Continuing a Bible study of the Gospels:
(Luke 11:29) And when the people were gathered thick together, He began to say, "This is an evil generation; they seek a sign, and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet."
At the end of the last post, Jesus had been speaking to a group of people, and it seems the crowd became larger. Jesus may have been referring to those who had sought a sign from heaven in verse 16. He called them an evil generation for wanting yet another sign. They came for the thrill of seeing Jesus do another miracle when He had already done so much to awaken their consciences to His truth. He said there would be no other sign given them except for the sign of Jonah the prophet. It's not that Jesus would do no more miracles, but He certainly wouldn't be performing them just to give people a sign that He was who He said He was. That generation could expect nothing more of Him until His resurrection, typified by Jonah's three days in the belly of a whale.
(30) "For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation."
Jesus said as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites in that he was three days and nights in the whale's belly and then cast out alive, a miracle confirming his mission and message to the Ninevites, likewise He would be a sign to that present generation when He was three days in the tomb and then rising from death on the third day to confirm His mission and message to them.
(31) "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here."
Jesus spoke of the queen of Sheba, a country of Arabia, who came from her faraway country to hear the wisdom of Solomon. In the judgment day, she would be considered greater than that present generation and would by her actions condemn them, because she, as a Gentile, sought the wisdom of Solomon, and that generation of Jews who had Jesus, far greater than Solomon, rejected Him, and sought more and more signs from Him.
(32) "The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here."
Likewise, Jesus said, the men of Nineveh would also rise up in the judgment day and would condemn that present generation because they had repented when Jonah preached to them, and that generation had the Messiah Himself, much greater than Jonah, and they did not repent.
(33) "No man, when he has lit a candle, puts it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they who come may see the light."
Still in answer to those who sought another sign, Jesus was the light of the world, and He shone His light in public where all could see. He had not hidden His light from them, so that generation was inexcusable. Another way to look at this was that Jesus would not hide His light in a secret place or under a bushel basket like He would be doing if He continued to show signs to a stubborn people who disbelieved every evidence of His Messiahship.
(34) "The light of the body is the eye; therefore, when your eye is single, your whole body is also full of light, but when evil, your body also is full of darkness."
Jesus said the light of the body was the eye, not in the sense that that is where the light originates, but that is where it is received. If it had a single clear vision of The Light that is Christ, then the whole body would be filled with light. However, if the eye was evil, not clear, but clouded by stubbornness and prejudices, then the body would remain in darkness.
(35) "Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in you is not darkness."
Jesus gave a warning that they be careful about their eyes, that they readily receive the light of truth, and not be as that generation had been, never really desiring to know the light of Christ, but in obstinance and prejudice, could not see it, and therefore, were in darkness. Note that Jesus said there would be some sort of light or lack thereof in each of us. There would be either light or darkness, and they should take care that theirs be light and not darkness.
(36) "If your whole body, therefore, is full of light, having no dark part, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle gives you light."
Jesus said that if your whole body then be full of light, having no dark places of secret sin, then you would be as a bright shining light that gives forth its light to others in the room. It was another way of saying, "Let your light so shine before men..." (Matthew 5:16)
(37) And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee sought Him to dine with him, and He went in and sat down to eat.
As Jesus was still speaking, a certain man, a Pharisee, asked Jesus if He would dine with him. Jesus accepted and went into the house and sat down at the table to eat. This was another occasion when Jesus accepted the invitation of a Pharisee to dine with him; the previous time was recorded in Luke 7:36.
(38) And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.
The Pharisee noticed that Jesus did not wash before He sat down to eat. He was amazed that so great a prophet showed no regard for such a common custom. I couldn't help but think about the first time Jesus sat down with a Pharisee. In Luke 7:44, Jesus told that Pharisee that he had not offered Him any water to wash. I imagine it was the same way in this case. However, Jesus used it for a lesson:
(39) And the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness."
Jesus knew the Pharisee's thoughts and pointed out to him that Pharisees like him were fastidious with the cleanliness of the outside of their dishes, but the inside was filled with what had been unjustly taken from others through their dishonesty, greed, and extortion. In the account in Matthew 23, Jesus used the words "extortion and excess" to describe what filled the inside of their dishes.
(40) "Fools, did not He who made that which is outside make that which is inside also?"
Jesus called them foolish for not realizing that God made the outside and the inside of people. They did things in view of the public to show how clean and fastidious they were about the visible things of God, while inside they were filthy. How could God be pleased with their outward demonstrations of purity when inside they were impure and wicked?
(41) "But rather give alms of such things as you have, and behold, all things are clean to you."
Jesus told them they should be inwardly clean as well, giving of their possessions to people in need. They would be clean in all ways then, and when their inside hearts were clean, they would find that all the outside cleansing would become unnecessary. The outside things could not make dirty the inside hearts of men.
(42) "But woe to you, Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God; these you ought to have done and not leave the other undone."
Jesus proclaimed woe to the Pharisees who were so careful to tithe every single little herb, but neglected justice and demonstrating God's love to the poor and needy. He told them they should be doing both things.
(43) "Woe to you, Pharisees! For you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets."
Again Jesus pronounced woe to the Pharisees who loved the best seats in the synagogues and to be seen and greeted in the marketplaces, both resulting from their pride and vanity.
(44) "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are as graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them."
Jesus then addressed both Pharisees and scribes and called them hypocrites. He said they were like unmarked graves that men walked upon and came in contact with unaware. Coming in contact with the dead made one unclean. Jesus was suggesting that they were secretly unclean to those they came in contact with. They appeared pure and clean on the outside, but were unclean and wicked on the inside, defiling those who came in contact with them.
(45) Then answered one of the lawyers, and said to Him, "Master, thus saying You reproach us also."
One of the lawyers who must have been dining with them spoke to Jesus, and said that in what He was saying, He condemned lawyers as well, apparently because they, too, liked the uppermost rooms in the synagogues and to be greeted in the marketplaces.
(46) And He said, "Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens oppressive to be borne, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers."
Jesus admitted that yes, He was indeed pronouncing woe on lawyers, too, because they made the laws so oppressive and burdensome on the people that they could not bear it, while they themselves did not adhere to the same oppressive laws.
(47) "Woe to you! For you build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them."
Jesus called them all out because they were hypocritical in that they built fine tombs for the prophets when their fathers, and very likely they would have also if they had been there, killed the prophets.
(48) "Truly you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchres."
Jesus told them that their deeds truly bore witness to the deeds of their fathers. They showed approval of their fathers' deeds by building those fine sepulchres; they tried to cover up what their fathers had done with a pretense of godliness by building beautiful tombs for the prophets their fathers killed. Additionally, by building those beautiful tombs, it was as if they were glorifying what their fathers had done, setting up monuments in honor of it.
(49) "Therefore also said the wisdom of God, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute.'"
However, the wisdom of God would reveal their true colors when He sent them more prophets and apostles, and they themselves would persecute and kill some of them.
(50) "That the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, (51) From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple; verily I say to you, it shall be required of this generation."
Jesus here foretells the coming destruction by the Romans and calls it vindication for the blood of the innocent since the beginning. They were just as guilty as their forefathers who had murdered the innocent, and even more so, because they knew the history and kept up the trade of persecution and murder, and even tried to cover it up. God would tolerate it no more, especially after the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus, and the persecution of His apostles after Him.
(52) "Woe to you, lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."
Again Jesus declared woe to the lawyers because they had taken the key to knowledge away from the people to whom they were entrusted to teach. They so corrupted the scriptures that the people did not learn the truth about the coming Messiah and the gospel message. They themselves did not enter into that knowledge that led to eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, and by their corrupt teaching, they hindered those who may have otherwise accepted and clung to the truth.
(53) And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press Him vehemently and to provoke Him to speak of many things, (54) Lying in wait for Him and seeking to catch something out of His mouth that they might accuse Him.
As Jesus spoke these things, the scribes and Pharisees were enraged and violently pressed Him for answers, asking Him about many things, hoping to trap Him into saying something they could use against Him. The prophet Isaiah spoke about those who watched for iniquity and made a man an offender for a word (Isaiah 29:20-21). The scribes and Pharisees were not at all sincere in any of their questions, nor did they sincerely listen to Jesus's answers; they only asked to keep Him talking and only listened to catch something they could use against Him. Boy, does that sound like our present time! People don't discuss and sincerely debate issues anymore; they only seek sound bites they can use against the other side. And just as this led up to the destruction of Jerusalem, we seem to be heading for the destruction of the world in this and many other ways.
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