Accepting

The other day, I was listening to a podcast and it was focusing on the first part of Luke 15. The first verse was what really got me thinking. "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him." Tax collectors asked for more money than the Roman's actually wanted, and then kept it. In that day, tax collectors were considered traitors. The Jews practically hated them because tax collectors were basically working with the Roman occupiers. They were perceived as greedy and low. The word "sinners'' in Greek is "ἁμαρτωλός" and the transliteration is "hamartōlos'' which means "to forfeit by missing the mark". And these sinners weren't just regular sinners. They were notorious sinners. And Jesus was eating with them! In front of the Pharisees AND the scribes!

This got me asking the question, "How accepting are we in our church?" You know what I'm talking about. There's that visitor (or maybe even a member of your congregation), who has tattoos or dyed hair. They might not always wear a dress or a suit to assembly. Or, GASP, they wore Crocs to church! In the back of your mind, maybe you're thinking less of them or judge them. Maybe the other members of your church aren't quite as kind to the visitor as they usually are.

Jesus had love for everybody, and still does! Of course, there's a fine line but we'll get to that in a second.

In John 4, Jesus met with a Samaritan woman. He talked to her and asked her for a drink. In this day and age, that's completely fine and normal. But back then, it was not. First of all, men talking to women didn't happen very much. It would sometimes happen at group gatherings but they would not talk alone in the middle of almost nowhere. Second of all, she was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew. John 4:9 - "The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?' (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)" That was a huge no-no. Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews. Third of all, this woman wasn't the greatest. As we find out later in John 4, she had FIVE husbands and was hanging with another guy who was not her husband.

In Matthew 9:9, we hear about Matthew (who would later be a disciple of Jesus) and he's a tax collector. In Luke 19, we hear about Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector. Jesus hung out with him for about ten verses.

Again in Matthew 9, Jesus was reclining at the table with tax collectors and sinners. This time, the Pharisees asked the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11).

Moral of the story: We need to be kind and accepting of the person, but not of their sins. There are many instances in the Bible where Jesus tells a friend to stop sinning. Even in Matthew 16:23, Jesus tells Peter to "Get behind me Satan!" because Peter's being a hindrance.

Hope you are encouraged!