Conspiracy!

For Thursday, May 29, 2025:

Luke 11:53-54 NLT: “As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions. They wanted to trap him into saying something they could use against him.”

Nowadays, we hear a lot of talk about conspiracy theories as a reason for bad things happening. When we see this, realize that something didn’t just accidentally go wrong. There’s always an evil advance plan, a plot designed to bring about the desired result. Today’s scripture describes the conspiracy against God’s Son.

The religious teachers and Pharisees perceived Jesus as a threat to their established religion. Tithes regularly flowed into the Temple, but now some tithes were going to Jesus. These leaders had agreed on false teaching, but this Jesus, the new guy, was rocking the boat, attempting to get his fellow Jews back on track, believing the way God intended. Agreeing with Jesus’ teaching would have meant the Pharisees abandoned their position in the driver’s seat and openly admitted that they were wrong. Mankind doesn’t do that easily!

Rather than welcoming the Son, our scripture says the religious teachers and Pharisees were hostile toward Jesus. They tried to provoke him, to make him angry. That wasn’t in Jesus’ nature. They tried to trap him with questions designed to be used against him. And they would eventually create a scenario that would end with Jesus’ demise. That’s the conspiracy!

But it wasn’t the end! God’s vast eternal plan knew the future. When the Pharisees thought they had won, Jesus would take the sins of the world to the place of the dead. Sin was conquered! Three days later, Jesus would rise from his tomb. Death had been conquered! And in forty days, Jesus would ascend to the Father’s Kingdom to prepare for the arrival of believers! The door had been opened to eternal life!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship