Luke 23

Go Deep

 (Luke 23)

Read Luke 23:1-49. Jot down your insights.

What stands out to you about the charges brought against Jesus at his trial before the Jewish leaders (22:66-71; see also Mark 14:60-64) and the trial before the Roman ruler (Luke 23:1-30)?

Why did Pilate order Jesus’s execution after repeatedly declaring him innocent (23:4, 13-15, 22)? Have you ever failed to do the right thing because you were afraid to go against “the crowd”?

What does it say about the crowd that they wanted Barabbas released but not Jesus? How does Luke’s story about Barabbas’s release and Jesus’s death speak to us today?

Read Luke 23:26-31. Had you been in Simon’s place, how would you have felt about being forced to carry a “criminal’s” cross?

Mark states the names of Simon’s sons (Mark 15:21). Why would he do that twenty years after the fact?

Read verse 34. When Jesus asks his Father to “forgive them,” to whom is he referring? When he says they “do not know what they do?” what were “they” doing, and how could they not know it?

What did Jesus mean by saying, “I AM the resurrection” (v. 25)? How do you think Martha understood his statement?

Why do you think Luke mentions that the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’s clothes?

According to Matthew, both criminals insulted Jesus. But Luke seems to say otherwise (vv. 39-43). How can these accounts be reconciled?

Consider the characters in this story: Pilate, Herod, Simon, the women, the thief, the centurion and his soldiers, and the crowd. Do you see anything of yourself in these people?

How does Jesus’s death connect to the Old Testament (see Luke 24:25-27, 44-47)? Try to give specifics.