God is Sufficient

A single, passing, word, easily overlooked in translation. You could pontificate about it in abstraction, but can you observe its importance, its technicality? Of course, you can’t-not in English. No way. Not in a thousand years.
What does the word luxury have to do with the book of Genesis? Can you tell me how or where it connects to Genesis? What does luxury have to do with a dog’s vomit? Can you figure it out? Perhaps you could look up “dog’s vomit” and try to put it all back it together from that hint. But by simply hearing Luke in English, you wouldn't stand a chance. You have no hope of finding these connections. No hope, for example, of hearing what the writer is telling you about the Four Rivers in Genesis. About the difference between a tree and a human being.
Could you, in English, hear by hearing the word luxury what Luke is proposing? No-you would simply pontificate about the problem of “ living in luxury” because you’re not interested in lexicography. You’re interested in context, in narrative, in interpretation. The best you could do is theologize about Paradise (or your 401K savings, they are functionally the same) which puts you in league with those condemned in 2 Peter 2.
Your only way out of this dilemma is to hear Luke in the original Greek-but even that’s not enough. You will never hear what Luke is saying if you deal solely with the Greek manuscript.
You have to hear Luke in triliteral Semitic.
Can you discern from the word luxury in Luke 7 that you were never supposed to congregate in the first place? That there is a problem with “congregating?” That you’re supposed to spread out, to disperse? That you shouldn’t be here, safe and sound “inside?” You should be spreading out all over the earth-not gathering here in your synagogue, in your “ecclesia” and settling down.
According to Luke, the proof of your ignorance is found in your dress and your place of habitation. The place of luxury of which God speaks does not require soft clothing, let alone fancy suburban houses.
This week I discuss Luke 7:20-25.