May 28 2025

Wednesday May 28

Luke 20:1-2 – Passover Week Confrontations

1 Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him 2 and spoke to Him, saying, "Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?".

Welcome to Pastor's Chat. Today, we're starting a new chapter, chapter 20 of the Gospel of Luke. As we come to this chapter, we need to remember several things. It's Passover week. Jesus has finished almost three and a half years of ministry, healing the sick, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, feeding the hungry, preaching to the multitudes, teaching His disciples, confronting the Pharisees, scribes, and hypocrites. All this has taken place now for three and a half years.

Jesus has publicly revealed Himself as the Messiah. He's come into Jerusalem on Sunday of Passover week. He is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. The crowd, the multitudes, believed and trusted that He was the Messiah to deliver them from the Romans. When the Pharisees asked Jesus to rebuke them, Jesus said, "Even these stones would cry out if they didn't recognize who I was." He had publicly revealed Himself. Yet, there was a group who rejected Him, and they were the spiritual and political leaders of the Jewish nation.

On Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem. On Monday, Jesus cleanses the temple. Now on Tuesday, Jesus is confronted by the scribes, the high priest, the lawyers, (that’s who the scribes are), and the elders. Three groups of people, representing the religious and political leaders of the day for the Jews, confront Jesus.

Verse 1, “Now it happened on one of those days”. We believe the day was Tuesday specifically in this passage, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel. Jesus has come back on Tuesday of Passover week. He is teaching and preaching. He's loving the people, teaching them the gospel. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand; the King is here”. He is telling them wonderful things about who God is, who the Savior is, and how salvation and peace can come through trust and believing in Him.

He is preaching the gospel about Himself. Isn't that amazing? Because the Gospel is all about Jesus, who He is in the Old Testament, what He accomplishes in the Gospels, and what He continues to do through His disciples and you and me in the book of Acts until He comes again.

So, Jesus is preaching and teaching the Gospel, and that's when the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders confronted Him. These people are incensed. The fact that Jesus is preaching and teaching and the crowd has received Him, brings them to the point that they have to do something about Him. It says “they confronted Him”, means they came upon Him suddenly. They hope to catch Jesus with a question that will humiliate Him, and expose Hm to be against the leadership of the Romans politically. Then He could be crucified, stoned, or killed.

They'd already tried to stone Him on several occasions. Now they're going to use the tactic of getting Him to break one of the laws of the land so that the Romans will put Him to death. Of course, that fulfills the Old Testament scripture about how Jesus would die, not by stoning but by crucifixion. Read Psalms 22, and Isaiah 53. They confronted Him and spoke to Him, saying, "Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things, or who is he who gave you this authority?" 

The priests had their authority from the law of Moses; they got their authority because the Levitical tribe had been set apart to be the priests of the people, and the high priest came from that tribe also. The scribes, these were the lawyers who had been taught by the rabbis. They understood the law, they interpreted the law. So, the lawyers had their authority from the rabbis. The elders, these were the leaders of the different clans, the different tribes. They'd been chosen for their wisdom, leadership, and ability to lead. Probably on Monday night, these three groups of leaders have gotten together determined how they would confront Jesus on Tuesday.

But Jesus is ready for them. When they ask, "Where did you get your authority?" they're saying, "We have authority, but who are you? Where does your authority come from?"

We can't wait to talk about the answer the gave them and how He turned the table on them over the next few days.

Do you know who Jesus is today and where He gets His authority? If you do, trust Him, believe Him, live for Him, and proclaim Him to everyone you can as you pass by them on the way.

God bless!