealing to the Pharisees in an intimate way and identifying with them, showing that He too is of the same mind as they. Indeed, Paul resorts to this line of rhetoric when he is brought before the Sanhedrin: when he appeals to the belief in the resurrection, the Pharisees stand up and defend him (Acts 23:9). At the dinner of the Pharisees, where Christ sits teaching, the response is less animated because the Pharisees are scandalized by Christ's openness to sinners and Gentiles. They do not appreciate the admonition that Christ gives: "Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me" (Matthew 11:6). The Pharisees stumble. Therefore,.....

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