“Just As He Had Told Them”

"So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them." (Luke 19:32) Just prior to Jesus entering Jerusalem, in what is sometimes referred to as His triumphal entry, He told two of his disciples to go into the village before them and bring him the unridden colt which they would find tied up. They did what Jesus said and guess what? They "found it just as He had told them." Luke is the only one of the four gospel writers that makes this observation.

I find it interesting that all 4 gospels record the event of Jesus' humble entrance into the city sitting on the colt, the foal of a donkey, a lowly beast of burden rather than seated on a great white steed bedecked in gold and ornaments, or being carried in a lavishly decked litter, surrounded by a huge entourage in similar trappings all befitting the entrance of a victorious King. Yet we find none of this, when it came to Jesus' entrance into the city of Jerusalem. Though the crowd gathered in anticipation of his entrance, John tells us that they were gathering because the news of His raising Lazarus from the dead in Bethany had reached the city (John 12:17-18). As he went on his way entering the city, the multitude were spreading their cloaks and branches of leaves on the road before Him. “And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9-10).

I am struck by the fact that Jesus did not do, act, or teach in any way contrary to the law and the prophets. To the contrary, His life and death in every way was lived in fulfillment of them (Luke 24:44). "Have you not read the scriptures...", or "It is written...", or "The Scriptures says..." all references to the Law and the Prophets but it was the standard by which he lived and taught. His teaching, work and life were only contrary to the expectations of the popular religious majority of His day, as they are even to this day!

To what end did Luke make his seemingly minor, insignificant observation, "...just as he told them", with regard to the two disciples finding the colt tied up? Luke does this for the sake of his friend Theophilus, to whom he is writing. Theophilus is either an unbeliever or a very recent convert. Luke’s biography of Jesus are the things "most surely believed" because they had been verified as accurate, concerning all that Jesus began to teach and do concerning the kingdom of God. Namely, He is the Son of God who came with power! (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2). He is trying to convince his friend Theophilus of the veracity of Jesus' word and being!

Thus, I grow weary with a scholarship, which is far more preoccupied with challenging the authority of the Scriptures, by assuming contradictions where there are none, to undermine the faith of people in God's word as we have it in the Bible — i.e. using some linguistic argument or some textual variant to spin a whole host of assumptions. Sadly, scholarship is more interested in sharing and disproving human constructs ABOUT the Scriptures, than they are about living the message of the sacred Scriptures and sharing it with others. As another has said elsewhere, “they have become masters of the word while failing to be mastered by the word.” To penitent believers, they received the Scriptures “just as He had told them” — namely, as the word of God and understand them as the only basis upon which penitent believers CAN come to know Him and the Father (Matthew 11:25-27; Romans 10:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13).