Contemplative Bible Reading

Luke 3:8  (New Living Translation)

Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.

In this verse, John the Baptizer is chastising some Jews. At this time, Jews valued their ancestry. In some cases—like this one—they valued their ancestry too much.

These Jews didn’t live their religion as they should have (sound vaguely familiar to many Christians today?). Instead, they proclaimed, “I’m related to Abraham. Ha! Top that.”

John corrects them with harsh words.

That means nothing!

Well, that pretty much concludes the matter. Your ancestry is nothing. The way you live is everything.

Today, we don’t brag on who our ancestor from a thousand years ago was. We do, however, proclaim who we know, where we live, where we go to church, and all sorts of associations and variations of:

I’m with them.

How about this one?

Keep our mouth shut and let people see how we live.