9:9
We are now back to Jesus reaching the surprising people. Earlier we had seen how He healed people who were “outsiders”, either not being Jewish, or being a leper. Now He goes further and calls an “outsider” to follow Him, to be a disciple. Tax collectors were not popular. There were two main reasons for this. One was that they often took money over and above the normal tax rate to line their own pockets. Secondly they worked for the hated Roman occupation. See that Jesus says to Matthew “Follow me”, this was a command, not an invitation. Matthew got up and followed Jesus.
9:10
Jesus then went to have dinner at Matthew’s house, and there were many tax collectors and sinners there. Jesus attended many meals! He was also at ease meeting with various sorts of “sinners”, yet did so without compromising Himself or the Word of God at all. We struggle with this and tend to go down one of two wrong routes. On the one hand we know how to condemn people. That is easy to do. On the other hand we can mix with people and condone their sin, or at least not be clear that they need to repent, and effectively become sin-affirming. We need the Spirit of God to enable us to act in a truly Christlike manner.
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