New Testament · Gospel

Luke 14:21

The Great Banquet

The servant returned and reported all this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ Luke 14:21 · Berean Standard Bible

What It Means

Luke 14:21, in plain English

The host is angry — and his response is amazing. He tells his servant to go into the streets and bring in the poor, the disabled, the forgotten. If the VIPs won't come, the outcasts will.

Why it's here

The four groups Jesus lists here are the same ones He mentioned earlier (v.13). His teaching about who to invite is now playing out in the story itself.

Who's speaking

The master speaks with passion, turning rejection into an opportunity to show radical generosity to the marginalized.

Where it sits in the story

The original guests said no, so the master fills his table with people who never expected an invitation. The rejected become the honored guests.

A Closer Look

The scholarly reading

The master's anger (orgistheis) at the rejections drives a radical pivot: the servant is sent into the 'streets and alleys' (plateias kai rhymas) to bring in the urban poor. The same four categories from v.13 reappear — poor, crippled, blind, lame.

Language and setting

This first wave of replacement guests represents the marginalized within Israel — those excluded from elite social and religious circles now welcomed to the kingdom feast.

Voice

The master speaks with righteous anger, redirecting his hospitality toward those whom society has overlooked and excluded.

Significance

Furious at the rejections, the master sends his servant into the city's back streets to invite the very people no one else would — the poor, disabled, and outcast.

In context

Luke 14:19–23

19Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. Please excuse me.’

20Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, so I cannot come.’

21The servant returned and reported all this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’

22‘Sir,’ the servant replied, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’

23So the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.

Read all of Luke 14 — The invited guests make excuses, so the host sends servants into the streets and alleys. God's table will be full — just not with who you'd expect.

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