Lukas 3:8

3:8 Therefore produce ¹  fruit ²  that proves your repentance, and don’t begin to say ³  to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ ⁴  For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! ⁵ 

Lukas 10:13

10:13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! ⁶  Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if ⁷  the miracles ⁸  done in you had been done in Tyre ⁹  and Sidon, ¹⁰  they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

Lukas 11:32

11:32 The people ¹¹  of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached to them ¹²  – and now, ¹³  something greater than Jonah is here!

Lukas 18:11

18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ¹⁴  ‘God, I thank ¹⁵  you that I am not like other people: ¹⁶  extortionists, ¹⁷  unrighteous people, ¹⁸  adulterers – or even like this tax collector. ¹⁹ 

[3:8]  ¹ tn The verb here is ποιέω (poiew; see v. 4).

[3:8]  ² tn Grk “fruits.” The plural Greek term καρπούς has been translated with the collective singular “fruit” (so NIV; cf. Matt 3:8 where the singular καρπός is found). Some other translations render the plural καρπούς as “fruits” (e.g., NRSV, NASB, NAB, NKJV).

[3:8]  ³ tn In other words, “do not even begin to think this.”

[3:8]  ⁴ sn We have Abraham as our father. John’s warning to the crowds really assumes two things: (1) A number of John’s listeners apparently believed that simply by their physical descent from Abraham, they were certain heirs of the promises made to the patriarch, and (2) God would never judge his covenant people lest he inadvertently place the fulfillment of his promises in jeopardy. In light of this, John tells these people two things: (1) they need to repent and produce fruit in keeping with repentance, for only that saves from the coming wrath, and (2) God will raise up “children for Abraham from these stones” if he wants to. Their disobedience will not threaten the realization of God’s sovereign purposes.

[3:8]  ⁵ sn The point of the statement God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham is that ancestry or association with a tradition tied to the great founder of the Jewish nation is not an automatic source of salvation.

[10:13]  ⁶ sn Chorazin was a town of Galilee that was probably fairly small in contrast to Bethsaida and is otherwise unattested. Bethsaida was declared a polis by the tetrarch Herod Philip, sometime after a.d. 30.

[10:13]  ⁷ tn This introduces a second class (contrary to fact) condition in the Greek text.

[10:13]  ⁸ tn Or “powerful deeds.”

[10:13]  ⁹ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[10:13]  ¹⁰ sn Tyre and Sidon are two other notorious OT cities (Isa 23; Jer 25:22; 47:4). The remark is a severe rebuke, in effect: “Even the sinners of the old era would have responded to the proclamation of the kingdom, unlike you!”

[10:13]  map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[11:32]  ¹¹ tn See the note on the word “people” in v. 31.

[11:32]  ¹² tn Grk “at the preaching of Jonah.”

[11:32]  sn The phrase repented when Jonah preached to them confirms that in this context the sign of Jonah (v. 30) is his message.

[11:32]  ¹³ tn Grk “behold.”

[18:11]  ¹⁴ tn Or “stood by himself and prayed like this.” The prepositional phrase πρὸς ἑαυτόν (pros eauton, “to/about himself”) could go with either the aorist participle σταθείς (staqeis, “stood”) or with the imperfect verb προσηύχετο (proshuceto, “he prayed”). If taken with the participle, then the meaning would seem at first glance to be: “stood ‘by himself’,” or “stood ‘alone’.” Now it is true that πρός can mean “by” or “with” when used with intransitive verbs such as ἵστημι ({isthmi, “I stand”; cf. BDAG 874 s.v. πρός 2.a), but πρὸς ἑαυτόν together never means “by himself” or “alone” in biblical Greek. On the other hand, if πρὸς ἑαυτόν is taken with the verb, then two different nuances emerge, both of which highlight in different ways the principal point Jesus seems to be making about the arrogance of this religious leader: (1) “prayed to himself,” but not necessarily silently, or (2) “prayed about himself,” with the connotation that he prayed out loud, for all to hear. Since his prayer is really a review of his moral résumé, directed both at advertising his own righteousness and exposing the perversion of the tax collector, whom he actually mentions in his prayer, the latter option seems preferable. If this is the case, then the Pharisee’s mention of God is really nothing more than a formality.

[18:11]  ¹⁵ sn The Pharisee’s prayer started out as a thanksgiving psalm to God, but the praise ended up not being about God.

[18:11]  ¹⁶ tn Here the plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) is used as a generic and can refer to both men and women (NASB, NRSV, “people”; NLT, “everyone else”; NAB, “the rest of humanity”).

[18:11]  ¹⁷ tn Or “swindlers” (BDAG 134 s.v. ἅρπαξ 2); see also Isa 10:2; Josephus, J. W. 6.3.4 [6.203].

[18:11]  ¹⁸ sn A general category for “sinners” (1 Cor 6:9; Lev 19:3).

[18:11]  ¹⁹ sn Note what the Pharisee assumes about the righteousness of this tax collector by grouping him with extortionists, unrighteous people, and adulterers.