Luke 16:15

Plain English Version

Then Jesus told them, “You mob want everyone to think you are good, but God knows what you are really like, and he knows what you think inside your heads. You see, there are things that people reckon are important, but God thinks those things are rubbish.

Cross References

Matthew 6:16

Jesus kept on teaching the people. Some of those people used to stop eating for a while, so they can think about God and respect him. Jesus said, “Whenever you stop eating for a while, make sure you look the same as you always look. You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. Whenever they stop eating food to respect God, they want everyone to know what they are doing, so they let their faces get dirty, and they try to look sad. They want people to say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them.

Matthew 6:2

You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. So whenever they give something to help a poor person, they do it in front of the meeting house or on a busy street, so that people will see it and say that they are good. But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them.

Matthew 6:5

Jesus said, “Don’t pray like those people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. They like to stand up and pray in the meeting houses and on the busy street corners, so that lots of people can see them praying. They want to hear people say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that.”

Luke 10:29

But the man wanted to show that he asked an important question, so he said, “What does it mean by the people around me? Who are they?”

Luke 11:39

So Jesus said to him, “You Pharisee mob are like somebody that cleans the outside of cups and plates, but doesn’t clean the inside. You see, you only do good things if people can see you, like you are good on the outside. But you are really dirty on the inside. Yes, inside yourselves you are greedy, and you are always thinking in your heads about doing very bad things.

Luke 18:11

The Pharisee man stood in a place where everyone could see him, and he didn’t say he was sorry for anything. He just talked about himself. He said, ‘Thank you, God, that I am different from everyone else. You see, God, I don’t cheat anyone, and I don’t do anything bad. I don’t sleep with anyone that is not my wife. I’m not a bad man, like that man over there. He takes tax money from people to give it to the government.

Luke 18:14

Jesus said, “I’m telling you now, God listened to that bad man because he was sorry for the bad things he did, so God says that he is all right, and he will not punish that man. But God doesn’t say that about the other man that already reckoned he was good. You see, if you try to make yourself important, God will make you like nothing. But if you make yourself like nothing, God will make you important.” (We have not yet translated 18:15-43. You can read those stories and messages in Mark 10:13-34, 46-52.)

Luke 18:9

Some people there thought that they were really good, and they rubbished everyone else. They reckoned, “We are so good that God will always say we are all right.” So Jesus told them this picture story. He said,

John 21:17

After that, Jesus asked him again, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Then Peter got a bit upset because Jesus asked him 3 times, “Do you love me?” So Peter said, “Sir, you know everything, and you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “All right, you have to look after my people properly, just like a shepherd takes his sheep to good grass for them to eat.

Acts 1:18

After that, the Jewish leaders used that same money to buy some farm land. And Judas died in that place. His belly split open, and all his guts fell out.

Acts 1:24

Then Jesus’s special workers prayed. They said, “Judas left his job, and went his own way, and now he is dead. He went to that bad place. And God, you know everyone properly, and you know the way they think. Please show us the man that you want to take Judas’s place, and to do his job, and to be a special worker of Jesus.”

Acts 15:8

God always knows what people are thinking, and when those people that are not Jews believed in Jesus, God gave them the Holy Spirit to show them that he wants them in his family too. You see, at first he gave the Holy Spirit to us, then he gave the Holy Spirit to those people that are not Jews.

Romans 8:27

And our father understands the Holy Spirit. God already knows everything that everybody thinks and the way everybody feels, so the Holy Spirit always prays for God’s people and asks for the things that God already wants.

1 Corinthians 4:5

So I’m telling you, don’t judge people before the right time comes. You have to wait until our leader Jesus comes back again from heaven. He knows every secret. He will show everyone the secret things that people think about doing. And at that time God will praise each of his good workers, and he will say good things about them.

1 Peter 5:5

Listen, you young people, it is like this. You have to listen carefully to your Christian leaders. Don’t think you are great or more important than other people. Think about what God says in his book. He says, “God is against people that think they are great, but he is good to people that know they are not great.”

1 Samuel 16:7

But God said to Samuel, “No, not this one. I didn’t pick him. You just see that he has a strong tall body. You people look at the outside of a person, but I know what they are like inside. I know the way they think.”