Unshaken: Chapter a Day

Luke 17 Discussion

• Pastor Plek

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Warning labels on temptation, a tiny seed of faith, a servant who expects no applause, a grateful outsider, and a kingdom that arrives without a press release—Luke 17 has a way of getting under the skin. We open the text and sit with its friction. Why does Jesus tie rebuke so tightly to forgiveness? How small can faith be and still move the immovable? And what happens to our hearts when we expect trophies for doing what’s right?

We start with the hard word: stumbling blocks will come, but woe to those who cause them. From there we trace Jesus’ cadence—rebuke and restore, again and again—because healthy communities tell the truth and refuse to keep score. When the apostles ask for more faith, Jesus points to a mustard seed and reminds us the power belongs to God, not to our volume or vibe. That frees us to pray honest, specific prayers for healing and change without pretending we’re the ones making miracles happen.

The parable of the unworthy servant reshapes how we think about service. We talk candidly about church culture, entitlement, and the subtle hunger for recognition that exhausts volunteers and leaders alike. The simple, liberating posture is this: do your duty with joy, because Jesus is worthy, not because anyone is watching. Then we turn to the ten lepers and the one who returns—a Samaritan whose gratitude exposes our tendency to obey the rules yet forget the Giver. Gratitude is not a polite add-on; it’s the proper response to mercy and a quiet protest against tribal pride.

We close by exploring Jesus’ words on the kingdom’s nearness and the unmistakable return of the Son of Man. We lay out two major views on the rapture—pre‑trib and amillennial—without drama or strawmen, and focus on the shared center: live ready, stay faithful, and don’t chase predictions. Where the vultures gather, you’ll know there’s a body; when the King returns, no one will miss it.

If this conversation sharpened your faith or gave you language for your next step, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your notes help others find the show and keep the dialogue going.

Text us at 737-231-0605 with any questions.

Pastor Plek:

And welcome back to a chapter a day. Keeps the devil away. I'm Pastor Pleck, along with Pastor Holland. We're talking Luke chapter 17. We're gonna outline it, we're gonna make some observations, make some interpretations about the nature of man, the character of God, and then finally land the plane with some application. So Luke 17 starts out in verses one through four is temptations to sin. Jesus warns his disciples that stumbling blocks are inevitable, but woe to those who cause them. Okay. Verses five and six, there's this call for the apostles to increase their faith, and Jesus replies that if they have faith size of a mustard seed, you can unearth mulberry trees and plant them in the sea. Then verses seven through ten is the parable, the unworthy servant. Disciples, after obeying all his commands, should say, We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. Verses 11 through 19, uh Jesus cleansed ten lepers, only one returns, and it's a Samaritan. And Jesus remarks, Where, why is only this foreigner coming back? And he affirms that Samaritan's faith. Verses 20 through 37 is the coming of the kingdom. The Pharisees ask when the kingdom comes. Uh Jesus says it's not observable or locatable, it's in your midst. And to the disciples, he says, Listen, long for the Son of Man's days amid false sightings. Don't do it. His return will be like a flash of lightning. You will know for sure that the Son of Man has return. Okay. And then he lands the plane on this thing with a great quote, uh, where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. So we'll start there. Hey, what observations did you make about this text?

Pastor Holland:

Uh, you want to start with the vulture stuff?

Pastor Plek:

We don't have to start there, but it is kind of wild.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Uh well, we can get there. I guess the first, my first observation, um, verse nine. Um, does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? Yeah. So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. I just think about that and go, man, obedience to God is our duty. Like God rewarding us for our obedience is total disgrace. Like, he doesn't owe us any rewards. Obedience to God is just what that's what our duty is.

Pastor Plek:

I have a little story about this verse.

Pastor Holland:

Okay.

Pastor Plek:

What you got? About 10 plus years ago, uh, we took our staff to another church, uh, to their a bigger church's staff meeting. They had like 30, you know, Easter services. We're in the staff meeting, and and the executive pastor looks over at the lead pastor and goes, Hey, do you want to give the troops some encouragement about how great they did? And he stands up and he says, You did your job and sat down. It was like all the air got sucked out of the room in one moment. And and I just thought it was, I think he thought it was funny because he was probably thinking about this. And I don't think anybody else knew about Luke 17. Uh, and so I th I was giggling because I thought that was really funny, and nobody else was giggling. They were all sad. Anyway, so I don't think I giggled with you. Yeah. So don't so we are unworthy servants. We've probably done what was our duty. I guarantee, yeah. You laid yourself out for Easter. Guess what? You did your job. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what you're supposed to do. What else would you do? You're you're not serving man, not there for the applause of a pastor. You're there for the applause of Jesus. Okay.

Pastor Holland:

Which is but also he doesn't owe you his applause. He doesn't owe you his app.

Pastor Plek:

Man, that was that was one of those shocking things. I think sometimes there's a lot of us that come to church and we want a lot of applause. We want it like I I served in children's ministry and you I've been here every single week. And we want someone to say, Hey, don't you recognize what I've been doing? And what Jesus would say to you is like, you what you should say is we are an unworthy servants and we've only done what was our duty.

Pastor Holland:

Like we have lost the sense of like what it like this idea of uh serving. Yeah. And like, I mean, this parable is just wild to me. Of uh, you know, come at once and recline at table. That's what you think he would say to the servant. And he goes, No, will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly? She's like, that sounds so like harsh and crazy to a lot of people.

Pastor Plek:

It's a formalism of the past that we have Yeah. I mean, look at me. Uh the formal of the past that we have totally abandoned.

Pastor Holland:

Man, but yeah, do do your duty. That's do your job. And you know, don't do it for applause or rewards, do it because it's what you're supposed to do.

Pastor Plek:

Okay. All right, let's get into uh what about this was wild, I thought. Verses one through four, where he's like, hey, temptations and sin to sin is gonna come, but woe to him through whom they come. Through whom they come.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. If you are one of the ones who are tempting someone, yeah, then the punishment that's coming on you for tempting others is uh not good.

Pastor Plek:

Not good. I mean, I just think to, you know, back in the day, I mean, I'm sure I tempted a lot of people to do bad things. Man. So man, thank you, thank you, Jesus, for the grace of God. Right. But like it's wild.

Pastor Holland:

So I I mean me too. Yeah, yeah. Uh I think of me before Jesus and decisions I made, and then decisions I tempted. Yeah, yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Uh man, I go, this this was me. Um yeah, so I so there's this like don't lead others into tempt into temptation. Yeah. Um, and now he says children. Do you think he he means like little kids, or does he mean like new believers, or it could be both?

Pastor Holland:

Uh yeah, I think it could be both. It he says little ones, right? Yeah, yeah, verse uh two, little ones. Um, yeah, so it could be children, could be new believers, could be just a term of endearment for disciples.

Pastor Plek:

What about this next one? And when they call for the increase of faith, and he says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell this mulberry tree to be planted the seed, it will do so. Um I is this about mulberry trees and planting them in the sea? Do we need mulberry trees in the sea?

Pastor Holland:

You know, maybe there's some kind of like uh ecosystem. No, I don't know. Yeah, we don't need mulberry seeds in the sea.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, trees. What I love about this, uh a while ago, our children's ministry gave out mustard seeds in little vials, and I still have it in my house on in like next to my toothbrush or whatever, to remind me of how much faith it takes to do anything. Next to your toothbrush? Yeah, like well, it's something I see every day, you know. So it's like right there. And I love that. It's like one of my favorite things uh that I've received from our church. Just really a powerful thing.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

And I think um that's the sort of aspect we need to see how small that is and how powerful it is.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, well, the idea is it's like it's it's um the one that your faith is in is the one who has the power. Right. It's not the amount of faith you have that you know summons more power somehow, but rather the one that your faith is in, God, is the one who's able to move a mountain or a mulberry tree.

Pastor Plek:

I struggle with I I I 100% agree with you, but like this is the part where I wish Jesus was not confusing to me. It would be right here. If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted the sea, planted in the seed, and it would obey you. Uh-huh. Now, granted, your faith in Jesus. And then you you the next step is your faith in Jesus that he can and that he wants to. I would have appreciated that clarification, but I guess that when you kind of nuance everything and kind of put all the disclaimers on there, it kind of loses the power of what he's trying to say.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, it's like your faith is not some power that you have to do something, your faith is your trust in God to do something. And so whether it's the you know, it the size of a mustard seed would lead you to say, God, will you please move this tree for me? And God's the one who has the power to do it. And so that's why that's all it takes, is just a little bit of faith.

Pastor Plek:

You just gotta ask. Yeah, really. Okay, um, what about in uh verses uh let's go skip all the way down to verse 11 through 19? Jesus cleanses these 10 lepers, and it always feels like Jesus has a little bit of racism going on, which I know he doesn't. What when he says this foreigner? Yeah. And you're like, I mean, it I mean, I mean, could you imagine like, you know, hey, I'm the foreigner. Sorry. I I or the Syrophoenician woman, he's like, I you know, listen, I don't give, I can't I gotta feed the kids, not the dogs. Yeah, right. He's like, you know, so like here, Jesus, and I think he's complimenting, but it reminds me of what you said many years ago about the compli dis. It's like a compliment, but a diss all at the same time.

Pastor Holland:

Well, he's he's really dissing the Israelites because they were you know racist toward the foreigner. Right. And Jesus is saying, Huh, the foreigner, look, look who's coming. It's the foreigner. You know, it's like the look at the good Samaritan. Yeah, you know, um, look who's the one who actually is responding the right way. It's the one that you guys all think is lame and stupid. Uh, it's the foreigner who's doing it the right way.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. And so which is really saying, listen, this, you know, out of these rocks, yeah, uh, God can make children for Abraham. Uh, I think that's what he's doing here. And so there should be this part of us that wants to see all people being saved, even those who we perceive to be our enemies. Um, all right, how about um the coming of the kingdom? Now we'll get into where the corpses, the vultures will gather. We're getting into a little bit of uh end times. Yes. Now watch this. This is why I'm a big fan of the rapture. Uh-huh. Okay, so there's Noah preparing himself. Yep. Then one day he got in a boat and was taken away, and everyone else died. Hmm. So it looks like the tribulation comes, or right before the tribulation, bam, he's raptured. Then the wrath of God is poured out on the world. Thoughts.

Pastor Holland:

Interesting. So uh let's look at verse 34. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Pastor Plek:

We're not going to that verse. Oh, we're not going there yet? No, no, no, no, no. We're going to the part. You're talking about people being taken. Take we're not talking about that verse right now. We're talking about Noah was taken and saved while the rest were left to be destroyed. I was just pointing that out. Interesting. Uh-huh. Uh okay. Yeah, and remember it was Lot. Uh-huh. He leaves Sodom. He's taken out of Sodom. BAM! And then Sodom is hit to the room. So, what's the connection to the next? Do you see that being connected to the next section? No, it's completely separate.

Pastor Holland:

Interesting.

Pastor Plek:

It's just another, it's like there's two different times. It's like the rapture on the front end, uh-huh, and then when Jesus comes to return at the back end, then so there's you know, there's the so there's two parts to Jesus' return. You've got the rapture, tribulation, then Jesus comes back. And here, same thing. You've got the rapture, Noah and Lot, those two, and then the tribulation, the wrath, and then finally Jesus returns to collect his good people and uh start the Lightly Kingdom.

Pastor Holland:

And that is your belief. Tell us your thoughts. Okay, okay, okay. So uh that is the um pre-trib rapture um view. Yeah. Uh another possible view.

Pastor Plek:

Hey, I give it up as a possibility.

Pastor Holland:

Very possible. Just saying, possible. Um the rapture is not a taking um Christians out of the world to spare them from tribulation before Jesus' second, second coming. Um but that the rapture just happens at the end of the age when Jesus returns um to judge the living and the dead. And uh the rapture is that those who believe in Jesus at at that time will be caught up or raptured up into the air with Jesus as he comes down from heaven um to judge the earth. And so that view, the um uh a millennial view, uh takes the rapture and the return of Christ and judgment of the world to be all kind of one event, as opposed to two events divided by seven years of tribulation. Is that fair? Hey, listen, that's a view. Okay, and we each have a view.

Pastor Plek:

It's a very Christian view. And uh, you know, you're allowed to be wrong every now and then. It doesn't make you a bad person, just makes you wrong. All right, let's get into some uh interpretation. What does this teach us about the character of or sorry, what does it first teach about the nature of man?

Pastor Holland:

The nature of man. Uh first thing that pops up to me is the ten lepers, and just that we have uh it's in our nature to um be ungrateful for God's blessings and salvation. You know, only one of the ten actually turned around and praise God. Um, the others just kind of went up went about their way.

Pastor Plek:

Or they went to the priests. So maybe they were so caught up in following the rule that Jesus said they forgot to go and thank him. Yeah. You know, I don't know. Hey, yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. Maybe like they're like, I don't want to mess this up and go back to him. He said go to the priest. And so I think we can get so caught up in like the letter of the law, we miss like, hey, what you normally would do in the situation like this is say thank you.

Pastor Holland:

That's good. I mean, yeah, Jesus obviously expects he says, Where are the nine? He you know, he's like there's an expectation, like what's going on here?

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, all right. Um how about this? People seek amplified faith externally while undervaluing its very teeny, queenie beginnings. They want to see miracles done, but not see like the power of God is the one who does it.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, I see that. That's good.

Pastor Plek:

All right. Um about this one might be easy. Humans are prone to cause other people to sin. Yeah, right. First few verses, and it requires rebuke. Like humans require rebuke. Yeah. Like I that that to me was like uh like hey, and if they, you know, if they're rebuke, repentance, forgiveness.

Pastor Holland:

This is part. Yeah, yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Rebuke, repentance, forgiveness is wild. Like how and he says if they do it seven times in a day, do it seven times in a day.

Pastor Holland:

Uh, which I also appreciate that every parent must appreciate this. Yeah, uh rebuke your kids uh at least seven times a day. And then if they repent, you forgive them, you know.

Pastor Plek:

And that's real character building. That that takes a lot of willpower uh on the confronter, yeah. As well as the and a lot of humility for both. A lot of humility, because that's that's like the last thing you want to do. All right. How about maybe that's one of the things, nature of man, we don't want to rebuke anybody. Um, or at least I don't. Uh okay, how about principles about the character of God? Uh how about God empowers even minimal genuine faith to accomplish the extraordinary?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Um, He heals and He forgives and He saves. Um, you see that, you see the forgiveness in the first few verses, you see the healing um with the ten lepers. Um, you just see the heart of God to make, you know, to make right what sin has ruined.

Pastor Plek:

Good. How about God demands faithful duty without fanfare? Like you're not doing it for the applause. You know, even like I think sometimes we always envision ourselves getting a well done, good, and faithful servant, which is biblical. I think that's okay. But here is that all he gets is you've you did your job.

Pastor Holland:

All right. What is the okay, so corpse, where the corpse is, the vultures will gather there. What does this teach us about the character of God? There's something there about, you know, he's he he gives signs, you know, he's saying, Well, I I think what he's saying here, maybe you have a different view, but that the return of Jesus, it will be public and visible. Oh, yeah. And you'll you'll see it coming. Nobody knows the day or the hour, but when it happens, it'll be clear it's happening. Well, in the same way you see vultures from far off, you go, there's a corpse somewhere. You're gonna see some things and you're gonna go, okay, Jesus is coming back.

Pastor Plek:

You know what the problem I had is like when I read that, I was like, Well, there's gonna be a lot of dead bodies laying all over the place. That's honestly what I thought. Pretty sure it's a metaphor. It is a yeah, you're right. That's that's way better. That's way better than what I was thinking. Because I was like, Jesus is gonna come with the sword in his mouth, destroy everybody, and then like dead bodies everywhere, and the vultures are gathered. It's like, well, told you. Uh, that was my initial thought. But I like yours way better. It's like it's gonna be so obvious. Like when you're driving down the highway uh and you see a whole bunch of vultures, you're like, oh, there must be a dead body somewhere. Yeah. Uh, and that's kind of it's kind of like really graphic um depiction. Um, but it that's a it's a clear sign, and you won't have to question did Jesus come back or not. Yeah. So God makes his, I think the the character of God, God makes his work really evident.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, it'll be that like this is where you go, okay, nobody knows the day or the hour. Right. Don't listen to the predictions of at the same time, it in some sense you gotta say it will be predictable in that you know, where the vultures, you see the vultures and you go, there's a corpse. Right. There's something where I see this and this and this, Jesus coming back. So there's some element of that um while still maintaining the fact that nobody knows the day of the hour. Right.

Pastor Plek:

All right, let's get into some specs, some sin to avoid, a promise to claim, uh, example to follow, a command to obey, or knowledge to believe. Um, how about sin to confess causing other people to stumble through careless words or actions?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

You could you can lead people astray and you need to repent.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

And thankfully, within that was a lot of forgiveness.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Um, command to obey. If your brother sins, rebuke him. Um, that's one part of it. That's that's a hard one, you know. Like you said earlier, it takes some uh some courage to do that. But then also, um, if he repents, forgive him. That one takes courage as well.

Pastor Plek:

Nice. All right, how about this? Uh promise to claim uh the mustard seed faith moves trees into seas. Faith in healing brings wholeness. Like for the for some along those lines. I like the let's stick with the the the mustard seed faith moves mount moves a tree, mulberry tree. And which could mean like God could use your prayer. One of the things I'm praying for right now is just uh one of our people at our church who has brain damage to be healed. And I that's just been on my heart a lot. Uh, but it's not my prayer, it's not my um um ability or I say the right words, it's God's will, and I'm leaning into it with the mustard seed of faith.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, that's right.

Pastor Plek:

Any other things you got?

Pastor Holland:

Um I think this unworthy servants, we've only done what was our duty. I think there's a a good humbling knowledge to believe there, you know, of just like do it do your duty. You have a Christian duty. Yep. Go do it, do it, and uh do it because it's the right thing to do.

Pastor Plek:

All right. Hey, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time on a chapter a day.

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