Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Lost Sheep and Coin

This is a book first posted on Grace Connection, the Magazine. There is no printed edition. All 30 chapters will appear on the Wheel in the following weeks.


Chapter 9

Luke 15:1-10

Decent people avoided associating with tax collectors and sinners at the time of Jesus. Tax collectors were considered traitors because they were working for their occupiers, the Romans. They were also hated because they lined their pockets with money they "earned" by forcing people to pay more taxes than was required by Roman law. The reaction of the people when Jesus went to the home of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector was, "He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner" (Luke 19:7). (Zacchaeus, you remember, confessed to the sin of avarice when he promised to give back fourfold to all those he had defrauded.) "Sinners" was a comprehensive term that included tax collectors and other immoral persons who did not keep the law or engaged in one of the proscribed trades such as prostitution. People then as now assumed that a person was "known" by the company he keeps.

Read more at Adventist Perspective.

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