The Scripture reading for today
is found in Luke 11:9-13.
In Luke
10:38-42, Dr. Luke shows us the right way to worship through the
example of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. Then in Luke 11:1-4 we read that the
disciples asked our Lord to Teach
Us To Pray, where we studied The
Petitions of God (Luke 11:2) and The Petitions of Man (Luke 11:3-4). Next we studied Luke 11:5–10 where we saw that Jesus gave us the
first of two parables that illustrate the frequency and persistency
of our prayers, and how we are not to allow discouragement to keep us from
praying. God is not like the selfish man, whom is hard to get ahold of (Luke 11:7; cf.
1 Kings 18:16–46). This section that we
will study tonight in Luke 11:9–13 supports
what we studied last time in the parable of the persistent friend at
midnight, that God is the giver of good gifts (Luke 11:7; cf. Matthew 7:11; James 1:17). Now to the hearers, to the Twelve, the Seventy (-two) (Luke 10:1-16), as well as the women (Luke 8:1-3)
and any others who might have been hanging around, as well as to us today, we
will study that those who ask will receive (Luke 11:9-10), sinful father’s give
good gifts to their sons (Luke 11:11-13a), and God will give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask (Luke 11:13b).
What we will study this time in Praying With Importunity pt02…01. Ask, Seek, Knock (Luke 11:9-10); 02.
Good Gifts (Luke 11:11-12); and 03. The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13).
Matthew records for us this same passage in Matthew 7:7–11.
01. Ask, Seek,
Knock (Luke 11:9-10)
Luke
11:9 “So I say to you” here this is Jesus reminding them of the
parable that He just finished telling them, look at how the man continued to
knock and seek with importunity from his neighbor, and eventually he was
answered.
Luke
11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you”
The Greek verb (Αἰτεῖτε from G154 αἰτέω aitĕō)[1]
that is used for “ask”
here in Luke 11:9
is significant, for it used by one who is lesser in position than he to whom the
petition is made; e.g., in the case of men in asking something from God (cf.
Matthew 7:7;
Matthew 7:9-10;
Luke 23:23;
Acts 3:2;
Ephesians
3:20; Colossians 1:9; James 1:5-6; James 4:2-3; 1 John 3:22;
1 John
5:14-16).[2]
Jesus never uses this word when asking His Father, but instead He always uses
the Greek verb G2065 ἐρωτάω ĕrōtaō, (er-o-tah´-o) that
more frequently suggests that the
petitioner is on a footing of equality or familiarity with the person whom he
requests (John 14:16; John 16:26; John 17:9, 15, 20).[3]
Because Jesus uses the Greek verb G2065 ἐρωτάω ĕrōtaō when
He asks the Father shows that He is on equal footing with the Father, and
contrast that with Martha in John 11:22 who shows her low conception of the
person of Jesus when she uses the term of His asking God as one who is inferior
(G154 αἰτέω aitĕō).
Look
at these petitions found throughout the Bible (Psalm 50:15; Psalm 118:5; Matthew 21:22; John 14:13; John 15:7; John 15:16; John 16:23–24; Ephesians 3:20;
Colossians 1:9; Hebrews 4:16; James 1:5; James 5:15; 1 John 3:22; 1 John 5:14–15).
Jesus
is saying that if you ask God for what you need, He will satisfy your needs (Philippians 4:19).
Luke
11:9 “seek, and you will find” The Greek
verb for “seek”
here is (G2212) zēteite means “to seek, to
seek for[4]or to search for God, in the hope that they may
find him[5], “to look for something” or “to try to find something.”[6] Throughout
the Bible we see examples and told to seek God (Psalm 27:4; Psalm 27:8; Psalm 34:4; Psalm 34:10; Psalm 105:3–4; Isaiah 45:19; Isaiah 55:6–7; Luke 13:24; John 1:45–49; Romans 2:7; Hebrews 11:6)
Luke 11:9
“knock, and it will be opened to you.” Here it is implied that God
will open the door to those who ask and seek and knock (2 Corinthians 6:2).In the Greek, the words “Ask, Seek,
and Knock” (Luke 11:9) are all written in the imperative plural, so it can be
rightfully read as “Continue asking, seeking, knocking.”[7]
Luke
11:10 We
are to keep asking through prayer, not ceasing until God makes known His answer
(2 Corinthians 12:7–10). Sometimes we don’t receive what we ask for because as James so
clearly explains it, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you
may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not
know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants
to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:3–4) But when we pray with importunity, we are to
patiently and persistently persevere, “Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the
perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord
is very compassionate and merciful.” (James 5:11) Jesus told the first parable to encourage His
hearers to be persistent in prayer, without fear, not so that we can make God
to change His mind, but to be steadfast in praying and to receive their needs.[8] We can go “boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time
of need” (Hebrews 4:16)
because He “has broken down the middle wall of
separation” (Ephesians 2:14)
by dying on the cross. When we ask, God
will answer.
If what we ask for is for our God, God will grant it to us, but we are
going to have to be patient, waiting for His perfect timing in receiving that
gift. We have this misconception of God that if we ask, and it is a good
desire, that God will grant it to us immediately, and often, the best thing for
us is to have to wait, continuing in prayer with importunity, trusting Him
until He provides. Too often, we ask once or twice, maybe for a week, then give
up. Saints, Jesus here is telling us to be persistent, pray with importunity
and be patient. The man in this parable is pictured as selfish, having
no regard for his neighbors needs, and that’s how God seems to us so often, as
we pray to Him day after day, month after month and even year after year and
there is no answer. In this time, God merely appears as a heartless spectator as we
feel like our prayers fall on deaf ears. But Jesus reminds us through this parable
that the selfish man yielded to the constant importunity. God, who is not deaf,
but is listening to every prayer, may allow the delay to strengthen our hope;
faith and trust in Him, and in the end will bless you with an answer. Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing,” Continual
prayer is not prayer that prevails without any interruption, but prayer that
continues whenever possible. The adverb for without ceasing (G89 adialeiptōs, also in 1 Thessalonians 1:3) was used in Greek of a hacking cough. Paul was speaking of maintaining
continuous fellowship with God as much as possible in the midst of daily living
in which concentration is frequently broken.[9] So pray with importunity!
Why should the
disciples keep on asking, seeking and knocking? It is because as we saw in Luke 11:7 that God is not a selfish and heartless
spectator who is not easily aroused to hear our prayers (cf. 1 Kings 18:16–46). God is
eager to give, as we saw in Luke 11:10 where our Saviour says, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and
to him who knocks it will be opened.” (cf. James 1:17) The command to continue asking, seeking, knocking sets up the
rhetorical questions that are posed by Jesus in Luke 11:11–12.
02. Good Gifts (Luke 11:11-12)
Luke
11:11–12 The
way that Luke 11:11-12
is written in the original Greek implies that the answer of “No” is expected.[10]
Luke
11:11 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a
stone?” A lot of the bread there in Israel can look like they are in
the shape of a stone, but when a father is asked of his son for some bread, he
wouldn’t give him a stone instead!
Luke
11:11 “Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a
fish?” Sometimes water snakes were
caught in the fishing nets, and even though a fish has some resemblance to a
snake, there isn’t a sane parent who would attempt to deceive his child like
this.
Luke
11:12 Dr.
Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 379) says: “There is no imaginable
likeness between an egg and the ordinary black scorpion of this country,
neither in color nor size, nor, when the tail is extended, in shape; but old
writers speak of a “white” scorpion, and such a one, with the tail folded up, as
in specimens of fossil trilobites, would not look unlike a small egg. Perhaps
the contrast, however, refers only to the different properties of the egg and
the scorpion, which is sufficiently emphatic.” Naturalists tell us, that the
body of a scorpion is very like an egg, especially if the scorpion be of the
white kind, which is the first species mentioned by Ælian, Avicenna, and
others. Bochart has produced testimonies to prove that the scorpions in Judea
were about the bigness of an egg; and therefore there, a white scorpion being
very like an egg, might to children, who were not capable of distinguishing the
one from the other, be offered in place thereof, if the person so doing meant
that it should sting and destroy them. Pliny says: and it is said, that a
scorpion put into an empty eggshell, has been used to be given to persons,
whose death has been desired; which it bursting from, at once strikes and
kills: but what father would do so to a child! God will not give to us that
which might appear to be of use, but which would cause us undue harm.
03. The Gift of
the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13)
Luke
11:13 “being evil,” πονηροὶ ὑπάρχοντες. “Being evil from the first, evil already”[11] People
are called πονηροί in contrast to God.[12] When Jesus says this He is saying
that we as fallen, depraved sinners are capable of being influenced by evil and
not naturally inclined to good like our Heavenly Father.
Luke
11:13 “how to give good gifts to your children,” in the Greek (G1390 δόμα dŏma) means a present, a
gift.[13]
Luke
11:13b “13 …how much more will your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”” Now
Jesus makes the conclusion from the lesser to the better, for if human parents,
who are wicked and sinful, will show affection towards their children and try
to do what is best for them, then how much more will our Heavenly Father, who
is full of goodness and grace, give us the Holy Spirit. Jesus points out that
if we as parents who are wicked, sinful and depraved (Romans 7:18; Titus 3:3) are
capable of giving good gifts to our children, especially when they ask then how
much better is our Heavenly Father, who is the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17)!
As we studied last time, and saw again tonight, Jesus is encouraging us to not only
ask but to keep asking (Luke 11:9)! We saw that the man in Luke 11:7-8
is pictured as selfish, having no regard for his neighbors needs, and that’s
how God seems to us so often, as we pray to Him day after day, month after
month and even year after year and there is no answer. In this time, God merely
appears as a heartless spectator as we feel like our prayers fall on deaf ears.
But Jesus reminds us through this parable that the selfish man yielded to the
constant importunity. God, who is not deaf, but is listening to every prayer,
may allow the delay to strengthen our hope; faith and trust in Him, and in the
end will bless you with an answer. Which is why we are commanded to pray with
importunity! And while we are awaiting His answer to our importunate prayers,
we are to remind ourselves that while a wicked, depraved, earthly father in his
right mind would never give something to his child that would cause harm, but
instead he would hear his child’s request and give his child what he deems as
best for the child, how much more does our
Heavenly Father loves us than we as parents could ever love our children, so
how much better are His gifts? Our
Heavenly Father is the giver of both Heavenly and earthly gifts, and knows what
we need even before we realize it (Matthew
6:25–33). The
gift of the Holy Spirit was first given to the followers of Jesus in Acts 2:1–4.
Believers today don’t have to pray for
the Holy Spirit, for He already has been given to those who have acknowledged
Jesus as their Lord and Saviour (Romans 8:9; Romans 10:9)
Sometimes when we pray, we pray without any discernment or real consideration
of what is truly the best for ourselves, though we often think we know. And if
those prayers were answered according to our will, it would cause us much harm
and heartache, and it is actually a blessing from our benevolent Father when He
answers in the negative to many of our selfish prayers (Romans 5:9–10; Romans 5:17; Romans 8:32).
So we have a distinct flow of four subsections:
(01) starting in Luke 10:38-42 where Dr. Luke shows us the right way to
worship through the example of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. (02) Then in Luke 11:1-4
we read that the disciples asked our Lord to Teach
Us To Pray, and He taught us how to pray. (03) Next we studied Luke 11:5–10
where we see that Jesus gave us the first of two parables that illustrate
the frequency and persistency of our prayers, and how we are not to allow
discouragement to keep us from praying. God is not like the selfish man, whom
is hard to get ahold of (Luke 11:7; cf.
1 Kings 18:16–46). (04) Then now in our study today we are encouraged to be persistent
in our petitions because God is good and will give the Holy Spirit. In all of theses subsections, we see that God is to be our focus and
that He
[1] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 1, p. 9). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[2] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr.
(1996). Vine’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Vol. 2, p. 40). Nashville, TN:
T. Nelson.
[3] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr.
(1996). Vine’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Vol. 2, p. 40). Nashville, TN:
T. Nelson.
[4] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr.
(1996). Vine’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Vol. 2, p. 558). Nashville, TN:
T. Nelson.
[5] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament
and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 428). Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
[6] Barry, J. D., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Mangum, D.,
& Whitehead, M. M. (2012). Faithlife
Study Bible (Mt 7:7). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[7] Plummer, A. (1896). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke
(p. 299). London: T&T Clark International.
[8] Martin, J. A. (1985). Luke. In J. F. Walvoord & R.
B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge
Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 235). Wheaton, IL:
Victor Books.
[9] Constable, T. L. (1985). 1 Thessalonians. In J. F.
Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The
Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, pp.
708–709). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[10] Robertson, A. T. (1933). Word Pictures in the New Testament (Lk 11:11). Nashville, TN:
Broadman Press.
[11] Plummer, A. (1896). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke
(p. 300). London: T&T Clark International.
[12] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament
and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 851). Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
[13] Strong, J. (2009). A
Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible
(Vol. 1, p. 24). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
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