Take a few minutes to catch up and pray that God would bless you through the reading of His word.

Read Luke 6:12-23

[6:12] In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. [13] And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: [14] Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, [15] and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, [16] and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
[17] And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, [18] who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. [19] And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.
[20] And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
    [21] “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
[22] “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 
[23] Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Observation

• Where did Jesus go in v. 12? What did he do there? For how long did he do it?
• How many of his disciples did Jesus choose (v. 13)? What did he call them?
• Where did Jesus go next (v. 17)? 
  • Who was there (v. 17)?
  • Why were they there (v. 18)?
  • What happened to those with unclean spirits (v. 18)?
  • What did the crowd want (v. 19)? Why?
• Who is Jesus teaching in v. 20-23?
  • According to v. 20, who is blessed? Why?
  • According to v. 21, who is blessed? Why?
  • According to v. 22, who is blessed? On whose account are these people rejected?
  • What should the disciples do when these things happen (v. 23)?
    • Why?
    • To whom else did these things happen?

Interpretation

• If Jesus is the Son of God, why did he need to pray so much?
• Look at the list of apostles that Jesus chose. Using what you may know about them (and what Luke tells us about them), what kind of people were they? 
  • Were they influential or powerful? Morally superior?
  • Why might Jesus have selected these kinds of people to be his disciples?
• Looking at the so-called “sermon on the plain” (v. 20-23):
  • What does it mean to be “blessed”?
  • What does it mean that “yours is the kingdom of God” (v. 20)?
  • When Jesus talks about being poor, hungry, and weeping (v. 20-21), what is he talking about? 
    • Is he speaking about literal, physical poverty and hunger? 
    • Or is it a spiritual hunger/poverty that he’s talking about? Or both? 
  • When do the blessed people experience their troubles (v. 21)? When and where do they receive their reward (v. 21 and 23)?

Application

• How does Jesus’ commitment to prayer (seen throughout Luke’s account) encourage you as you pray?
• What kinds of people does the world consider to be blessed? 
  • How are you tempted to live in light of that kind of blessedness?
  • Why is it hard to us to live for the kind of blessedness that Jesus describes?
  • Are there any ways that you avoid being rejected by people because you are a follower of Jesus (v. 22)?
  • How can you cultivate the kind of poverty, hunger, and weeping that Jesus commends?

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