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Luke 5.31, 32 (NIV)
Jesus answered them, “It is
not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
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| How on earth can you and I stand in the pulpit, in a Sunday school class, or in a small group and tell people how to reach a lost world when we refuse to step outside our little bubble of isolation?* |
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The
Pharisees probably wanted to get into a discussion about who was righteous, but
Jesus was not concerned about that.* Jesus’ point in this passage was that righteous
people don’t need to repent and that’s why he was hanging out with sinners. As Paul reminds us in Romans 3.10 (quoting Psalm 14.3), no one is righteous, so who is in any position to criticize Jesus for the people he associates with?
Think
of the church as a hospital and each individual church member as an employee of
the hospital. A hospital has a lot more than just doctors on staff. A well-run
hospital has nurses, technicians, janitors, cooks, and office-workers. Some
people drive the ambulance that brings in the badly injured patients; others
pick up sick people at their homes and drive them to the hospital for treatment
or surgery.
The
hospital exists to treat and prevent
illness and injury – not so that doctors and nurses and technicians can
encourage each other and have meetings to discuss the latest treatment
theories. Yes, just like a hospital, the church needs to train and encourage
its employees but it is a useless institution if it never comes into contact
with the sin-diseased world.
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| Consider who Jesus spent his time with while on earth. He spent time with, worked with, and changed the lives of those who were broken and lost.* |
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