Unlimited: Jesus Has Dinner with Sinners
Feb 22, 2024 2837
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:15–17, NIV).
Jesus called Levi, a despised tax collector, to follow him. That’s shocking enough. But now he shows the religious leaders even more about what he’s about!
The first thing that Levi does after answering Jesus’ call might seem unusual. He doesn’t go to church! No! Instead, Levi throws a party! And he invites his friends, who like him, are the outcasts of society: disreputable and immoral people. When Jesus has shown you grace, you want to share the blessings with others.
Jesus is right in the midst of the party, thoroughly enjoying himself.
This is absolutely shocking behaviour to the religious leaders! How can Jesus claim to be doing the work of God when he associated with such scum?
The religious leaders thought that when the Messiah came, that he would come to bless the people who had earned that right by being religious and properly righteous.
But Jesus responds by telling them that his ministry is not to the seemingly righteous, but that he has come to call sinners instead.
The religious leaders weren’t prepared to accept that they were in fact the ones who were the most sinful, and that they were the ones who most needed Jesus.
Only those who admit their need are able to receive the blessings of Christ. The religious leaders allowed their customs and traditions to create a barrier between them and the true Messiah, Jesus.
In ourselves, as Jesus said, there is none good but God alone.
– Eliezer Gonzalez
Eli’s Reflection: Take some time to examine yourself carefully. With which of the two sets of characters in the story do you really belong: the sinners who eat with Jesus or the self-reliant teachers of the law who are repulsed by such grace.
Kwabena Mascot
Sep 23, 2024
As for this very topic how and why Jesus Christ ate with sinners is self explanatory so if some people have issues with that well that's their own cup of tea,He came for the lost,In short, the sinners who had gone astray not the righteous, that's why almost all the disciples He called to follow Him were merely people of low esteem and less privileged,with the issues of Mathew and other disciples who were Him is something amazing, when Matthew was a tax collector he was just a mere ordinary man in the actual sense, a sinner,so with the other apostles,but when Jesus Christ called them to His ministry,they were new creation,what about the apostle Paul? We all knew the turn out of events when he was saul,he did terrible heinous crimes but when God called him,he was a new person,he wrote most of the letters to the church and did wonderful things even than the early disciples who were with Jesus,so it is the works after the call not the call before before the call.Each and everyone of us is a sinner,the bible states clear for all have sinned,there is no righteousness no not one,so the problem here is we are all sinners even those so called religious leaders and the churches all over the world.If Jesus Christ comes again it is by grace that we will be saved not by works that someone should boast.
Binance Account
Dec 9, 2024
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