Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 5 Study # 3
October 14, 2007
Lincolnton, NC

• I. The Focus on "Hunger".
  • A. The first focus of Jesus was upon "poverty". For Luke, "poverty" is linked to an attitude of awareness of the lack of personal resources for life. This is a "humility" issue, though at first blush it looks more like a "covetousness" issue. When a man realizes that he does not have the ability to provide for himself, he is humiliated. When the "Kingdom of God" is in the picture, this humiliation is good because it allows him to be qualified for inheritance in that Kingdom. It is only when a man comes to the realization that he cannot, by any personally generated means, obtain the favor from God of acceptance by Him into His Kingdom that he is actually acceptable to God. God despises "pride"; He loves "humility". He who comes to God clearly aware that he is coming as a beggar is received by Him. He who comes to God thinking himself to be self-qualified is rejected by Him. This is the point of Luke's record in Luke 18:9-14. Thus, the first focus of Jesus is upon the spirit of man and its need for a reality check in respect to his so-called "abilities".
  • B. The second focus of Jesus is upon "hunger".
    • 1. Luke uses "hunger" as an issue five times in his Gospel (1:53; 4:2; 6:3, 21, 25).
    • 2. In the first case, Mary refers to God's "filling of the hungry with good things" while "sending the rich away empty". This comment is in a set of sentences (1:51-53) that all seem to focus upon the reaction of God to the proud and His contrasting treatment of their opposites. So, "hunger" is set against the notion of pride in the first reference.
    • 3. In the second case, Jesus is described as "hungry" after "eating nothing" for forty days. This reality is immediately followed by the "temptation" to turn stones into bread. This is a direct parallel with Genesis three where Eve saw the forbidden fruit as "good for food". The issue in this setting is not "pride". It is physical well being. Thus, we have Luke using "hunger" as a physical phenomenon. The importance of this "event" is heightened when we understand that, at the point of Jesus' "hunger", the entire program of God, in His mercy to human beings, stood at risk. If He succumbed to "hunger" and did not believe in the "blessedness" of being hungry, we were lost and without hope.
    • 4. In the third case, Jesus uses David's "hunger" as a justification of his eating of the forbidden bread in the Tabernacle. This is in the context of the accusation of the Pharisees that Jesus was misleading His disciples by allowing them to eat grain on the Sabbath that they gathered on their way through a field. This raises the "question" of why David's "hunger", which was not even close to that of Jesus in the wilderness, made a violation of the law of the shewbread "legitimate". It sets up some tension in Luke's record by way of this contrast.
    • 5. In the fourth and fifth cases, Jesus is teaching His disciples after having come down from the mountain and the focus is upon the contrast between those who are currently hungry and those who shall be hungry later. In Luke 6:20-26 there is an extended contrast between those who are "blessed" and those under "woe". This extended contrast is specifically designed to address the problem of allowing temporal difficulties/benefits to be the guiding issue of one's values and beliefs.
• II. The Problem for the "Hungry".
  • A. There is no promise in the Bible that the people of God will not go hungry. Instead, there is a tacit recognition that the people of God may well go hungry. This is in direct contrast to the typical understanding of the Law of Moses. Apparently, the mystery of iniquity has settled in to the degree that what "ought" to be is not.
  • B. There is a tacit admission in the "hunger" issue that men are "at risk" when they are hungry. The "risk" is that they will do something to further iniquity and compromise righteousness all in the name of their desire to be physically satisfied. The choices of men are like seeds sown ... no man knows how much will come of them over time.
  • C. There is, likewise, a subtle recognition that if men always have enough to eat, they will not do what is right if the time comes when they do not. Men have a habit of moving very determinedly from privilege to the assumption of prerogative.
• III. The Blessedness.
  • A. Blessedness is a "future" fact wherein the losses of Time are compensated by the glory of the Kingdom.
  • B. The "future" has been designated as the point when the ultimate outworking of the divine plan has been established.
  • C. At that point, the response of God to men will be according to the truest sense of justice in which God pours out His response as a flood -- both for blessedness and for wrath.