Unshaken: Chapter a Day

Luke 22 Discussion

• Pastor Plek

Share episode

Send us a text

A quiet plot, a crowded table, a garden under moonlight—Luke 22 compresses the weight of salvation history into one relentless chapter. We open the text and trace the arc from secret schemes to a public meal where Jesus hands His friends bread and a cup and names them grace. The covenant becomes personal as He reframes greatness, not as rank but as service, and confronts the disciples’ obsession with being regarded as the best. Authority, Jesus says, isn’t a weapon; it’s a trust. Real leadership looks like washing feet, not winning arguments.

The tension peaks in Gethsemane, where Jesus prays for the cup to pass and accepts the Father’s will when the answer is no. That moment is brutally honest and beautifully human: ask boldly, submit fully, endure faithfully. We explore why sorrow made the disciples sleep, how Peter’s denial was foreseen, and why Judas’ betrayal feels both chilling and familiar. The contrast between Judas and Peter isn’t willpower; it’s intercession. Jesus prays that Peter’s faith would not fail, and that prayer becomes the bridge back to purpose and strength. If you’ve ever felt sifted by doubt or shame, this is hope you can hold.

We also wrestle with the thorny question of the swords and how Isaiah 53 frames Jesus being numbered with transgressors. When Peter swings, Jesus heals, showing that zeal against God’s plan still harms, while submission to the plan still heals. The Lord’s Supper stands at the center: no lamb on the table because the Lamb sits at the table. Bread and cup become a means of grace for weary hearts, a steady reminder that forgiveness isn’t theory—it’s purchased. Walk with us through plot, prayer, denial, and a covenant that won’t let go, and leave with practical steps: rise and pray, serve where you lead, repent where you’ve compromised, and trust God’s wisdom when the answer hurts.

If this reflection on Luke 22 stirred something in you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a quick review so more people can find these daily chapters.

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 Play. We got Pastor Holland. We are going to go through Luke 22. We're going to outline it. We're going to observe it. We're going to interpret it, and then we're going to apply it so you could start your day the right way with a chapter a day. All right. So first off, we've got verses 1 through 6. We've got, and not, by the way, we have 71 verses here, which we're excited about. There's verses 1 through 6, the plot against Jesus, the Passover nears, the chief priest, teachers' scheme to see Jesus, and they don't want a big tumult. They want to take him and arrest him in the night. Then we got verses 7 through 13, the Last Supper and Preparation Day. Jesus dispatches Peter and John for the Passover lamb in upper room. They find the man with a water jar as foretold and furnishing the feast. Then we got verses 14 through 23. We got the Last Supper is instituted. They do the Last Supper. Jesus anticipates longing for this Passover anew in the kingdom. Takes the cup, thanks God, shares the new covenant in his blood poured for them. And then there's betrayal. Woe to that from who it becomes. And we find out who it is. Then verses 24 through 30, who is the greatest? There's just an argument over who's the best, and Jesus counters it. Listen, don't be like the Gentiles who lord it over the people. The leader must be the servant. Then verses 31 through 38, Jesus foretells Peter's denial and says, Listen, Satan demands to sift you like wheat, but I prayed for your faith. That you once you turn back, you will strengthen your brothers. Then you got verses 39 through 46. You've got the agony and gasthemity. This is where Jesus says, Not my will but yours be done, as he prays for perhaps the cup to pass from him. And instead of uh God answering a yes to his prayer, God says no, but strengthens him for to do what God has called him to do. Then verses uh 47 through 53, we've got the betrayal and arrest. Judas approaches with the kiss signal, and Jesus uh asks, Man, Judas, you betray me with a kiss. What a wild deal! Then there's the the sword issue, and there's an ear that gets chopped off by Peter, and Jesus has to heal. And then he's like, Hey, you guys could arrest me at any point, but here we go. This is your hour. All right, let's get into some observation. What do you see here?

Pastor Holland:

Okay, this is like the creepiest verse of the whole Bible, I think. All right, hit it. Verse three Satan entered into Judas. Woo! Like just reading that gives like is it's just creepy. It's like, man, this is this is um, you know, Satan wanting to, he's he's trying to destroy Jesus. He's trying, he thinks, here's my moment. I can finally kill the Son of God, the one who was supposed to destroy me, and I'm gonna kill him. And he does it by entering into Judas. It's so creepy, very creepy. And it doesn't work, Jesus wins, but right, right.

Pastor Plek:

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it's it is wild. Um, and uh that yeah, I I look at that, it is sick and twisted. Um, how about that whenever Peter says, Um, I will never deny you, and he's like, Check it out. Satan already asked for you. Like, think about it this way like you get close to Jesus, Satan starts asking about you, and he wants to sift him. However, Jesus prays for Peter, and I guess that means the answer is no.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, so check this out. This is so cool. What's you know, you go, what's the difference between Judas and Peter? How Judas betrayed Jesus, and Peter denies Jesus three times. It doesn't right here, yeah. And um, and yet Judas ends up killing himself, and Peter ends up um a pastor and an elder and an author of scripture. Right. And you see a stark difference though. Here you see Satan entering into Judas, and um yet you see when it says Satan demands Peter, Jesus said, I prayed for you that your faith would not fail. So what's the difference? Jesus prayed for Peter, and this is what's so awesome about Jesus being our high priest, um, and what Hebrews says and what Romans says, that he intercedes for us. Jesus prays for you, that your faith might not fail. So if you belong to Jesus, you go, Man, even when I stumble, even when Satan wants to sift me like wheat, my priest is praying for me. My priest I have assurance of salvation.

Pastor Plek:

Whew. Okay. How about um Jesus urges buying the swords for fulfillment? What is that all about? And then he heals a severed ear, which was the whole point of having a sword, I thought. Uh yeah.

Pastor Holland:

What uh so sword, well answer this. Why would you get a sword in the first place? For defense?

Pastor Plek:

Defense or or offense?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Um but why did Peter cut off the ear? Def defense? But Jesus, Jesus had told them over and over, this is the plan. Yeah. Right? And so um Peter's trying to stop the plan of God from going forward. And so Jesus, you know, rebukes him and heals the man's ear. And um, but in terms of self-defense, protecting yourself, um, that's not going against the plan of God. So you have two different kinds of purposes here. Um, a sword for self-defense and a sword that's trying to stop the plan of God.

Pastor Plek:

Okay, so also remember this is yeah, I on the sword thing, um, this is where he's quoting Isaiah 53, 12. Like, I will assign him a portion with the multitudes, he'll divide the spoils of victory of the powerful because he willingly submitted to death and was numbered with the rebels when he lifted up the sin of many and intervened on the behalf of the rebels. So he would the whole purpose of the swords was so that they would have be seen as the villains. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Like I want to be seen as ones who are rebelling against, and so almost Peter's chopping off the ear was almost fulfilled that we're the transgressors or rebels or um the villains, if you will, in this situation, which I just was sort of like blown away by. We're numbered with the transgressors to fulfill the scripture, yeah.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, so they are numbered with the transgressors, even though um Jesus has not been a transgressor himself.

Pastor Plek:

He's gonna be numbered with them. Yeah, and this whole incident of like attacking the temple guard would sort of present that, right?

Pastor Holland:

So it's it's not wrong to have a sword for self-defense, right? But in this particular situation, um, they uh it appears to um it gives the impression that they are the ones in the wrong, um, that they're rebelling against. Um, but when Peter actually rebels, Jesus rebukes him. Yeah, it's the whole thing's really interesting.

Pastor Plek:

It is, yeah. And I guess he's numbered with him, who he had to rebuke, so he is doing the wrong thing. It I I think in this situation, the the holding of the sword was so that I don't know what he would use it wrongly. I that's the part I get I get kind of confused on, but it it's he has to be numbered with the transgressors, and so he has to be with the band of people that might be doing something wrong. The swords sort of make them look like a violent criminal band, yeah, and there you go.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Wild. Wild. Okay. Um, all right, what else we got? What other observations can you make?

Pastor Holland:

Um, okay, the the who's the greatest part. Yeah. Some people take this as Jesus, you know, kind of like denying uh the the goodness of leadership and authority, period. Like, hey, you should not seek leadership or authority at all. It's it's bad. You should leadership is bad. Hierarchy is wrong, right? Yeah. Um, but he's not denying it um the importance of it or the goodness of it, he's defining the purpose of it. Right. What is the purpose of leadership and authority? It is to serve other people. So it it feels like a denial because so many people think the purpose of authority is to oppress. Right. And Jesus is saying, no, the purpose of authority is to bless, to serve, um, to protect, provide for, to shepherd, to teach, to lead. Authority is something that God bestows for the blessing of the people under the authority. So Jesus is redefining it, not throwing it out.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. All right. I'm gonna move to like one of the things that I just love is Jesus prays and asks God for something very precious, like his life, his soul, all of that, and God says no. Yeah. Like if you've ever prayed for something, and he's saying it in Jesus' name because it's him. And he is and the father says Does Jesus say in my name, amen? When he prays, you know, I mean he could, yeah. Uh Lord, in my name I pray. Uh yeah, I I don't know. Like that here he's saying a father, intimacy, like angels show up when he prays, he's sweating drops of blood. If there was ever a time for God to say yes, it would be like right here. And he says no. And so I know that sometimes people lose their faith over uh God not answering prayer, but even Jesus had a moment of no, which ultimately became the biggest blessing and became his greatest joy. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. Um, and so once he kind of dealt with the no answer, he was able to endure the cross, looking forward to the joy that would be being with.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, and this teaches so uh teaching about man. When you are in agony, the right thing to do is to pray to God and ask for relief. Yeah. Um, but you pray the way that Jesus prayed. Um, if you are willing, remove this from me. Man. Um, and so that's the right, Jesus being a perfect human, fully God, fully man, truly God, truly man, right? He prays in the perfect way that a human under intense agony ought to pray. Man. So good. God, will you remove this from me? Yet not, you know, my will, but yours be done. Okay.

Pastor Plek:

Um, Lord's Supper is instituted here. Yep. What do you think about that?

Pastor Holland:

Love it.

Pastor Plek:

Um, I I thought again, it's he gets into the this is the blood of the new covenant, this is my body. Um I wish he would have explained it more that he is the Lamb of God, right? That that you know, because they don't eat any lamb at this Passover supper. There was I don't even think there was one provided. They just, you know, the lamb is sitting at the table. And then they shift to the bread and the wine. Uh why do you think that is?

Pastor Holland:

Well, the significance of this is, you know, he's preparing them for the cross. And um, you know, the the bread and the cup being the body and blood of Jesus instituted here, meaning this is going to be a uh perpetual ordinance until the return of Christ, that we take bread, we take the cup together, and we remember what he did on the cross. So Jesus is setting up um uh this means of grace for the church to receive for the rest of time.

Pastor Plek:

Uh the one thing I thought was interesting here is that whenever the Son of Man, or whenever Jesus says, Hey, someone here at the table is gonna betray me, they had no idea who it was.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, like this is this is bizarre to me. Be go ahead, sorry.

Pastor Plek:

No, because I that that means like he must have treated everybody so much the same that no one was like, Oh, clearly it's Judas, you know, Jesus hates him. But that's wild.

Pastor Holland:

Well, at first, like when I read it, I at my it strikes me, I go, Man, they're so humble to think like it could be me. You know, they're not arrogant, going like, no way it's me. Like, but then I'm like at the very next line, they start arguing who's the best. Okay, which one's the greatest? So maybe they're like, well, it couldn't have been me because I'm actually the best. There, they might be going, Oh, it must be this guy, it must be that guy. Right, right, right. But uh, you know, with which of them it could be um who was going to do this verse 23. So I it it doesn't at first it struck me as humility, but actually maybe it's more like pride. Yeah. Um, and assuming it's someone else.

Pastor Plek:

Man. Okay. Um all right, let's take a look at some of the things here. Let's go into a uh nature of man. What do you got?

Pastor Holland:

Um, we we tend to think uh about just the immediate situation over God's sovereign plan. I think of Peter striking the guy, cutting his ear off. He's thinking in the moment, don't you know, lay your hands off my friend and teacher.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah.

Pastor Holland:

No, it's good. Rather than, oh yeah, Jesus told me three times this was going to happen, and this is the sovereign plan of God.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, I think another one for me is um man has a tendency to trade Jesus for money. Yeah. I mean, uh like that's in church, out of church. You know, Judas here, one of the 12, like, you know, for 30 shekels. Now, I don't know if he was all about the 30 shekels because he clearly he threw them away later, but I like how does that become a good deal?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Um, we want to be regarded as the greatest. Yeah, you notice that in verse 24, it's not, you know, who would I want to be the greatest. It's I want to be regarded as the greatest, right? I want people to think I'm great. And Jesus flips it and says, Well, here's what it means to actually be great. It's you, you're someone who serves. Um, yeah.

Pastor Plek:

Okay, how about this one? Um He he the disciples were sleeping for sorrow. Let me see if I can find that. Um Yeah, let's see. And yeah, the verse 45. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow. I thought that was an interesting deal. They're asleep because they're they're sad. Yeah. Uh, and so maybe I get that. When when you're when you're excited about anticipation of good things, you're like, I can't sleep, Santa's coming, you know. But here it's I can't, I I'm just tired. Almost like they gave up.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. When I struggle, when I feel discouraged or depressed, I I go, I just want to go to bed and sleep. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do ministry. I don't want to follow Jesus. I don't, I just want to go to sleep.

Pastor Plek:

And I don't think they fully wrap their, you know, Jesus just talked about who's gonna betray one another, and then it gets into, you know, who's the greatest. It's constant, it's rebuke, rebuke. Uh, and then hey, we gotta be numbered with the transgressors. That must have been like a you know, womp womp for a moment. Like, why is all the sadness? And they're just like, I'm tapping out, I'm slight, I'm tired. Yeah.

Pastor Holland:

My side note when I first became a Christian, my roommate would wake me up every morning to read the Bible and pray, and he would just quote this um, verse 46 Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he'd wake me up with that, and then I'd go downstairs and we'd read the Bible and pray. You know, that that's that's good.

Pastor Plek:

All right. Um, what about character of God? God forgives.

Pastor Holland:

You you see the last uh um the last supper, the Passover, the institution of the Lord's Supper, all of this is about God forgiving sinners by the blood of Christ.

Pastor Plek:

Nice. Um, yeah, I think uh God or Jesus specifically prays for his people. And um that's one of the things we when we pray, you know, pray that you won't enter in temptation. Leave me not in temptation, deliver from me, all that kind of thing. I think that's that's what Peter should have been praying, and thankfully Jesus prayed on his behalf. Um but that should be our prayer um that God, that Jesus would be on our team praying for us, which he is.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, um, character of God or attributes of God, he's omniscient, he knows all things. Um, even just this, we didn't really talk about this, but verse 7 to 13. Yeah, when he's like, uh Behold, when you've entered a city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Like, just how cool is that? That's just like he just lays it out, and I'm sure they're like, What? And then they go, and it's exactly as he says, you know, it says they found um the room just as he had told them, and it's just like just showing the omniscience of God, he knows all things.

Pastor Plek:

Right. And what a wild deal. A dude carrying a jar of water.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, there'll be a man in a yellow jacket, and uh, you know, it's like matrix architect stuff.

Pastor Plek:

Totally like that. And what I love about that too is like, no, what's wild, it's like that's it's like a man carrying a purse. Like well, I guess nowadays it's not that like for the most part. Usually it was the women carrying the water. Usually it was the women carrying a jar because they were the ones that would fill the water for the home. And here was a man carrying a jar of water, which made him stand out. Um, okay, let's get into what kind of application we look at here. Sid to confess, promise to claim, example to follow, command to obey, uh, or knowledge to believe. What you got? Why are you sleeping?

Pastor Holland:

Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation into temptation. Uh, I go, command to obey, get up early and pray to God. Nice. Make that, you know, if this, I don't know when you're listening to this chapter a day, but if you've if you're keeping this habit, uh I would I would say if you haven't added prayer to it, add prayer to it. When you finish this podcast, pray over the things that you've heard and read and meditated on.

Pastor Plek:

Nice. All right. Um, how about example of all? Pray, not my will, but yours be done. Like pray for whatever physical suffering to get out of that. That's totally okay. Uh how about we end that prayer, but not my will, but yours be done, Lord, because I trust you that even you could use this pain for your for your glory, my good.

Pastor Holland:

Um, be a servant. Jesus talks about this is what it means to be great in the kingdom of God, is that you serve. And so, especially if you are a leader over anyone, if you are a parent, um, leading your children, a father leaving, leading your family, if you lead uh a team at work, you lead whatever it may be, um, understand that what that true leadership is about serving others.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, good. How about sin to avoid uh or confess? Maybe a question for you to wrestle with today is where have you kissed compromise? Where have you uh denied Jesus and uh in relationships, in tasks at work, in um any of that? Where where have you where have we missed uh our ability to choose King Jesus over compromise? What about this? By a sword?

Pastor Holland:

Command to obey? Yes or no?

Pastor Plek:

I don't know from this particular passage because then the whole point is that Jesus would be numbered with the transgressors. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough, fair enough. But swords are crazy. I would personally recommend it. Yeah, it's a uh swords are definitely awesome. All right, hey, um, I'm praying that today you have a great day, that you would walk with the Lord today and in empower and trusting him, and that you would take him along with you the entire way. So thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow on a chapter a day.

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.