Bible Memory Vers
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2
Luke 18:9-14
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: (10 ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. (11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evil doers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. (12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
(13 But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat
his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
(14 I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’”
1. To whom did Jesus tell this parable?
2. Where did the two men go to pray? Were they right in doing that? “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” Mark 11:17 (quoted from Isaiah 56:7)
3. Who are Pharisees? (religious leaders in Jesus’ time)
4. What was the Pharisee proud of? (Fasting is going without food. Tithing is giving a tenth of your money or what you have to the Lord. “Fasting was not commanded in the Mosaic law except for a fast on the day of Atonement. However, the Pharisee also fasted on Mondays and Thursdays…As a typical first-century Pharisee, he tithed all that he acquired, not merely what he earned.” NIV Study Bible)
5. Why shouldn’t the Pharisee be proud of what he was doing for God? “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
6. Tax collectors were hated in Jesus’ time because they collected money for the Romans who ruled over the Jews and because they often collected more money than they were supposed to collect keeping the difference for themselves. Jesus probably used a tax collector as an example because people considered them to be sinful men. Why was the tax collector justified or made right with God?