Luke 23:1-5

Luke 23:1-5

And after standing up, all of their multitude led Him to Pilate.  And they began to accuse Him, saying, “We found this one while perverting our nation, while hindering to pay tributes to Caesar, and while saying himself to be Christ – a king.”  And Pilate interrogated Him while saying, “You are the king of the Jews?”  And He answered him saying, “You say.”  And Pilate said to the high priests and the crowd, “I find no cause in this man.”  And they were growing strong, saying that, “He agitates the people while teaching according to the whole of Judea, beginning from Galilee to here.”

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Jesus is accused of perverting the nation.  From the perspective of the Jewish leaders, this would be a true accusation.  Jesus was subverting the culture that they had created.  Granted, we would argue that Jesus was teaching people truth and exposing the religious fallacy of the religious leaders.  It shouldn’t surprise us that one person’s truth garners the label “perversion” from the world.

Have you ever been accused of subverting others when you were just trying to be obedient to God?  Why is there such kind of divergence, even among people who claim to be following the same God?

Second Thought:

Jesus is accused of refusing to pay taxes to Caesar, which is an outright lie.  In fact, we know that Jesus told Peter to go and get a coin out of the mouth of a fish in order to pay His tax and the taxes of His disciples.  Whereas the first accusation may have been true from a certain perspective, this accusation is an outright lie.  Here we can see that people are willing to lie to strengthen their own point.

Have you ever been lied about?  How does that feel?  Why do other people do this?

Third Thought:

The religious leaders play their final card.  They accuse Jesus of claiming Himself to be a king.  This would be a direct offense against Caesar.  This would be the charge that Pilate would really care about.  What did it matter to him if he claimed to be a god in a religion that he didn’t care about?  If He was trying to be king, however, this would be treason and it would need to be dealt with.  He couldn’t risk word getting back to Caesar that he let an insurrection start in this highly volatile area of the Roman Empire.  I am certain that the Jewish leaders say this, especially because it is a charge that has no truth with respect to Jesus.

Have you ever been accused falsely?  Why would people want to accuse other people of false accusations?  What does it teach us about the religious leaders that they would behave this way?

Passage for Tomorrow: Luke 23:6-12