Luke 18:31-43

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TALKS FOR GROWING CHRISTIANS

The Lord Predicts His Death; A Blind Man is Healed

BACKGROUND NOTES



DOCTRINAL POINT(S)

  1. The Lord knew about His coming death and resurrection.

  2. The Lord hears every humble cry for mercy.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

  1. Don’t let what you want to believe keep you from believing what you should believe.

QUESTIONS

  1. Is this the first time that the Lord told His disciples He would be rejected and killed in Jerusalem?

  2. Review three ways the Lord knew what would happen to Him in the future.

  3. Explain the apparent contradictions between the healing of the blind man recorded in Luke and the parallel accounts in Matthew 20 and Mark 10: - Were there two blind men or one? - Did this miracle take place as they were leaving or approaching Jericho?

  4. Why did the blind man call Jesus “Son of David”?

  5. Why was it so hard for the disciples to understand what the Lord was telling them about His coming rejection, death, and resurrection?

ANSWERS

  1. No, He had told them before in Luke 9:22, 43-45 and 17:24-25. The Lord knew what lay in store for Him, but the disciples did not understand it.

  2. - He had divine omniscience - He studied and learned the Old Testament messianic prophecies - The Holy Spirit revealed these things to Him

  3. - Matthew says that there were two blind men healed. Apparently Mark and Luke concentrate on the one crying out for mercy. Mark even gives us his name: Bartimaeus. - The best explanation is that there were two Jerichos at that time- Old Testament Jericho and New Testament Jericho. The road up to Jerusalem went first alongside the abandoned tel of Old Testament Jericho and then through the city of New Testament Jericho. As Jewish writers, Matthew and Mark probably referred to Old Testament Jericho where so many biblical events in the Old Testament took place. Luke, the Gentile writer, probably referred to the Jericho that was standing at the time of Christ, built by Herod the Great. So the miracle would have taken place on the road between the two Jerichos, as they were leaving the site of Old Testament Jericho and approaching New Testament Jericho.

  4. This was a messianic title. The blind man was humbly crying out for mercy with faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

  5. They wanted to believe that Jesus was the Messiah who would deliver them from the oppression of Rome and set up His earthly kingdom right then. They did not want to believe in a rejected and crucified Messiah. What they wanted to believe kept them from believing what they should have believed.

DISCUSS/CONSIDER

  1. The Lord Jesus was, and is, 100% God and 100% Man. Discuss how His divine attributes were affected when He become Man.

  2. Not all blind people in Israel at the time of Christ were miraculously healed. But this blind man called out for mercy and was healed. We never read of the Lord turning away from a humble cry for mercy. When have you cried to the Lord for mercy? How did He answer you?

CHALLENGE

  1. Don’t let what you want to believe keep you from believing what you should believe.

KEY VERSES

  • “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” Luke 18:31-33

  • “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Luke 18:38



Luke, Talks, New TestamentDeb HarmsLuke 18:31-43