It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. And there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” And they could make no reply to this. And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (14:1–14)

The Bible harshly condemns false teachers as greedy (Isa. 56:11; Jer. 6:13; 8:10; Mic. 3:5; Phil. 3:18–19; 2 Peter 2:1–3, 14) emissaries of Satan, whom Jesus said turn people away from the narrow path to heaven and instead lure them onto the broad path to hell (Matt. 7:13–15).

Scripture does not support the inclusiveness, tolerance of error, and willingness to embrace false teachers in the name of love and unity that marks the professing church today. On the contrary the Bible, using vivid and powerful language, denounces false teachers. In a litany of graphic expressions, they are called blind men who know nothing, “mute dogs unable to bark, dreamers lying down who love to slumber” (Isa. 56:10), demented fools (Hos. 9:7), reckless, treacherous men (Zeph. 3:4), ravenous wolves (Matt. 7:15), blind guides of the blind (Matt. 15:14; cf. 23:16), hypocrites (Matt. 23:13), fools (v. 17), whitewashed tombs full of bones (v. 27), serpents, a brood of vipers (v. 33), thieves and robbers (John 10:8), savage wolves (Acts 20:29), slaves of their own appetites (Rom. 16:18), hucksters peddling the Word of God (2 Cor. 2:17), false apostles, deceitful workers (2 Cor. 11:13), servants of Satan (v. 15), purveyors of a different gospel (Gal. 1:6–8), dogs, evil workers (Phil. 3:2), enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil. 3:18), those who are conceited and understand nothing (1 Tim. 6:4), men of depraved minds deprived of the truth (v. 5), men who have gone astray from the truth (2 Tim. 2:18), captives of the devil (v. 26), deceivers (2 John 7), ungodly persons (Jude 4), and unreasoning animals (v. 10). The Bible also pronounces severe judgment on them (Deut. 13:5; 18:20; Jer. 14:15; Gal. 1:8–9; Rev. 2:20–23).

Scripture harshly condemns false teachers because of the deadly danger they pose to people’s eternal souls. They lead many astray from the truth of God’s Word (Isa. 3:12; 9:16; Jer. 14:13; 23:26–27, 32; 50:6; Matt. 23:13, 15; 24:4–5, 24; Luke 11:46, 52; Rom. 16:17–18; Col. 2:4, 8, 18; 1 Thess. 2:14–16; 2 Tim. 3:13; Titus 1:10; 2 John 7)—especially concerning the need for repentance from sin (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 23:21–22; Lam. 2:14; Ezek. 13:10, 16, 22).

One of the most sinister and deadly false teachers of recent decades was Jim Jones, founder of the People’s Temple. Jones was a Communist and atheist (as well as a drug abuser and sexual predator), who deified himself and claimed to be the reincarnation of such religious and political figures as Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha, and Lenin. Jones ridiculed biblical Christianity, mocked the God of Scripture, and derided the Bible as a “paper idol.” He cynically sought to further his Marxist socialist agenda by infiltrating the church (cf. Acts 20:29–30). Jones eventually led his followers to Guyana, where they founded the now infamous Jonestown settlement. There, on November 18, 1978, more than 900 people (tragically, at least 200 of them children), died in a mass murder-suicide ordered by Jones.

The Jonestown incident shocked the world. Yet the real tragedy was not that so many people died physically in a South American jungle, but that they died eternally. While few false teachers lead their followers to physical death as Jim Jones did, all lead them to eternal death.

The leaders of the Jewish people in Jesus’ day were described by Him as making people “twice as much [sons] of hell as [themselves]” (Matt. 23:15). The people trusted them and believed that they would lead them to salvation. But the truth is that instead, as they had throughout much of the Old Testament history, the leaders of Israel led the people into God’s eternal judgment (cf. Luke 13:24–29, 34–35).

Chief among Israel’s false teachers were the Pharisees, one of four main Jewish sects, along with the Sadducees (the wealthy, elite priests), the Zealots (political revolutionaries who sought independence from Rome), and the Essenes (ascetic monastics). The Pharisees were devout religionists, extremely zealous for the Mosaic law (and their own extrabiblical traditions [cf. Mark 7:8–13]).

The sect originated during the intertestamental period, born out of a spiritual revolt against the influence of Greek and Roman thought and culture on the Jewish people. They called for a separation (“Pharisee” likely derives from a Hebrew verb meaning “to separate”) from paganism and a return to a strict adherence to the Old Testament law. The Pharisees had no interest in politics (unlike the Sadducees and the Zealots), nor were they mystics (unlike the Essenes). In contrast to the Sadducees, who were mostly wealthy priests or Levites, the Pharisees were laymen, and generally came from the middle class. Although few in number (according to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus there were about 6,000 at the time of Herod the Great), they had widespread influence with the common people, to whom they taught the law in the local synagogues. (Ironically, the Pharisees viewed those common people in a condescending fashion as ignorant of the law and beneath them [cf. John 7:49].) Eventually, the rabbinic traditions that the Pharisees increasingly superimposed on the Old Testament became a crushing burden (Matt. 23:4), impossible for the people to bear (Acts 15:10).

The Sadducees ceased to be a force in Jewish life after the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 and the Zealots’ influence faded after the Bar Kochba revolt (A.D. 132–35) was crushed, leaving the Pharisees as the dominant force in Judaism. The Pharisees’ theology was in many ways biblically correct. They believed in the resurrection (Acts 23:6–8), angels (Acts 23:8), demons, predestination, human responsibility, and Messiah’s earthly kingdom.

While pretending to be devout, the Pharisees were actually hypocrites who failed to live up to even their own strict teaching regarding the law (Matt. 23:3). They abandoned the true religion of the heart for an external one, which they hoped would elicit the admiration and respect of the people, as well as God’s approval (Matt. 6:1–5; 9:14; 12:2; 23:5–7, 23; Luke 11:38–39). The Pharisees’ superficial, external righteousness, however, fell far short of what heaven demands (Matt. 5:20; 23:28; Luke 11:39–40). So despite their zeal for the law, they amounted only to “blind guides of the blind” (Matt. 15:14), who made their proselytes doubly worthy of the hell to which they themselves were headed.

Closely associated with the Pharisees were their scribes (5:21, 30; 6:7; 11:53; 15:2; Matt. 5:20; 12:38; 15:1; 23:2, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29; Mark 7:1, 5; John 8:3; Mark 2:16 refers to “the scribes of the Pharisees,” and Acts 23:9 to “the scribes of the Pharisaic party”), the professional scholars who specialized in the interpretation and application of the Old Testament law. The scribes provided the theological foundation for the Pharisees’ teaching.

There were Pharisees who were sympathetic to Jesus (John 9:15–16) and Paul (Acts 23:9) and a few even became believers (Acts 15:5). But all the rest hated and opposed Jesus, viewing the gospel of Christ as an attack on their religious system and them. That Jesus frequently denounced them in front of the people as hypocrites further enraged them.

This dramatic confrontation in which our Lord, as He frequently did, exposed the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and pride can be broken into four features: the setting, the setup, the silencing, and the story.

THE SETTING

It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, (14:1a)

The phrase it happened indicates an unspecified time during the Lord’s final journey to Jerusalem (recorded by Luke in 9:51–19:27). The exact location where this incident took place is not certain, although it most likely was in Perea. On this occasion Jesus, as He had done in the past (cf. Luke 7:36–50; 11:37–54), went into the house of a Pharisee to eat bread (i.e., have a meal, which would have been prepared in advance due to the Sabbath restrictions on food preparation). This was the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, possibly the ruler of the local synagogue or even a member of the Sanhedrin. The meal was the midday Sabbath meal, which took place after the morning meeting in the synagogue. This was a gathering of many of the elite Pharisees and scribes. Constantly seeking honor and prestige, the Pharisees associated only with those they considered equals or who would elevate their status. They would never invite to a meal those whom they considered beneath them. Thus, they were shocked and appalled when Jesus regularly associated with the outcasts of Jewish society (Matt. 9:10–11; Luke 15:1–2). Yet for reasons that will soon become apparent, they invited both Jesus, whom they hated, and a man who was himself a despised outcast.

THE SETUP

they were watching Him closely. And there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. (14:1b–2)

Because of the Pharisees’ animosity toward Him, the question naturally arises as to why Jesus was invited to the meal. Why He accepted the invitation is clear—it was to present once again the gospel to those religious sinners who desperately needed salvation. That the Pharisees had their own agenda is clear from the phrase they were watching Him closely. Watching … closely translates a form of the Greek verb paratēreō, which means, “to observe carefully,” “to be on the lookout,” or “to pay heed to.” But in the gospels the word takes on a sinister tone, and could be translated, “to lurk,” “to spy,” “to watch for an opportunity with malicious intent” (cf. 14:1; 20:20; Mark 3:2). Jesus was invited because they were setting Him up, hoping to entrap Him into breaking the rabbinic laws, which were particularly strict regarding the Sabbath.

The bait for their trap was a man suffering from dropsy. Dropsy, or edema, is a medical condition in which the body abnormally retains fluids, causing swelling. It is not a disease, but rather the symptom of a disease or condition related to the heart, lungs, kidneys, or liver. The rabbis viewed such a condition, however, as God’s judgment for immorality, or as uncleanness due to the body’s failure to eliminate (Lev. 15:1–3). Thus in their view this man was both immoral and ritually unclean. Since no Pharisee would have tolerated such a defiled person at the meal, they obviously planned to use him for a sinister purpose. And they were fairly sure that based on His pattern Jesus, seeing his dropsy, would do what they wanted.

And what they desired was to get Jesus to violate their Sabbath restrictions by healing the man (cf. Luke 6:6–11; 13:10–17). In their twisted minds, this would confirm their belief that He was not from God. That amazingly counterintuitive thinking graphically reveals the depths of their spiritual blindness and the hardness of their sin-darkened hearts. In effect, they were challenging Jesus to perform a miracle so they could justify rejecting Him. They would view the healing, in reality the very proof that He was God (cf. John 10:25, 37–38; 14:10–11), as evidence that He was neither God nor from God (John 9:16). They believed He was empowered by the devil (Matt. 12:24). In an astonishing display of duplicity and hypocrisy, these self-appointed guardians of the rabbinic law actually were encouraging Jesus to break it.

THE SILENCING

And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” And they could make no reply to this. (14:3–6)

Jesus masterfully turned the tables on those who sought to trap Him and instead trapped them. Before He performed the healing as they knew He would, He responded to their challenge to His divine authority as Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5) by asking the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” Needless to say, ministering to a sick person was by no means a violation of any Old Testament regulation concerning the Sabbath (cf. Matt. 12:7). Rabbinic attachments, however, prohibited anyone from treating a sick person on the Sabbath unless that person was in imminent danger of death if left untreated until the next day. To do so, the rabbis taught, would constitute work and hence be a violation of the required Sabbath rest. Even matters of life and death were subject to their cruel, inflexible, and ridiculous man-made restrictions.

Jesus’ question put the scribes and Pharisees on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, answering that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath would officially authorize Him to heal the man and put them in agreement with that. They could not then indict Him for breaking the Sabbath. On the other hand, answering that it was not lawful might keep Jesus from performing the healing, once again preventing them from indicting Him. Faced with those two equally unpleasant alternatives, they kept silent, confounded in the face of a simple question with complex implications.

Leaving His opponents silently stuck on the horns of the dilemma, Jesus acted forcefully and decisively in defiance of their Sabbath regulations, and no doubt angry and grieved at their hardened hearts (cf. Mark 3:5). He took hold of the sick man and healed him. Epilambanomai (took hold of) is a forceful term, which has the idea of “seizing,” or “grabbing” (cf. 23:26; Matt. 14:31; Acts 16:19; 18:17; 21:30, 33). The Lord’s hands on him not only showed compassion to the sick man by letting him know that he was not an unclean outcast, but also left no doubt that He Himself was the healer. Instantly and completely the man’s condition was cured and the excess fluids disappeared. Since the purpose of Christ for him was accomplished, Jesus sent him away. The Lord compassionately understood that he would have been eager to share the good news of his healing with his family and friends.

At that moment, the Pharisees must have thought that their plan had succeeded. Jesus had clearly violated their Sabbath restrictions by healing a man who by their standards was unclean, sinful, and under divine judgment. But before they could level their accusations Jesus, knowing what they were thinking, posed a new question. “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well,” He asked them, “and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” Of course, if any of them had a son (for obvious reasons) or an ox (because of the financial cost of replacing it) that fell into a well they would immediately pull him out, even on a Sabbath day. They would not even allow their animals to go without water on the Sabbath (13:15). Why, then, should they object to Jesus reaching out on the Sabbath to save a man drowning in his own fluids?

This was not what the Pharisees had envisioned. Their plan to discredit Jesus had backfired. Humiliated by the Lord’s exposure of their hypocrisy, they could make no reply to His challenge (cf. 13:17; 20:26). Things were about to get worse for them, however, as the Lord took the offensive, inventing a story as He often did, to condemn their pride and call for humility.

THE STORY

And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. “But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you…. And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (14:7–10, 12–14)

Having turned the Pharisees’ attempt to trap Him against them and shamed them into silence, Jesus used a parable to confront their pride and hypocrisy. There was also mercy in His words, which challenged them to repent and enter the kingdom.

The Pharisees may have been silenced, but Jesus still had much to say to them. A parable is not an allegory in which everything has a hidden, mystical, spiritual meaning, but an illustration, analogy, or metaphor used to make or clarify a point. In the sense that Jesus used them, parables are earthly stories that illustrate heavenly realities.

The invited guests were, as noted above, the scribes and Pharisees, who did not mingle with those whom they considered their inferiors. While they had been watching Him (v. 1), Jesus had been watching them. As they were filing in for the meal, He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table. A typical table would be U-shaped or an arrangement of separate tables in the middle of the room. At the head was the host, on either side of him the two most honored guests, and down the sides the remaining guests, all reclining on three-person couches. When the guests entered for this meal, there had been a less than subtle scramble as they began picking out the places of honor at the table, the ones nearest to the host.

Such behavior was consistent with the Pharisees’ insatiable desire to be elevated in the sight of men. They “love[d] the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues” (Matt. 23:6; cf. Luke 20:46), and “the respectful greetings in the market places” (Luke 11:43). The honored guests were those who had honored the host (or were capable of doing so); the system of seeking honor from each other (John 5:44) was based on reciprocation. The whole scene was an exercise in self-promotion.

Jesus set His criticism of the guests’ behavior at the luncheon in an illustration of a wedding feast—the most important of all community events. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast,” Jesus told them, “do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.” Eagerly grabbing a place of honor could backfire if someone more distinguished (and therefore better able to reciprocate to the host) had been invited. In that case the host would make the less important man give his place to the more important one, and then in humiliation and disgrace the first man would proceed to occupy the last place, the least honorable of all. A far wiser course of action would be to go and recline at the last place, and then have the host say, “Friend, move up higher.” That would result in even more honor in the sight of all who were attending the banquet. The principle here is reminiscent of Solomon’s counsel in Proverbs 25:6–7: “Do not claim honor in the presence of the king, and do not stand in the place of great men; for it is better that it be said to you, ‘Come up here,’ than for you to be placed lower in the presence of the prince, whom your eyes have seen.”

But Jesus was not merely advising the Pharisees on the proper etiquette for being a successful hypocrite. In reality, His words were designed to picture those who, in a display of spiritual pride and self-righteous arrogance, clamor for the chief places in the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 10:35–40), only to be sent by God, the host of heaven’s banquet, to the remotest place in His domain.

One such status seeker was the Pharisee in a “parable [Jesus told] to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). He considered himself superior to the despised tax collector, haughtily declaring, “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (vv. 11–12). But in just such a reversal of positions as Jesus spoke of, the humble, repentant tax collector, not the proud Pharisee, entered the kingdom of salvation (v. 14).

As the host, the one who had invited Jesus was not, of course, involved in the battle for the important seat. He owned it. But the Lord rebuked his pride as well. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not exclusively invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, He told him, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.” Reciprocity controlled the ethics and actions of the Pharisees’ social structure. But it was a zero sum game with no winners, in which the participants’ gains and losses of prestige evened out in the end. And even had there been clear winners in the earthly prestige game, there would not have been any places of honor for them in the kingdom.

In Jewish society an invitation to a meal with a Pharisee was a kind of currency; they exploited hospitality for the sake of self-glory and elevation. Disinterested kindness was foreign to them; everything they did was self-serving. Jesus’ challenge to the host revealed the true path to eternal blessing: “But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Such outcasts would not be invited to a reception given by a Pharisee, since they had no way of reciprocating. Further, it was just such riffraff that the Pharisees sought to distance themselves from. But those true saints who demonstrated humility by inviting people who could not repay them will be repaid by God at the resurrection of the righteous (cf. John 5:28–29; Acts 24:15), when they receive their eternal reward.

THE ASSUMPTION

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (14:11)

This is the spiritual axiom or principle underlying Christ’s exhortations to both the guests and the host. God is the unnamed person and power who both humbles the proud (Prov. 16:5; Isa. 2:11, 17; Dan. 4:37) and exalts the humble (Luke 1:51–52; James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6). In Psalm 75:6–7 the psalmist wrote, “For not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert comes exaltation; but God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another” (cf. Matt. 23:12; Luke 18:14). Honor and blessing in God’s kingdom eludes those who think they can earn it; salvation comes only to the humble (Matt. 5:3–5). Those bloated with the edema of pride will not pass through the narrow gate leading to salvation.

Whether Jesus explained the meaning of His parable to the guests is not revealed, though He probably did. His reference to the resurrection of the righteous would have made it clear to them that He was speaking of the kingdom (cf. the statement by one of the guests in v. 15). Yet, the Lord was under no obligation to explain anything to those who hard-heartedly rejected Him (cf. Matt. 13:10–13; 11:25).

In any case His message is clear. No one will enter the kingdom by merit, good works, righteous deeds, self-promotion, spiritual pride, or making and keeping extrabiblical laws. Salvation comes only to the humble, the broken and contrite who plead only for mercy and grace, and nothing more. Jesus described them as the poor in spirit, who mourn over their sin and are humble (Matt. 5:3–5). They are those who have obeyed James’s exhortation to

Such a one was Paul, a proud, zealous Pharisee, who eventually came to regard his self-righteous religious achievements as manure (Phil. 3:8) and cast himself wholly on the mercy of God for salvation:

Paul understood what these Pharisees did not. The way into the kingdom is not through self-promoting pride, but through self-effacing humility and acknowledging oneself to be a wretched sinner in need of God’s gracious salvation provided through Jesus Christ.