Slices
Prepare
Ask God to reveal to you today the truth of Jesus’ work which has brought you into his kingdom.
Bible passage
Jesus calls Levi and eats with sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 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. 16 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?’
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’
Jesus questioned about fasting
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, ‘How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?’
19 Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21 ‘No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.’
Explore
How did you come to follow Jesus? While everyone’s story is beautiful and unique, ultimately, we all share the same story of salvation: Jesus saw us, he called us and we followed him (v 14).
Because Jesus operates in that way, as opposed to calling people to performance and strict moral observance, people who place their trust in their own moral performance and behaviour get nervous (v 18). They think that, rather than going to where Jesus is (v 16), he should come and be with them, because their performance has earned them that right. The pride in our hearts, just as in the Pharisees’ in this passage, means we tend to judge ourselves as better than we are – and others as worse than we are.
But the moral standard for entry into the kingdom of God is not OK, good or even very good, but is, in fact, perfection. The new wine of the kingdom is the law fulfilled in Jesus (v 22). It is no longer about our performance, but depends on Jesus. Because Jesus meets that standard, our entry is found only in and through him, the doorway to the kingdom of God (John 10:9).
Respond
In what ways do you place hope in your ability to impress God? Ask God to free you from the slavery of moral performance, and to help you see Jesus alone as enough.
Deeper Bible study
Have you ever felt like an outsider? What does it mean to know that God loves and accepts you?
Jesus angers religious leaders again in today’s reading, this time by calling a tax collector to be his disciple and eating with him and his associates. Tax collectors were very unpopular with the general population, not just with the Pharisees, because they had a reputation for charging higher taxes than they should, to line their own pockets. It was shocking for Jesus to choose a disciple from such a line of work. Many would have questioned whether Jesus was a man of God after seeing him share meals with Levi and his associates, including his fellow tax collectors and others the religious authorities considered sinners. Sharing a meal was deeply symbolic to devout Jews: it was a sign of acceptance and close fellowship. No wonder the Pharisees struggled with Jesus’ activities! Because they pursued religious purity, they avoided those they considered a bad influence. Jesus looked at things differently, though: he knew that sinners could not pull him away from God and believed he could bring them back to the Lord by mixing with them and showing them God’s love.
The Pharisees get a bad press, but they were genuinely trying to obey God and make Israel a holy people, so avoiding those who were not serious about God made sense to them. Jesus’ stated mission, however, was to seek and save the lost.1 He realised that the Pharisees’ focus and his desire to reach out were at loggerheads. His analogy of not sewing new, unshrunk cloth onto old or pouring young, still fermenting wine into old inflexible wineskins is about recognising when old traditions, no matter how well meant, restrict God’s people and hold them back from doing God’s work. Can we think of any traditions, structures, or ways of doing things that hinder us from continuing Jesus’ work as effectively as we might?
Pray for the church, both locally and nationally, that it may be open to change when the Spirit prompts it.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Isaiah 35,36; Hebrews 3
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for the North team as they plan for the Mission Possible training tour around various towns in the north of England. Pray that those who come will be inspired to reach out to the 95 in their own contexts and equipped to do so confidently and boldly.
