Luke 20:45

Jesus is teaching in the temple courts in Jerusalem during his last week before the cross. It is the Passover season, and the courts are full of people who have come to worship, to listen and to debate. All through this chapter the chief priests, scribes and elders have been trying to trap him. They challenged his authority (Luke 20:1–8), they asked him about paying taxes to Caesar (Luke 20:20–26), and the Sadducees questioned him about the resurrection (Luke 20:27–40). Then Jesus asked a question of his own, how the Messiah can be both David’s son and David’s Lord (Luke 20:41–44), and they were silent. With his opponents answered, he turns to those who follow him.

The warning is spoken “unto his disciples”. The word mathētḗs means a learner or pupil, and here it likely takes in the wider group of committed followers along with the Twelve. These are the people who will carry on his work, and they need to know which kind of leader to keep clear of and which kind they themselves must refuse to become. Jesus had already told them what following him costs (Luke 9:23–26), and the scribes’ way runs the opposite direction.

Luke adds that Jesus said this “in the audience of all the people”. Behind “audience” is the verb akoúō, to hear, and the Greek says that all the people were hearing. The verb for “said”, épō, is the plain word for speaking. Jesus taught openly, and what he teaches his own people is open for everyone to hear and weigh. The crowd around him were the very people who looked up to the scribes, so the warning protects them as well, and it is given in the place where the scribes held their authority. Mark records the same warning (Mark 12:38–40), and Matthew gives it at greater length (Matthew 23:1–12).

The scribes were Israel’s experts in the law of Moses. The word grammateús comes from the word for writing and means a writer or public secretary, and among the Jews it named the men who copied, interpreted and taught the Scriptures. They were highly educated. They served as legal advisers, judges and teachers, and many of them were Pharisees. People respected them for their learning and gave them places of honour.

Their work was good and needed, since it preserved the Scriptures and passed them on. Jesus aims his warning at what they did with the office, which was to use it for their own glory. A sacred calling can be bent by pride, and that is the danger he sets before his disciples.

“Beware” translates proséchō, which means to hold the mind toward something, to pay attention and be cautious. It is a command, and an urgent one. The danger the scribes pose is easy to miss because it looks like godliness, so the disciples have to keep watching for it. What they are to guard against is the scribes’ influence and their example.

Jesus then describes the scribes by their desires. They “desire” to walk in long robes, and the verb thélō speaks of a choice or preference. The stolḗ was a long, flowing garment worn by people of high standing, a sign of authority and learning. The scribes chose to walk about in it so that their rank would be seen.

They “love” greetings in the markets. The verb is philéō, which speaks of fondness, and the greeting is aspasmós, a salutation. The market, agorá, was the public square, the centre of trade and of social life, and to be greeted there with deference was to have your importance confirmed in front of everyone.

They love “the highest seats in the synagogues”. The word prōtokathedría means literally “first sitting”. The synagogue (synagōgḗ) was a community centre as well as a place of worship, and where a man sat showed where he ranked. The first seats were at the front, facing the congregation. They love also “the chief rooms at feasts”. The word is prōtoklisía, “first reclining place”, the most honoured position at a dinner (deîpnon), usually the one nearest the host.

Put together, the four pictures show one desire. In the street, at worship and at table, the scribes wanted to be first and to be seen to be first. Their society prized public honour, so all of this looked respectable, and that is why Jesus names it. He had already told the guests at a feast to take the lowest place (Luke 14:7–11), and at the last supper he will tell his disciples that the greatest among them must be as one who serves (Luke 22:24–27). God looks at the heart and at humble service. Learning and position do not by themselves give anyone spiritual authority.

It means that scribes were taking the property of widows and leaving them ruined. The verb katesthíō means to eat down, to devour, and it is used here as a picture. The “houses” (oikía) stand for a widow’s whole living and security. With this charge Jesus moves from the scribes’ vanity to the harm they did.

A widow in Israel often had no man to protect her and little to live on. A scribe was a legal expert and a religious authority, exactly the person she might trust to manage her affairs, settle an inheritance or give her counsel. He might then charge exorbitant fees, press her into an unfair contract, or bring her to sign her property over. Jesus names the result and leaves the method unstated.

The law these men taught is full of God’s care for widows. God himself takes up the cause of the fatherless and the widow (Deuteronomy 10:18), and Israel was commanded to afflict neither (Exodus 22:22–24). Isaiah says, “Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). James later writes, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). The guardians of the law were breaking it at one of the places where God had spoken most plainly.

Luke follows this warning at once with the poor widow who puts her offering into the temple treasury (Luke 21:1–4). Her giving stands beside the scribes’ greed, and the contrast is plain.

It is a heavier sentence from God. The word kríma means a decision, a verdict or a sentence, and here it is the verdict God will pass on these men. “Greater” is perissóteros, “more superabundant”, so the judgment is more severe in degree.

The reason lies in what they knew and what they were trusted with. They harmed the defenceless, and they did it under the cover of godliness, with the authority of teachers of God’s law. That brought dishonour on God’s name and betrayed the trust placed in them. Jesus had taught that much is required of the one to whom much is given (Luke 12:48), and Paul writes that God will render to every man according to his deeds (Romans 2:6). The same charge of hypocrisy runs through the woes Jesus spoke over the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 11:37–54) and through the woes of Matthew 23.

The one who speaks this sentence is the one who will carry it out. Jesus is the judge before whom all nations will be gathered, and he will separate them as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31–46).

Everything the scribes loved, Jesus laid aside. They wanted honour from men, and he said that he did not receive honour from men (John 5:41). They wanted the first seats, and he taught that whoever would be great among his followers must be their servant (Matthew 20:26), since the Son of man came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). They wore long robes to mark their rank, while the Lord of glory “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7) and washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1–17). He prayed in private and taught his disciples to do the same.

The scribes devoured the flock. Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and guards them from the wolf (John 10:11–14). Within days of this warning he went to the cross as the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), and those who continue in his word know the truth, and the truth makes them free (John 8:31–32). He is the teacher we can follow all the way.

Jesus gives his people a way to tell a teacher’s worth. Learning, dress, a title and a reputation for prayer can all be present where the heart is seeking itself, so he points us to what a leader loves and to how he treats those who cannot repay him. He said it aloud, in front of the crowd, because he wants his people protected.

The passage shows us God’s heart for the widow and for everyone who is easily taken advantage of. He sees what is done to them, including what is done behind a religious face, and he will judge it. Anyone who has been wronged by a person trusted in God’s name can know that the Lord saw it and called it by its true name.

The warning also reaches us. The things the scribes loved are ordinary things, a little recognition and a better place, and prayer and service can be offered with one eye on who is watching. Jesus said these words to his own disciples, which tells us that he thought they needed them. For those who teach or lead, in the church or at home, the passage says plainly that greater trust carries a stricter account. And the Lord who gives the warning took the lowest place himself, and gives his own righteousness to all who believe in him.