The Lowest Seat (part two)

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

But when you are invited, take the lowest place…(Luke 14:10)

I continue this week with some thoughts about the parable Jesus told when he went to dine at the home of a prominent Pharisee. The parable can be found in Luke’s gospel, chapter fourteen, verses eight through fourteen. In it Jesus instructed his listeners, many of whom were Pharisees and experts in the law, to take the lowest place (where the servants usually sat) and not the place of honor, when invited to a wedding feast.

What prompted Jesus to tell this parable was the behavior of his fellow guests. He observed how they attempted to claim the best seats at the table. It would appear as though vying for places of honor at dinner parties and calling attention to one’s social rank were not uncommon activities among religious people in first century Palestine. Luke supports this observation when he tells us elsewhere in his gospel that Jesus noted how “the teachers of the law…like to walk around in flowing robes…; [they] love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets…” (20:46)

Insecurity, which is a manifestation of pride, is at the root of this preoccupation about social standing. The deeply insecure person is always thinking, first and foremost, about himself, always looking Continue reading →

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The Lowest Seat (part one)

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

When [Jesus] noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable…(Luke 14:1)

For this week and next, I am writing about the parable Jesus told while dining at the home of a Pharisee – a passage on which I preached recently. This parable may be helpful to read and study in preparation for the celebration of Christmas. It can be found in Luke’s gospel, chapter fourteen, verses seven through fourteen.

The passage unfolds with Jesus observing how fellow guests attempt to situate themselves in places of honor at the host’s table. From the way Luke describes the behavior of these guests, it would seem as though concern over one’s social standing was at least as much an issue for people in first century Palestine, as it is for us today. Who among us has not desired, Continue reading →

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Scripture (last in a series)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

But the word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart…(Romans 10:8; Deuteronomy 30:14)

For the past ten weeks I’ve shared my thoughts about Scripture with you. This week we hear from some well-known (and not so well-known) Christians on this topic:

Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution center for Bibles in many languages. – Corrie ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom


In most parts of the Bible, everything is implicitly or explicitly introduced with “Thus saith the Lord”. It is… not merely a sacred book but a book so remorselessly and continuously sacred that it does not invite — it excludes or repels — the merely aesthetic approach. You can read it as literature only by a tour de force… It demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give literary delight very long, except to those who go to it for something quite different. I predict that it will in the future be read, as it always has been read, almost exclusively by Christians. – C. S. Lewis

We approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass ofaccepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world.…It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us. – J. I. Packer

Too often we see the Bible through whatever Continue reading →

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