Dining with Sinners
Mark 2:15-17 Later that day, Jesus and his followers ate at Levi’s house. There were also many tax collectors and others with bad reputations eating with them. (There were many of these people who followed Jesus.) When some teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with such bad people, they asked his followers, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners.”
Question: do you make it a deliberate policy to invite bad people around to your place – sinners, if you will – and to sit down to dinner with them? And if not, why not?
That’s a pretty confronting way to kick things off today. The story I’m about to share is one that you may well be quite familiar with:
Mark 2:15-17 Later that day, Jesus and his followers ate at Levi’s house. There were also many tax collectors and others with bad reputations eating with them. (There were many of these people who followed Jesus.) When some teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with such bad people, they asked his followers, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners.”
It’s one thing to be familiar with a Bible story. It’s quite another to apply it to our lives. When I was one of those “sinners” out there, a couple, Sandra and Karsten, would invite me to sit around their dinner table. I noticed that they’d often invite their neighbours over too.
And they always, always said grace, knowing that there was a bunch of people around that table who didn’t believe. That had a profound impact on me – in fact, it played a key role in me coming to faith. And for that reason, it’s a pattern that my wife and I follow still today.
Please, please, invite sinners like me to sit around your dinner table.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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