Luke 19:1-27: “Zaccheus Comes To Try And Get A Glimpse Of
Jesus / Parable Of The Minas”
By
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study, we looked
at verses 18-43 of chapter 18.
1.1.1.
We saw that Jesus met a rich
young ruler who asked him what good thing that he might be able to do to ensure
that he will have eternal life.
1.1.2.
Jesus yet again predicted
His rejection, humiliation, suffering, death, and resurrection to His
disciples.
1.1.3.
Jesus healed a man beside
the road who was blind and called out to Him for mercy.
1.2.
In our study today, we are
going to look at verses 1-27 of chapter 19.
1.2.1. A chief tax gatherer named Zaccheus will determine that he wants to try
and see Jesus however because he is small he is afraid that he will not be able
to see Jesus, so he climbs up in a Sycamore Tree and waits up the road for
Jesus to come to him.
1.2.2. Jesus will teach the Parable Of The Minas which is very similar to the
parable found in Matthew’s gospel called, “The Parable Of The Talents.”
2. VS 19:1-10 - “1 He
entered
2.1.
This is an interesting story
on many accounts. What an unlikely event
is this, a very rich chief tax collector coming to salvation and then turning
into a benefactor to the poor, while making fourfold restitution also to all of
those whom he had wronged.
2.2.
Zaccheus is described here
as a ‘chief tax collector’ which probably means that he had others
working under him over whom he received a percentage of all of their
income. As a ‘tax collector’ he
probably had a toll booth along the road going to
2.3.
Though Zaccheus was a
powerful man, and a very rich man, he was also a short man. He must have been a short and stocky powerful
man to be good at extortion as a chief tax collector.
2.4.
Zaccheus’ desire to see
Jesus was probably just the result of mere curiosity, however he gets much more
than he bargained for. He ends up
becoming a disciple of Jesus. This is
often how people come to salvation, they at some point begin to seek after the
Lord until one day they end up having a salvation experience with Him.
2.5.
This story appears placed
where it is for the sake of contrast. In
our previous study we looked at the rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking
what good thing he might be able to do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus told the man that what he lacked
was that he must sell all of his possessions and distribute them to the poor,
the rich young ruler went away sad and grieved because being rich he was not
willing to do away with his riches.
Jesus then taught about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven saying that it would be easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to come to salvation. However, in our story today Zaccheus is that camel who goes through
the eye of a needle for he is a rich man who comes to have a glorious
salvation experience with Jesus.
2.6.
In this story, we see that
by climbing up into the Sycamore Tree Zaccheus hoped to somehow be able to see
Jesus, for he was seeking after Jesus.
However, we also see that Jesus was seeking after him. When Jesus walks up to Zaccheus He
immediately calls Zaccheus by name. It
appears to have been a miraculous thing for Jesus to have known Zaccheus’ name
not ever having met him.
2.7.
Whenever a person seeks
after the Lord, it is the case that in reality what is happening is that the
Lord is seeking after him. The
scriptures reveal to us that since the fall of Adam men and women are born with
a sinful nature and thus by nature they go astray from God’s will and obedience
to God’s Law. Paul wrote in
2.8.
Just as in Zaccheus’ day,
the Lord Jesus is in the business of initiating relationships with the people
on this earth for the purpose of bringing them into His kingdom and so that
they might have their sins forgiven, be reconciled to God, and inherit eternal
salvation. This is the same truth
revealed over and over again in the gospels in the lives of, for instance, the
Prodigal Son, the woman of Samaria who was drawing water, and Nicodemus who
came to Him by night (John 3), and, in the parables of the Lost Coin and the
Lost Sheep.
2.8.1. We Christians ought to be people who are following Jesus’ example and
always seeking to initiate relationships for the purpose of bringing people to
the Savior.
2.9.
We don’t know how long
Zaccheus spent with Jesus. It could have
been a couple of days or it could have been just for a meal.
2.10.
The crowd with Jesus on this
day was offended that Jesus, a man who was a spiritual leader among the people
and one who should have known better, would go to the house and be a guest of a
man who was ‘a sinner.’ Tax
collectors were looked upon by Jews as being “unclean” and thus it was
believed that going to a tax collector’s house would cause a person to be
defiled.
2.11.
It appears that as Zaccheus
was going en route to his house with Jesus that he stopped and told the Lord
that he would give half of all that he owned to the poor and that he would give
back to everyone from whom he had extorted money four times as much money as he
had extorted. Zaccheus seems to be
prompted to make this commitment to Jesus because he heard the crowd grumbling
about Jesus going with him to his house.
This may have been a breaking point in his life as he realized how great
God’s grace is.
2.12.
In our story, Zaccheus shows
all of the fruits of having come to a true salvation experience. When a person comes to salvation if there is
no fruit that begins to be born in his/her life at that point then the person’s
salvation experience is probably not valid.
2.12.1.
Zaccheus’ attitude towards
people and money drastically changes. He
no longer seeks to use people and live for money but rather to bless people
through the use of his money.
2.12.2.
Zaccheus chooses to give
back fourfold to those whom he had defrauded which is much more than that which
the Law required in such cases. In
Leviticus 5:14-16 and Numbers 5:5-7, we read that if a person deals unfaithfully
in regard to a person’s goods (i.e. steals from them) then he is to make
restitution plus add a fifth to it (20%).
Likewise, in Exodus 22:7-9 and 2 Samuel 12:6 we read that if a person
were to rustle someone’s animals and take them for his own that he was to make
double restitution for these animals.
Yet, incredibly Zaccheus makes fourfold restitution, and he does it to
“all” whom he had defrauded.
2.12.3.
A person would be considered
generous if he gave away even 20% of all that he had to the poor, however after
coming to salvation through Jesus, Zaccheus decides to give away 50% of all
that he owned to the poor.
2.13.
It must also be the case
that Zaccheus first made fourfold restitution to those from whom he had
extorted money and then he gave half of the rest of his money to the poor,
otherwise he would have potentially been giving away what was not his.
2.14.
It is important that we as
Christians make restitution to people when we have wronged them. You don’t hear much about this in churches
today, however a person’s spiritual growth and health is going to be greatly
hampered if after coming to salvation, he/she does not seek to make restitution
to those whom he/she might has wronged in the past as well as those whom he/she
might wrong in the future.
2.14.1.
When I first came to salvation
the Lord strongly put it on my heart to do certain things, including to make
restitution to people for the bad things I had done in the past. He told me for instance to apologize to some
people for things I had said or done, in particular my parents for how I had
treated them growing up. Also, when I
was a youngster my sister at one point had been very frugal in saving
money. She had saved up $17. I was very jealous of her because she could
save money but I couldn’t. So, one day I
stole her $17. This was very
disappointing and disturbing to her.
When I came to salvation the Lord had put it on my heart to pay my
sister back however over time I sort of forgot about doing that. It was about 15 years later however that I
was doing a lot of praying and fasting that the Lord would reveal to me things
in my life that I should deal with that might be hindering me in my growth and
from being used by the Lord as I should be, and low and behold He reminded me
that I had never yet made restitution to my sister for stealing her $17. That day, I wrote her a check for $100 along
with a letter telling her I was sorry for stealing her money, that the Lord was
leading me to send her this check, and telling her to use the money to buy
something nice for herself.
2.14.2.
Notice in verse 10 that
Jesus gives us His “Mission Statement’ :
‘to seek and save that which was lost.’ His desire is to seek after lost souls and
bring them to salvation.
2.14.2.1. Oh, Christian should this not also be your mission statement?
3. VS 19:11-27 - “11
While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a
parable, because He was near
3.1.
We see here in this parable
that Jesus is attempting to forestall a problem with His disciples regarding
their expectations of Him as the Messiah.
Luke includes here that Jesus told His disciples this parable because, ‘they
supposed that the
3.1.1. It seems that every generation of Christians has believed that the
return of Christ would be in their lifetime.
Believing this though can cause people to make some wrong decisions
concerning their life.
3.1.2. We as Christians need to learn from this story the fact that though we
may believe that the Lord is soon going to appear and take us to glory that it
is none the less the case that we need to live our life in this world with the
view in mind that in case He delays His coming that we shall make plans and
live responsibly in this life living as good stewards of the things that He has
given us and brought into our life. As
the stewards in this parable, in this life we need to ‘occupy’ or ‘do
business’ for the Lord and His kingdom until He returns for us, i.e. we are
supposed to be about His business.
3.2.
In this parable, Jesus
corresponds to the ‘king’ here who goes away to a distant land to
receive a kingdom. This is in fact the
very thing that Jesus is doing at the present time. He has gone to heaven where He is seated on
the throne awaiting the period of time in which all is complete and He may
return to the earth in order to establish His
3.3.
The ‘slaves’
correspond not only to Jesus’ disciples in that day but to all of His disciples
throughout history who are awaiting His return to the earth for them. Notice that this is the second time that Luke
has included a story from Jesus in which we who are Christians are pictured as
being God’s ‘slaves.’ A slave has
no rights and no property of his own, all belongs to His master.
3.4.
In Matt. 25:14-30, there is
recorded the Parable Of The Talents and in most regards, especially the
spiritual application, it parallels this parable found in Luke, with the
exception of a few details:
3.4.1. The man with slaves in Matthew’s parable account was a businessman but
the man in this account was a king to be.
3.4.2. In Matthew’s parable account, each slave was given a different number
of talents with which they were entrusted.
Here in Luke each slave receives the exact same amount, or one ‘mina.’
3.4.3. In Matthew’s parable account, the slaves were given various numbers
of “talents,” and a “talent”
was worth one hundred times that of a ‘mina.’ The ‘mina’ that each slave was given
here was worth about four month’s wages.
3.5.
To often I believe that it is the case that
Christians lose sight of the fact that they have been placed here on this earth
by the Lord for specific callings and ministries. The world becomes alluring and it is easy to
follow the ways of the world and start living for a career, a hobby, a sport, a
cause, or some worldly endeavor. In
fact, many times Christians get too caught up in things that are not evil in
and of themselves, such as for instance social activities, however they lose
sight of their calling and being used of God in the ministries that they were
put on the earth to perform. The Lord
tells each of us to be good stewards and to ‘do business’ in His kingdom
utilizing those things which He has invested in us and committed to our trust.
3.6.
Spurgeon once preached the
following about how we as Christians need to be careful not to think that the
things given to us by the Lord are really our own instead of His, “…A
steward is a man who is put in trust with his master’s goods. This is the main
point of his stewardship; nothing is his own, it is all his master’s. When he
begins to open an account of his own, it is wonderful how apt he is to mistake
what is his master’s, and to call it his own; and by-and-by he gets into a
muddle, and cannot distinguish his master’s accounts from his own. Oh, it is a
glorious thing when you have not any “own”; when you do not
live for yourself at all, but wholly for Christ! Then you will not make any
blunders; there will not be any of Christ’s property getting into your cash
account, so that you will have a difficulty in disentangling it. “No
man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life,” for
he can say,- “’Tis done, the
great transaction’s done, I am my Lord’s.””
3.7.
This parable also brings to
our minds the fact that we as God’s people have a responsibility with the money
and goods of this world that the Lord has allowed us in His grace to
possess. The following quote and
illustration by Wiersbe reveals the importance of being good stewards to the
Lord of all of our money and goods.
Warren Wiersbe in his commentary of Proverbs has written the following
about his own life and the fact that we as Christians need to learn what it
means to be faithful stewards, “I was a “depression baby” and the text my sister and
two brothers and I learned to live by was, “Use it up, wear it out; make it do,
or do without.” Our parents taught us the difference between luxuries and
necessities, and they didn’t try to impress the neighbors by purchasing things
they didn’t need with money they couldn’t afford to spend. But that philosophy
of life seems to have almost disappeared.
Today if you talk about hard work, wise stewardship, the dangers of
debt, and the importance of accountability before God, somebody is bound to
smile (or laugh out loud) and tell you that times have changed. Our Heavenly Father knows that His children
have needs that must be met (Matt. 6:32); in our modern society, this means we
must have money to procure them. But our
most important task isn’t to earn money; our most important task is to be the
kind of people God can trust with money, people who are faithful in the way we
use what God gives us. “But seek first the
3.8.
Being a good and faithful
steward of Christ’s involves a life of service to others, “The great
violinist Nicolo Paganini willed his marvelous violin to the city of
3.9.
In the book, “Living a Full
Life : A Pictorial Interpretation of the Ten Commandments,” the author writes
the following concerning the positive aspect of the eighth of the ten
commandments, “Thou shall not steal” :
This commandment concerns good stewardship of our
possessions and refraining from damaging or stealing other people’s
possessions. Gordon Spykman once wrote that ‘There are
roughly four kinds of people in the world.
“What is yours is mine, and I’ll take it,”
says the robber.
“What is mine is mine, and I’ll keep it,” says
the miser.
“What is mine is yours, so I’ll share it,”
says the humanist.
“What is mine is God’s, so I’ll share it,”
says the Christian.’
Which category applies to you?
We must remember that none of our possessions really
belongs to us. All that we have is a gift from God. In Psalm 24:1 we read, ‘The
earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it; …’ Jesus says, ‘… do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body what you
will wear, but first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you.’ Also read Matthew 6:25–34.
3.10.
This concept of stewardship
is really all encompassing in our lives as Christians for it involves every
area of our life. One area of
stewardship that we who are parents must take seriously is the raising of our
children in such a way as they will grow up to serve the Lord.
3.11.
Just as happened with these
slaves in this parable, the parable teaches us that there will eventually come
a time when each one of God’s people will have to “give account” of
himself to the Lord. One day, there will
be a judgment of believers which is called the “Bema Judgment” in 1 Cor.
chapter 3. On that day, believers will
be rewarded for their faithfulness in completing the works that they have been
called to complete for Christ in this life.
Each one of God’s people is a steward and for his/her stewardship he/she
will give account to the Lord on that day.
3.11.1.
There are many places in the Old and New Testaments
where scripture tells us that we will all have to stand before the Lord for
judgment. For instance, Paul wrote the
following in Romans 14:10-12, “10 But you, why do you judge your
brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we
will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For it is
written, “As I live, says
the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall give praise to God.”
12 So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”
3.11.2.
It is not only pastors and church
leaders who will give an account of all that they have done in this life to the
Lord, rather every single Christian from the oldest to the youngest, across
every culture and nationality.
3.12.
We see from this parable
that the reward of faithful stewardship in this life is further promotion and
responsibilities in the world to come, ruling over cities during Christ’s
3.13.
When you think about it, the
Lord rewards each of us His children many times (a hundred fold) more than what
we deserve, even for our being faithful.
The Lord is responsible for almost everything that happens whenever, for
instance, we share the gospel with a person and they accept Christ and are
saved. Our part in that process is
miniscule in comparison to the part that the Lord plays in bringing such a
miraculous work about. Our very rewards
in heaven will be tremendous eternal reminders of God’s grace and mercy in our
lives.
3.14.
Various levels of
faithfulness are demonstrated by these three slaves in this parable. The first two slaves are declared to be good
and faithful slaves earning rewards proportional to their faithfulness. The third man is found to be unfaithful and
has no reward but instead will be punished.
The first man’s mina has earned him a profit of ‘ten minas more’
for a total of eleven. The second man’s
mina has earned him a profit of five minas.
3.15.
The third man in the parable
however was unfaithful.
3.15.1.
Instead of acting like a
good steward with the charge he had been given to do business for the king with
his mina, he instead hid the mina in a handkerchief.
3.15.2.
This third man acknowledges
that he has received this mina from the Lord, however just acknowledging that
what we have has come to us from the Lord is not enough, a person must be a
faithful steward with that which the Lord has entrusted to him, he must ‘do
business’ with it for the Lord.
3.15.3.
Jesus rebukes the man
because he could have at least placed the mina in a bank account so it could
earn some interest. Plus, being hidden
as it was the mina was subject to being stolen or being corrupted.
3.15.4.
This man is just like
unbelievers today and how they regard the Lord.
Do they not build up a big case against God? He rejected the king and rebelled against
him, and in order to appease his conscience he concocts in his mind that the
king is a harsh man who cannot be trusted.
He has built a great big case against the king however he does not truly
know his king. He charges that he knew
that the king was ‘an exacting man’ who takes away that which does not
belong to him. He reasons that he knew
that if he did well in business that this king would just take away all of his
profit and that if he did not do well that the king would take his profit
anyway. However, the king’s reckoning
with the first two slaves proves how wrong this slave was about the true
character of his king.
3.15.5.
The mina that had been given
to this third slave is taken away now and given to the slave who had gained ten
minas.
3.16.
When one complains about the
man who has ten minas getting the unfaithful steward’s mina, Jesus reveals the
generosity of the Lord in meting out rewards here by stating, ‘to
everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even
what he does have shall be taken away.’
3.17.
Jesus finally tells us the
sober truth of what will happen to the people on this earth who refuse to allow
the Lord to rule over their lives, He says, ‘these enemies of mine, who did not
want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.’ This statement serves as a
symbol of the eternal punishment that awaits all of those who reject Christ in
this life.
4. CONCLUSIONS:
4.1.
As we consider this study
and how the lessons from it apply to our life, lets first of all be committed
to showing the fruits of our salvation as does this man Zaccheus.
4.1.1. Lets be careful of the way that we view money and people and see
ourselves as a benefactor to others and use our affluence to be a benefit to
others.
4.1.2. Remember to practice making restitution to others if you should wrong
them.
4.1.3. Lets be like Jesus and always seek to initiate relationships with
people in order to bring them to the Savior.
4.2.
Lets remember that we are
merely stewards of the things that God has given to us. The things that we have are not our own, they
have been entrusted to us by the Lord, so lets use them prayerfully and at the
Lord’s leading in our life.
4.3.
Lets be faithful financial stewards,
and always remember that all that in all that we have and that we do that we
are to be found to be good and faithful stewards to the Lord.
4.4.
Lets be faithful stewards of
our gifts and ministries that the Lord has given to us.
4.5.
Don’t forget that one day
you shall give an account of all that you do in this life.