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Excuses - Luke 14
Excuses - Luke 14
In His teaching, Jesus told the story of some who had been invited to big dinner. Such dinners in the first century were a mark of social standing. To 'eat with one' was to acknowledge them as an equal. Status seems to have been even more important to them than it is to us today. Even though they were invited to such a dinner, those that were invited "all alike began to make excuses".
When I hear of excuses, I always think of the Yiddish Proverb: "If you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another." I have heard this attributed to various people, including Mark Twain. Irrespective of who first made this statement, you can see it played out in the telling of this story by Jesus. They made an excuse because they didn't want to come.
Each person 'gave an excuse', but that did not mean they were 'excused'. Only the one who dispenses duty has the right of excusing. When it is God who lays upon us a duty, it is only God that can excuse us from that duty. Through James, God said: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).
How many things have you excused yourself from?
Hugh DeLong
As I was writing this, I thought how different our lives would be if we simply changed our view of 'duties' and began seeing them as 'opportunities and privileges'.
