Bible Study series: Luke 12:57-59. Better use wisdom in your business dealings.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
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Scripture: Luke 12:57-59
57 “Why don’t you also judge for yourselves what is just? 58 For as you are going with your accuser to the ruler, make an effort to settle with him along the road, so that he will not drag you before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the bailiff, and the bailiff throw you in prison. 59 I tell you that you will not exit from that place until you pay back the last penny.” (Luke 12:57-59)
Comments:
57:
This pericope or section of Scripture fits perfectly with the previous one. He is still talking to the crowds, and he calls them to use sound judgement, much like he called on them to discern the Messianic times. If they could judge the weather correctly, then why couldn’t they judge the spiritual atmosphere and the Messiah right in front of them? Likewise, why can’t they judge for themselves what is right or just?
Here the adjective “just” could also be translated as “right.” The term can also be defined, depending on the context, as “right” or “righteous” or “just” or “upright”; “law-abiding,” “honest,” “good.” When Jesus is put on trial, it can be translated as all those terms rolled into one and also “innocent” (Luke 23:47; see also Matt. 23:37 and 27:24).
58:
So what is right or just? Jesus tells them to be as wise as snakes and innocent as doves when they live in the context of the world system (Matt. 10:16). This idea will be expanded to the nth degree in the Parable of the Dishonest (or Shrewd) Manager (Luke 16:1-13), in which the manager, who got himself in trouble with his boss, forgives debts owed to his boss, so that the forgiven parties will be kind to the shrewd manager after he is shown the door. Application: in this pericope use your business acumen. Use sound judgment. On the route to the ruler (archōn and pronounced ahr-khone or “lord, “prince,” or plural “authorities” or “officials”), be free of the accuser.
“settle”: it comes from the verb that literally means in the active voice “free, release” (I free or release you) and in the passive “be released, be cured” (I am freed or cured by you). Intransitively it can mean “leave, depart” (I leave, depart). Here it means “come to a settlement with someone.” So it could also be translated as “be free of your accuser.”
59:
Now Jesus uses his culture—the legal culture. If you don’t settle along the road to the synagogue, where legal disputes were settled, or another court, then the judge will hear your case. Your accuser has paperwork that proves you owe him a debt. The judge will look at it and ask whether you have the money. You answer no. Then the judge has to follow the law and hands you over to the bailiff or court sheriff, who will put you in the prison van, and drive you to jail or prison, where you will sit until you can scrape together the money. But this is impossible because you are not at work.
“lepton”: one-twenty-eighth (1/28) of a denarius, and a denarius was the standard day’s wage for an agrarian worker. This amount was so small that Jesus uses it to indicate you will not get out of prison until you pay it. No half-hearted debt and no half-hearted forgiveness. Your accuser is playing “hardball.”
Let’s expand the parable a little, because I believe some in the crowds would know about this part of the law. You must depend on a family redeemer.
Lev. 25:47-55 speaks of redeeming a poor man, who has to sell himself to a stranger or sojourner. He can be redeemed by his family member, like a brother or uncle or cousin.
Do we dare spiritualize this true-to-life illustration or parable? Let’s go for it. The archōn or judge can be viewed as justice or the law. It has to be followed. You have not followed it. Your accuser is Satan. You better get yourself free of him on the road to the courtroom before he drags you before the judge or law. The judge will ask if you are in debt to your accuser, and you have to say yes. And so you are be placed in the prison provided by justice or the law. Your accuser doesn’t have to keep the key or guard the prison. The law and justice do that. He has you dead to rights, by the law.
So how can you be free of him? Along the road, your brother must run to catch up to you and redeem you. If you are not wise enough to call on your brother en route, your brother can still pay what is owned to your accuser once you are put in prison. Either way, your brother frees you.
Your brother-redeemer is Jesus. He has canceled the paperwork against you. The Scriptures say: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Col. 2:13:15).
So does Jesus have to pay off Satan? Let’s not push the illustration too far, but in a sense he does pay him within the system of justice that God set up, and Satan knows enough to work within that system. He manipulates it, which shows he has to submit to it. Satan is not sovereign; only God is.
In any case, the illustration is designed to show that you must judge what is just or right. Be free of your accuser before things get too far. Use your head. Work the legal and economic system that God has ultimately put in place.
But now let’s bring this parable back down to earth, in its original context.
Garland:
Jesus is not giving mundane advice about how to avoid going to court or going to jail. With the coming judgment, the audience is in dire straits and does not know it. IN this parabolic warning, what the secular judge will do in a lawsuit God will do in the judgment. The warning is not addressed to individuals but to Israel. In the context, Jesus refers to God’s coming judgment on Israel, which is temporal, rather than to the last judgment. Reconciliation is still possible, but Jesus underscores the gravity of the situation by insisting that even such a small amount, the last cent, must be repaid. After the verdict is settled it is too late to settle (comment on vv. 58-59)
Bock, in contrast, does interpret the two verses on a personal level. It is the debt that one owes God. “One must settle accounts with him. Jesus actually said “I say to you” (singular). So Jesus is talking to one person (pp. 1199-1200).
Liefeld and Pao say it is both a warning to the individual confronted with the impending judgment of God, and it is also a warning to Israel as a people. “In terms of context, the theme of judgment on God’s people is a prominent one in Luke’s central section. The address to the ‘crowd’ (v 54) further highlights this point. This address to Israel is continued in 13:1-9, when Jewish readers are again called to repent” (comments on vv. 57-59)
GrowApp for Luke 12:57-59
1. This pericope (pronounced peh-RI-coh-pea) speaks of being free from your accuser for a just debt you owe. How has Jesus set you free from your accuser, Satan?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND MORE
To see the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the bottom. You will also find a “Summary and Conclusion” for discipleship.
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