Sinners Welcome! - Mark 2:13-17

Jesus has reached into the blue collar ranks calling fisherman to follow Him.  Now Jesus jumps several cultural barriers and calls a Jewish traitor who turned Roman tax collector to follow Him.  Matthew gives a bit more detail – “Mat 9:9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He *said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.”  Jesus continues to do the unlikely to accomplish the unimaginable – bringing good news to the lost and dying!  It is in this passage Jesus compares His ministry to a physician calling on the sick and not pursuing the healthy.  Certainly ‘sinners and tax collectors’ were thought to be the ill of the Jewish society – Jesus cares for all.  We have seen Him listen to the lepers, heal the sick and dying and even cast out the demons for the possessed.  Now Jesus says to even Jewish turncoats – ‘follow Me!’  We can do no less – 

See you Sunday, 

Pastor Mike

“You teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are.”  Howard G. Hendricks