Luke 20 Bible study: In the hearing of all the people

"On one of those days, as he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the Good News, the priests and scribes came to him with the elders." (20:1) (tap Good News). They asked him, "Tell us: by what authority do you do these things? Or who is giving you this authority?" (20:2) (tap authority). He answered with a question of his own: "the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?" (20:4). They reasoned with themselves, "If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’" (20:5), and "But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet." (20:6) (tap stone). "They answered that they didn’t know where it was from." (20:7), and "Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”" (20:8). Here is what almost everyone misses: Luke keeps the people in view all through this chapter. In Luke's Greek the word for people (laos) comes in five of its verses (counted in RP2018): he was "teaching the people" (20:1); "all the people will stone us" (20:6); "He began to tell the people this parable" (20:9); "They weren’t able to trap him in his words before the people" (20:26); and the last scene opens, "In the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples" (20:45). The WEB has the people in one more verse: "they feared the people" (20:19). Luke doesn't say why, and these notes don't either. Favor's Mark 11 asks why Jesus didn't tell them by what authority he did these things (see Questions asked in other chapters).

2 Chronicles 36:15→leads toLuke 20:10-13

2 Chronicles says, "The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place" (36:15), "but they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets" (36:16). In Jesus' parable, a man who planted a vineyard "sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty" (Luke 20:10). "He sent yet another servant" (Luke 20:11), and "He sent yet a third" (Luke 20:12). Then the lord of the vineyard said, "I will send my beloved son. It may be that seeing him, they will respect him" (Luke 20:13). Jesus doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 36, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: messengers sent, one after another, and turned away. Some hear in the parable what 36:15-16 tells, and see in "my beloved son" (Luke 20:13) one sent after all the messengers. Others read the parable as those who heard it did, "for they knew he had spoken this parable against them" (Luke 20:19), and don't look from it to 2 Chronicles 36.

ἐξουσίαexousiasay ex-oo-SEE-ah

Strong's lists among its English words "authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength". They ask him, "Tell us: by what authority do you do these things? Or who is giving you this authority?" (20:2), and he ends, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things." (20:8). The word comes once more in the chapter, when spies are sent "that they might trap him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the power and authority of the governor" (20:20). Favor's Luke 4 counts it in Luke, and Favor's Mark 11 studies it in Mark's telling of this question (Mark 11:28).