Daily Bible Reading 30th September 2026 // Luke 13:1-9
1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vine dresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig round it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
What is the point of this being introduced here, and what is its link with what has gone before? The connection is twofold: on the one hand Jesus, in the closing words of chapter 12, had spoken of the idea of judgment, in the picture of the magistrate and the law court. On the other hand, He had just chided them for being blind to the realities of life: they were able to discern the signs of the weather in the sky, but they were not able to discern the signs of the times and the principle of judgment operating in history. And now some of them came forward to Him with the account of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. It is as if they had said, 'We are not so blind as you think we are'. They held up the incident to show that they could see that God had brought judgment upon the Galileans. They implied that some terrible guilt must necessarily have rested upon those Galileans, which turned the very sacrifices they were offering into sin and brought the judgment of God upon them. The historical reference is uncertain, if not unknown. There had been some sort of hot-blooded insurrection on the part of some Galileans, and Pilate had set his soldiers on a punitive expedition, who had slain the Galileans even in the act of making sacrifice. Now, the Judaeans had little sympathy with the Galileans; and they would tell this story against them with pious satisfaction and smug complacency. But they were in error on two counts, as we shall see in tomorrow's Note, and Jesus deals with them one by one.