A disciple watches Jesus finish praying and asks for the one thing none of the rabbis had ever quite managed to teach well — not a theory about prayer, but the words themselves. What comes back is short enough to memorize in a single sitting and deep enough that entire libraries have since been written trying to exhaust it. Then comes a parable about a man banging on a neighbor’s door at midnight, followed by a controversy over exactly whose power is really behind the healings everyone has been watching for months. And near the end, a religious class so careful about the outside of a cup that they never once thought to clean the inside gets told, to their faces, exactly what that carefulness has cost them.
A study in Luke 11 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 26 min read
Lord, Teach Us To Pray
“And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
Luke 11:1
“One day after a short absence from their Lord, they found Him absorbed in supplication. Seeming unconscious of their presence, He continued praying aloud. The hearts of the disciples were deeply moved. As He ceased praying, they exclaimed, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 140
Luke’s own account of the Lord’s Prayer comes not as part of a sermon but as a direct answer to this request. This site’s own study of Matthew 6 already covers the fuller Sermon on the Mount version of the same prayer in depth.
“And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread.”
Luke 11:2-3
“And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?”
Luke 11:5-6
“In the feeding of the multitude and in the sermon on the bread from heaven, Christ had opened to them their work as His representatives. They were to give the bread of life to the people. … Souls that were hungering for the bread of life would come to them, and they would feel themselves to be destitute and helpless.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 140
Found only in Luke, this small parable is not really about how to pester a reluctant God. It is about a man who has nothing to offer a hungry guest, and refuses to let embarrassment or a shut door stop him from finding bread for someone else.
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. … If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?”
Luke 11:9, 11
“But the selfish neighbor in the parable does not represent the character of God. The lesson is drawn, not by comparison, but by contrast. A selfish man will grant an urgent request, in order to rid himself of one who disturbs his rest. But God delights to give.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 141
This site’s own study of Matthew 7 already covers the ask-seek-knock teaching in its Sermon on the Mount setting. Here in Luke, it functions instead as the direct payoff of the midnight-friend parable just told — the reluctant neighbor who finally gives in stands in deliberate contrast to the Father who does not need to be worn down at all.
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
Luke 11:13
Where Matthew’s own version of this saying ends with “good things,” Luke’s ends with something far more specific — the Holy Spirit Himself, named outright as the one gift a heavenly Father is most eager to give.
He That Is Not With Me Is Against Me
This site’s own study of Matthew 12 already covers the Beelzebub controversy and the sign of Jonah in full.
“But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. … Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. … If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?”
Luke 11:15, 17-18
“He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”
Luke 11:23
No middle ground is offered. The same logic that condemns a kingdom divided against itself leaves no room for a bystander pretending neutrality is possible.
Blessed Are They That Hear The Word Of God, And Keep It
“And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Luke 11:27-28
Found in no other Gospel, this small exchange gently corrects a form of admiration that stops at Jesus’s biology instead of reaching His words. It is not a rebuke of Mary — this site’s own studies of Luke 1 and 2 have already shown how highly this Gospel honors her — but a redirection of the crowd’s praise toward the only thing that can actually be shared by everyone listening: hearing the word of God and keeping it.
This site’s own study of Matthew 12 already covers the sign of Jonah and the queen of the south; this site’s own study of Matthew 6 already covers the teaching on the single eye and the candle under a bushel.
“This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.… The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”
Luke 11:29, 32
This site’s own studies of the book of Jonah have already told what that prophet’s three days in the fish actually foreshadowed.
Woe Unto You, Pharisees
This site’s own study of Matthew 23 already covers Jesus’s public woes against the scribes and Pharisees in full — that version delivered in the temple courts near the very end of His ministry. Here in Luke, a shorter, earlier version of the same confrontation happens privately, at a Pharisee’s own dinner table.
“And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.”
Luke 11:37-39
Jesus answers a silent, unspoken judgment about ceremonial handwashing with an audible one of His own, spoken out loud at the host’s own table in front of the other guests.
“But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
Luke 11:42
“Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”
Luke 11:45-46
Luke’s own version of this confrontation splits its target into two distinct groups — Pharisees and lawyers — where Matthew’s later temple version addresses “scribes and Pharisees” together as one. Only here does a lawyer interrupt to ask, in effect, whether the rebuke applies to him too, and only here does Jesus answer him directly: it does.
“Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.”
Luke 11:52
Of every charge in this whole chapter, this is the sharpest. Not merely that they failed to enter the kingdom themselves, but that in their failure they took the key with them — and stood in the doorway, blocking everyone else who might have gone in without them.
