Slices
Prepare
Pray through these verses: ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.’ (Psalm 51:1,2).
Bible passage
Repent or perish
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’
6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig-tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, “For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?”
8 ‘“Sir,” the man replied, “leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig round it and fertilise it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”’
Explore
The main focus of this passage is set out in verses 3 and 5: we must repent and turn to God.
Consider God as a master gardener, as he is in other parts of the Bible (eg John 15:1–17): in verses 6–9, he is tending to his vineyard. He agrees to give his fig tree another year to see if it responds to some additional love and care – and if it doesn’t, it will be cut down.
God’s world is like the fig tree. Will it respond and grow according to God’s word and direction, or will it perish?
Jesus is clear in verses 1–5: people don’t perish or experience particularly awful situations because they are worse than other people (see also John 9:2,3); there are no categories of sinners – we are all sinful and need God. And God is gracious, giving his fig tree an extra year to respond to his attentions (vs 8,9). How will we respond to his reaching out to us?
Respond
Spend some time in prayer and worship. ‘See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks… let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe’ (Hebrews 12:25,28).
Deeper Bible study
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.’1
News travelled south along the road from Galilee: Pilate had committed a gruesome massacre. Although this is not recorded elsewhere in our Scriptures, Pilate was notoriously violent towards religious gatherings he considered subversive.2 From Jesus’ ‘answer’ (v 2), it seems that the crowd were questioning whether these deaths were deserved, whether Pilate was God’s instrument of punishment. Some interpreted the old covenant as teaching that good people were blessed and bad people cursed, but this atrocity picks up another strand in the Old Testament: the difficult question of the suffering of the innocent. This is the only context in the Gospels where Jesus deals specifically with innocent suffering. His answer is clear: those people had not suffered because they were worse sinners than others. Turning to a natural disaster, the collapse of a tower in Siloam, possibly part of the wall of Jerusalem, Jesus gives the same answer: It was an accident, with no connection to the victims’ sins. Christians who want to see the hand of God in tsunami and flood and drought, or even in the Covid virus, should heed Jesus’ words.
We live in a fallen world where God permits human sin and corrupted earth to run their course. Both will continue to mutate and deform. Both will cause suffering and death, until God brings this age to its close and creation is finally restored. Jesus warns us that, when confronted with news of such disasters, we should be thoughtful, reminded of our own mortality, using the opportunity to repent – that is, to turn our lives around and reorient ourselves to the right path.3 Like the fig tree, we always have another chance. However, like the fig tree’s reprieve, that chance does not last for ever.
Lord of the earth, we feel the pain of sin and a dysfunctional world. Help us to turn and follow you, who will make all things new.
1 Helen Lemmel, 1863–1961 2 Eg Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, 18:86–87 3 Greek: metanoia, ‘turn around’, ‘repent’
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Daniel 4,5; 1 John 5
Pray for Scripture Union
Please pray for the team as they put the finishing touches to the July– September 2023 edition of Daily Bread and Encounter with God. Pray that these publications will be helpful and will build up those who read them next year.
