Luke chapter 7

vs 21

Come on, what do you want? Heaven to crack open and angels to fly out handing out candy?

vs 22

Just because Jesus isn't raising an army or preaching against Rome, doesn't mean he's not the Messiah. And he is making the kingdom of God break into this world in amazing ways.

vs 23

The NIV confuses me no end here, because the greek (followed more closely by the NASB) is about offense, rather than falling away. I think the reading "Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me" (NASB) is preferable (although I don't like the capitals for pronouns. Silly.) So the idea is that we shouldn't be offended at Jesus just because he doesn't messiah the way we'd expect the messiah to messiah.

vs 24

I don't know what the reed thing means. I'm sure we can try and come up with a bunch of meanings, but Jesus may have simply been saying "some thing that you can see out in the desert by the river"?

vs 25

As opposed to going out wearing camel hair and living in the desert. I might point out that Jesus' clothes, while we're not told how nice they are, were worth enough to be divided by the soldiers.

vs 26

More than a prophet is a very interesting idea. What made John more than a prophet?

vs 27

So John was not just a prophet, but a fulfillment of prophecy. I don't know how many other prophets were. To an extent, all were (because a prophetic tradition is promised in the OT) but I don't think any were as announced as strongly as John the Baptist.

vs 28

Yes, John was going to heaven, for sure he was. I think Jesus is in fact saying that anyone who gets to heaven is more worthy of glory than John on earth. And in fact, of course, Jesus comes from heaven, so he kicks ass all over John.

vs 29

John's baptism was such a big deal, such an event, I can't think of a spiritual link with our modern time. We're just to pluralistic - we can't expect to see this sort of response anymore, not in the west, I don't think.

vs 30

Notice the language here - very strong! The tax collectors and others who were baptised by John accepted Jesus' words. After all, it was only encouraging an action they'd already taken. But the Pharisees, who weren't fans of John (although at one point sent a delegation to him to find out if he was the Messiah!) not only rejected John's minsitry, but rejected "God's purpose for themselves". Snap! Of course, God is still going to use them for his own purposes, but they're not going to like the eternal bad opinion people have of them.