Luke 6:39-40 meaning

The parallel Gospel accounts for Luke 6:39-40 are Matthew 15:14, 10:24 and John 15:20.

After stating and explaining the Mercy Principle: “pardon, and you will be pardoned” (Luke 6:37b), Luke interjects Jesus’s teaching to announce: And He also spoke a parable to them: (Luke 6:39a).

This interjection divides the teaching of Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49) between straightforward principles and more interpretive parables. Jesus’s purpose is the same in both styles of teaching. His purpose is to state and depict truths that will lead to life.

A parable is a short story or extended metaphor. Parables invite the listener to lean in and consider what the point of the story is. A parable’s meaning is symbolic rather than literal.

The first parable He spoke to them was: 

“A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?”
(v 39b).

This short parable consists of two rhetorical questions.

The answer to the first question is “No, a blind man cannot guide a blind man very well.”

The answer to the second question is “Yes, they will both likely fall in a pit if a blind man tries to guide a blind man.”

It would be a silly if not sad sight to behold a blind man futilely trying to guide another blind man. But it would be even more tragic to see someone who does not understand the truth trying to guide another man who does not understand the truth through life. Such a pair would likely fall into something worse than a pit.

Jesus’s point is that in order for someone to be a competent guide, that person needs to see and understand truth and reality.

There are many blind people who pretend to be guides, and there are many who are blind who follow them. In this parable, Jesus is warning His disciples to be careful who they follow.

In a different setting altogether, Jesus spoke a similar parable to describe the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Judea as blind guides (Matthew 15:12-15). But in this context of Luke’s record of the Sermon on the Plain, he does not record Jesus as designating the Pharisees as the blind guides. The principle of the parable is broader in Luke, because it refers to any ill-qualified teacher, and not just Jewish Pharisees, who would have had little to no influence in the wider Greek world.

Jesus elaborates on this parable about the blind leading the blind:

A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher (v 40).

If a teacher is blind to truth, that teacher will pass on his blindness to his students. Jesus said of the Pharisees in His day, that they travel around on sea and land to find one pupil, and when they find one, they “make him twice as much a son of hell” as they themselves are (Matthew 23:15). This is one application of this pupil-student teaching and it appears to be the main application in this context.

Another application is from the little commission in Matthew 10, when Jesus sent out His disciples two by two throughout Israel.

This second application means that His disciples are not (and will never be) greater than Himself:

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.”
(Matthew 10:24)

When Jesus taught this to His disciples before He sent them out, He was saying that they will not be above Him. The preposition above refers to greatness, power, authority, glory, honor, fame, etc. A pupil is not above his teacher (v 40) in respect to authority or honor. The teacher is above (greater than) his disciple.

The disciples want to be great (Matthew 18:1, Mark 9:33-36, Luke 9:46-48, 22:24-30). Jesus wants them to be great. The disciples are willing to do whatever it takes (including die) to become great. And their zealous ambition to be great is likely one of the main reasons Jesus chose these twelve men to be His disciples. But Jesus is and always will be above His disciples in greatness. These passages make clear that Jesus is above all that is and will be, in heaven and on earth.

To learn more about this second application, see The Bible Says Commentary for Matthew 10:24-25.

Again, Jesus’s main point here seems to be warning His disciples that they will be like, but not greater than their teachers—so they should choose wisely who they will follow. And they should pick teachers who they want to be like.

This is why He concluded with the explanation: but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. 

Jesus was the perfect man. He lived a perfect life. He is the perfect teacher. And Jesus invites everyone to follow His example so they can be like Him.

Our salvation will be complete after we are made like Jesus and conformed into His image (Romans 8:29-30). This life is an opportunity for believers and would-be followers of Jesus to become fully trained in faith. Jesus was able to accomplish what He accomplished because He perfectly trusted God His Father. We would be wise to follow Jesus’s example and live by faith as He lived by faith.

Every trial is a precious opportunity to become more fully trained and like Jesus (James 1:2, 1:12, 1 Peter 1:6-7).