Luke 16:14

My Notes

What Does Luke 16:14 Mean?

Luke 16:14 delivers a devastating editorial aside. "The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him." Luke doesn't merely report that the Pharisees disagreed with Jesus. He names the reason — philarguroi huparochontes, literally "being lovers of money" — and he names their response: exemuktērizon auton, they turned up their noses at Him, they sneered, they mocked with contempt.

The verb exemuktērizō is visceral — it literally means to turn one's nose up, to sneer from a position of self-assured superiority. This isn't intellectual disagreement or theological debate. It's contempt. And Luke ties it directly to their covetousness. They derided Jesus' teaching about money because they loved money. The mockery was defensive — protecting the idol by mocking the prophet who threatened it.

The context is critical. Jesus has just told the parable of the unjust steward (16:1-13) and concluded with "ye cannot serve God and mammon" (v. 13). That declaration was a direct assault on the Pharisees' operating system. They had built an entire theological framework that equated wealth with divine blessing — a framework that conveniently justified their own prosperity. Jesus dismantled it in a sentence. And their response wasn't reflection. It was ridicule.

Luke 16:15 records Jesus' response: "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

Reflection Questions

• 1.When have you dismissed or mocked a challenging truth because it threatened something you love?
• 2.How does covetousness hide behind theological or spiritual language in your life?
• 3.What's the difference between disagreeing with a teaching and deriding it? What does the difference reveal?
• 4.If God knows your heart's relationship with money, what does He see right now?

Devotional

They didn't argue. They sneered.

The Pharisees heard Jesus say you can't serve God and money — and they laughed at Him. Luke tells you why in a parenthetical that lands like a sledgehammer: they were covetous. They loved money. And when someone you love is threatened, you don't engage calmly. You attack the threat.

Mockery is the defense mechanism of a person who can't afford to take the accusation seriously. If they'd engaged with what Jesus said — really sat with "you cannot serve God and mammon" — they would have had to examine their own lives. Their income, their lifestyle, their theological justification for why their prosperity proved God's favor. So instead, they sneered. They turned up their noses. They dismissed the teacher because the teaching was too dangerous to consider.

You've done this. Maybe not out loud, maybe not with a visible sneer, but internally — the eye roll when a sermon gets too close to your spending habits. The dismissal of a friend's concern about your priorities. The way you mentally categorize someone as "extreme" or "naive" when they challenge your relationship with money. The sneer is the sound covetousness makes when it's cornered.

Jesus' response to their mockery wasn't anger. It was diagnosis: God knows your hearts. The thing you esteem highly — the wealth, the status, the comfort you've baptized with theological language — God calls it abomination. The Pharisees' laughter was loud. But God's assessment was louder.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture