Do you want to learn how to read, interpret, and apply God’s word? In today’s episode, let’s get some hands-on practice.
This is Scripture for Students. I’m Steve Whitacre, president of Trinity College and a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. I want to help students build a daily habit for life-long Bible reading. Today is February 28, 2025 and this is a Read With Me episode from Luke 14. What I mean is that in this episode, rather than you just listen to me talk about the day’s reading, I want to read the text with you and have you get some hands-on experience with interpretation. So grab your Bible and let’s get started.
Our readings for today are Exodus 11–12:21, Luke 14, and Job 29.
Please open your Bibles to Luke 14.
As we get started here, let me tell you two true tales of construction projects gone wrong. My dad told me that when he was a midshipman at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, they had just finished building a new library. Shortly after the library opened, the people in charge were shocked and dismayed to find that the library was sinking. It turned out that the foundation was inadequate: the architects and civil engineers built the foundation to support the weight of the building, but had not calculated the weight of the books.
In a similar story, I once visited an orphanage in a small town in Mexico with a very old, very rusty water tower with very skinny legs. It looked a lot like a shrugging spider. My friend there told me that the water tower had never been used. Same problem: the designers designed the legs to support the weight of the tower but not the water in the tower.
In today’s Read With Me, we’re going to take a look together at a few verses that talk about thinking carefully about what you are planning to build.
Please follow along as I read Luke 14:25–33,
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing and the keeping of his Word.
Ok, so let’s start with some basic principles of interpretation. Who wrote these verses, and what is the situation they are describing/ If you’re not sure, take a minute to look back at earlier verses and see if you can figure it out. If you need to, pause the podcast here, do that, and then come back when you’re done.
Ok, you got it figured out? This is the gospel of Luke, so Luke is the one who wrote these words, but in my Bible, they are red letters, so Jesus is the one who said them. What is the setting for this passage? Earlier in the chapter, Jesus had dinner “at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees,” but it seems that we’ve moved on, because now in verse 25, there are “great crowds accompanying him.”
So, how do we interpret these verses? When we think about reading God’s word, there are lots of questions we can ask, lots of details we can look for, lots to think about, but it really boils down to two things: we want to know: what did these verses mean when they were originally written: in other words, to the original author or speaker and to the original readers. Each passage of Scripture has one meaning. The second question is about application: how are these verses supposed to change how we live?
Let’s start with meaning. We want to understand what the whole passage means, so to do that, we may need to ask: what do the parts of the passage mean? What do individual verses mean? Are there any parts of this passage that are hard to understand? Take a moment and look through these verses and ask yourself: what is hard to understand here?
How about verse 26? “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” What do you think Jesus means by “hate”? Do you really think he expects his followers to hate their own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and even his own life?
When you run across something like this in your Bible that is hard to understand, it might be a good idea to do a little digging and see if you can find out what it means. Remember that the Bible wasn’t written in English; the OT was written in Hebrew and the NT in Greek. Maybe the word hate doesn’t mean exactly the same thing in English that it did in Greek. Do you have a study Bible in your house? Or maybe your parents do? If so, I want you to look up Luke 14:26 in that Bible, find the note at the bottom of the page and see what it says about this word. Pause the podcast, do that, and then come back when you’re done.
Ok what did you find? You probably discovered that it is exactly what happened: the Greek word here can mean hate, but doesn’t always or only mean that. My copy of the ESV Study Bible says, “Hating” is a Semitic expression for loving less (cf. Gen. 29:30–31; Deut. 21:15–17; Matt. 10:37).” That is clarifying. It doesn’t mean get angry at and despise your parents and siblings and everyone else. But it does mean: love God so much that you prefer him above everything else, even your family.
What happens next in this passage? Jesus says in verse 27, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Then, he tells a couple stories to help us understand. What I would like you to do now is write a 1-2 sentence summary of verses 28–32. See if you can capture here: what is the big idea, how many ways does Jesus express that idea, and what are the different ways he communicates that idea? Pause the podcast now, do that, and then come back when you are done.
Did you figure it out? It looks like Jesus tells two stories, one about building and one about soldiering. What do these stories have in common? I’m sure you noticed that they are both about planning: does a person consider the thing he is setting out to do and ask: what will this cost me?
Now, what is the point that you think Jesus is trying to make with these stories? Take a moment and write down in your own words one sentence that explains what Jesus is trying to communicate here. It might help to look at the verses right before or right after the parable of the tower and the parable of the general. Pause the podcast now and write your sentence about what Jesus is saying, and then come back when you’re done.
Ok, how did we do? You may have noticed that we don’t really have to guess what Jesus meant because he tells us in verse 33, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
There’s the point from verse 27 and verse 33. I might say it like this: Salvation in Jesus is completely free, but it will cost you everything. Christians are people who are ready to give up anything and maybe everything they have to follow Jesus. That might include material possessions, or reputation, or comfort, or friendships, or entertainment, or anything that else that we might be tempted to love more than Jesus.
So, the application here is obvious. Is there anything in your life that you love more than Jesus? Anything that you are holding on to that is keeping you from coming to Jesus? Is there anything that, if Jesus asked you to give it up, you would not want to? This would be a great conversation to have with your parents. If they are Christians and godly, they might have ideas here that you haven’t even thought of before. It’s a great opportunity for humility: you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!
That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a friend and follow us on Apple Podcasts.
This content is sponsored by Trinity College of Louisville. We shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Learn more at TrinityCollegeLou.com. Until next time, keep growing!