Working on Luke 22:23-30. The disciples break out into bickering at the Last Supper. Jesus tells them that one of them will betray him, and they all proceed to betray the fact that they haven’t had a clue of what he’s been trying to teach them about leadership for the last 3 years.

This quotation from Joel B. Green’s excellent commentary on the Gospel of Luke on Jesus’ taking the bickering at the Last Supper as a teaching opportunity for his disciples on the shape of kingdom leadership.

It is at this point that comparison with the apostles is pertinent: they want to be acclaimed as benefactors. The problem to which Luke points may be illustrated with reference to cities in the Roman world. The Emperor himself modeled what was expected of the wealthy elite in every locale — namely, the practice of generous benefaction. Rather than pay taxes, the wealthy contributed time and money in the service of the cities and towns. This form of benefaction was not managed centrally, as though wealth would be distributed where needs were generally agreed. Instead, gifts were made at the whim of givers. What is more, though private involvement of this kind was necessitated by deficiencies in the city treasury, it was to the advantage of the wealthy that the city’s finances be kept in this weakened condition. Private benefaction was the primary means by which the wealthy were legitimated as those most deserving of public office and prestige in the community. In order to provide leadership, wealth was required, so only the wealthy could provide leadership and thus enjoy the honor and self-advancement reserved for those who gave so “generously.” This pattern pervaded the world, so that the giving of gifts brought with it obligations for service and honor. The concern in this text, then, is not with abuses of the system by which leadership was exercised and legitimated, but with the nature of the system itself.

Jesus’ negative instruction, “but not so with you,” is so cryptic that it might easily be misunderstood. Jesus is not teaching that his followers cannot be rulers or benefactors, but that their manner of ruling and benefaction must be utterly transformed. According to Jesus, disciples are, like God, to give without expectation of return, even to the wicked and the ungrateful (6:35-36).

The Gospel of Luke, NICNT by Joel B. Green Eerdmans, p. 768