But of whom of you that is a father shall a son ask bread, and [the father] shall give him a stone? or also a fish, and instead of a fish shall give him a serpent?
Jesus asks a question every parent can answer: no father hands his hungry son a snake instead of a fish. The point is not how prayer works but who God is.
The Lord picks a scene anyone can follow: a hungry son asking his father for food.
The Lord Jesus uses an illustration which everybody can understand. He speaks of the normal relationship between a son and his father, one marked by love and trust. The son is in trouble and asks his father for bread or a fish, that is things necessary for daily living. He does not demand as the son in Luke 15:12 did. Nor does he ask wrongly, to satisfy his own cravings (something James 4:3 warns us about). No, he asks his father with trust and without doubting, for what he really needs.
The two substitutes are not the same. One is merely worthless; the other would harm the child who swallowed it.
A son who asks his father for bread usually trusts him to answer with care. To give a stone in place of bread would be cruelty: do believers not have more confidence in their Father than this? The stone would be harmless but useless. A serpent given instead of a fish would do real harm. So let us pray with firm faith, sure that our Father will answer in the best way for us.
Such a gift would be a joke at the child's expense.
How against every feeling of a parent it would be to mock a child while pretending to give! To hand over what is harmful instead of what is good! It is impossible that any ordinary father would act that way.
The comparison works because the family bond itself came from God.
But there is more. He is our Father, and He has a Father's heart. We can learn something of that heart from a human parent, whom God placed in that role. God set up the parent-child tie. The Creator planted parental love in the creature. Will He do less, and care less for His children, than an earthly parent for his offspring? Impossible; and here we are not left to conjecture, nor to deduction.
A father's warmth alone would not protect a child from a bad request.
There is affection enough in the heart of man to make him respond to a child's cry of need. But affection is not enough. Wisdom is needed too, so that the gift he gives is a good one. Parents do not always give everything their children may ask. They do listen to what their children ask, but they think about what will be suitable and good to give.
Turn the verse around and it explains a great deal of our disappointment in prayer.
He will not give that which is useless or harmful in answer to requests for necessary food. Nor, we may add, will He give what is useless or harmful if we foolishly desire it and ask for it. Many an unanswered prayer is, no doubt, accounted for by this.
We do not always know which request is bread and which is a snake.
Even as parents we often have to refuse the requests of our children. A little lad of four asks his mother for his father's razor to play with. Will she answer his prayer? And we often ask God for razors that would injure us.
Luke alone carries the comparison up to its highest gift.
reason: 70-word very-hard sentence; Scripture not ESV; archaic "Godward" They were really disciples; they were born of God, yet they still had to pray for the Holy Spirit to be given to them… The sending down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost brought in an immense change to this truth.
- Father. God Himself set up the parent-child tie. So a human father's care is a small sample of His own.
- Bread. The son asks trustingly for what he genuinely needs, not demanding and not for his own cravings.
- Stone. A stone is useless and a snake is dangerous. No father mocks his hungry child with them, and God never will.
- Wisdom. Love alone is not enough to give well. God's refusals are His wisdom keeping razors out of our hands, and they explain many an unanswered prayer.
- Spirit. Luke's version climbs from bread to the best gift of all — the Father giving the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
or if also he shall ask an egg, shall give him a scorpion?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
If therefore *ye*, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give [the] Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
The disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray, and He answered with a friend knocking at midnight and a father feeding his child. This verse ends the argument by leaping from what flawed human parents give to what God gives — and the gift He names is a Person.
The comparison starts with a blunt verdict on the hearers. They are fathers who love their children, and Jesus still calls them evil.
The Lord ended His teaching on prayer by reminding His disciples that they themselves were evil. They had an evil nature, so their motives were likely to be selfish. Yet despite this, they knew how to give good gifts to their children. How much more, then, can we depend on Him who is perfect in truth and goodness to give the greatest of all good gifts to those who ask Him — that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit?
In the midnight story the neighbour gives in because the man keeps knocking. This verse moves the ground from friendship to family.
Persistence works with a friend. God rewards earnestness. But there is more: He is our Father, and He has a Father's heart. We can learn something of what that means from a human parent, whom God placed in that relationship. God set up the tie between parent and child. The Creator planted parental love in His creature. Will He do less, and care less for His children, than a human parent does for his own child?
Only this Gospel carries the promise in this form. Commentators mark what the Lord names as the gift, and what He does not.
The Lord also touches on the gift of the Spirit, and He does so only in this Gospel — "…how much more will the heavenly Father give [not merely good things, but] the Holy Spirit [the best gift] to those who ask Him!" For the Holy Spirit was not yet given. Their hearts were reaching out to God. They were true disciples, born of God, and yet they had to pray that the Holy Spirit would be given to them.
The story just before presses us to keep asking. This verse stops persistence from becoming a way of forcing God's hand.
He guards against the abuse of the doctrine of persistence. He does not want us to think that our persistence can wring a gift that is not good out of our heavenly Father's hand. Sometimes, perhaps, we might want such a gift in a moment of madness — only in madness. But how can He refuse to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?
The promise did not stay open-ended. One writer points to the group of disciples who prayed together and took the Lord at His word here.
Those who were there had the Lord's authority to ask God to give them the Holy Spirit. We find it on record that they prayed and God did send Him. So it is no use quoting this passage in Luke as our warrant to ask God to send the Holy Spirit now. The hundred and twenty who met there took their stand on that promise. They prayed and received the answer. If we ask now for the Holy Spirit to be sent, we are centuries behind the time. He is here.
Commentators differ on how much of this verse a believer can still pray. One points the prayer somewhere else.
It is quite right to pray that we may not grieve Him, and that we may not quench Him. It agrees with the word of God to pray that we may be strengthened with all might according to His Spirit in the inner man. But we should not say one word that implies the Holy Spirit is not here, when He is.
Others keep the verse pointed at us as a rebuke to prayerlessness.
The Spirit is now given, in the Christian sense. Even so, we can still have — and we are called to prove — the way our Father answers the prayers of His people with fullness of spiritual blessing. How comforting is the Lord's assurance here! Yet how it reproves us also! Here, if we lack, "we do not have, because we do not ask."
- Ask from weakness. The argument starts by calling us evil, then uses our flawed giving as the low bar that God towers over.
- Ask a Father. The Creator planted parental love in us. He will not care less for His children than a human parent does.
- Ask for the best. The gift named is not merely good things but the Holy Spirit — the best gift, promised to disciples already born of God.
- Ask safely. Persistence cannot force a harmful gift out of His hand; the one thing He cannot refuse is the Spirit.
- Ask in season. The hundred and twenty prayed this prayer and God sent Him. Commentators differ on what is left to ask: that we would not grieve Him, or that our Father would answer with fullness of blessing.