B5-devotions

Luke 5:27-32

Devotions for Thursday 4th March

Read more / NOTES / GOING DEEPER / APPLICATION / DISCIPLESHIP

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the revenue booth, and He said to him ‘Follow me.’ 28 Then he got up, left everything, and began to follow Him! 29 Levi held a great banquet for Jesus in his house, and a large company of tax collectors and others sat down to eat with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble to Jesus’ disciples and said, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ 31 Jesus answered them by saying, ‘It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners.’

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for the joy of being able to share our faith. Thank You for those with whom we share our worship; thank You for the groups in which we share fellowship; thank You for the privilege of hearing the testimony of others; and thank You for all the opportunities we have to share what we believe and what this means to us. Lord Jesus, build us up in our faith, we pray: AMEN

Listen carefully;

Hear what others have to say and be Christ-like in your response.

Learn intelligently;

Find out what the world has to offer, and check it out against Christ.

Plan realistically;

Prepare well for the future, and submit what you plan to the Lord.

Work diligently;

Give your all in the service of the Kingdom of God, and to help others.

Evaluate shrewdly;

In everything, seek to discern right from wrong, and act accordingly.

Share generously;

Assign a portion of what God has given you to others and to the church.

And speak boldly;

Do not be afraid to speak out, with the love and wisdom of your Lord.

Prayer ideas

Try to find an opportunity to pray out loud today, because doing this can focus our prayers immeasurably.

On-going prayers

Pray for Christian Aid agencies Pray for small agencies, especially any you know, that do not have a wide appeal and yet need support
Pray for industries experiencing difficult trading conditions today
Give thanks to God for the fruitfulness of the world in which we live

Our passage today describes the call of Levi, the tax-collector. We would be outraged by this story if it were not for the fact that we are familiar with it, and it is difficult for us to appreciate the sheer hatred that existed in the first century between Jews and those of their own people who collaborated with their Roman overlords. Throughout history, people have born hatred towards those who are different, but such hatred is multiplied many times over, when a few individuals of one proud nation choose freely to side with a bitter enemy and extract taxes from their own people. If Jesus’ calling of Peter was amazing (5:1-11), His healing of the leper liberating (5:12-16) and His healing of the paralysed man challenging (5:17-26), then His call of Levi was groundbreaking; and with each incident we learn more about Jesus’ ministry.

The details of this story are largely well known, and the story has often been preached upon. When Jesus called Levi, He did so with the same power and authority with which He called Peter and healed people, yet neither Luke nor the other Gospel writers give other details. They simply say that Levi ‘got up, left everything, and began to follow Jesus.’ (5:28). Too often, we want proof that people have changed before they can show it, and it is easy to get this story mixed up in our minds with that of another tax-collector, Zacchaeus, who immediately atoned for his sins by giving away money (19:1-9). The proof of Levi’s conversion would come later, for this was the man we know as Matthew, the disciple who wrote the first Gospel (see Matthew 9:9-12).

Matthew’s innovative first action was to understand Jesus’ mission to reach out not just to him but to those like him, and he therefore invited Jesus to his house to meet with other ‘sinners’. All who were outcast from normal Jewish society had a common need of friendship, and it is not surprising that those at table were ‘sinners’. Those who grumbled about this (5:30) may have admired Jesus’ ministry but could not overcome their prejudices. They had begun to think of Jesus as a holy man, possibly the Messiah, but why did He spend time with outcast ‘tax-collectors and sinners’? This question brought from Jesus a famous ‘sound-bite’, ‘I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners’ (5:32). These words has been used in countless sermons and they sum up the Gospel appeal of a loving Saviour to those who know they have sinned, and they also warn those who think they are blameless before God to be cautious about this presumption.

In Jesus’ day, the Jewish people believed they were different because they had a ‘right’ relationship with God (called ‘righteousness’) through their obedience to the Law and their lineage from Abraham. To them, Tax collectors were like those who did not keep the Law and were therefore outcast, and they were called ‘sinners’ with more distain than we can imagine. Yet it does not take much reading of the Old Testament to discover that on the one hand God is fundamentally opposed to sin, but on the other hand He is equally determined to overcome both sin and its consequences. Jesus was not being radically new when He reached out to Levi to called him as a disciple. Rather, He challenged the Jewish people to overcome their earthly prejudices and accept the ancient message that God was in the business of overcoming sin, not merely condemning it.

God’s opposition to sin and His determination to overcome it does not change, and the message of this story of Levi’s call is equally true today and equally applicable to sinners and religious people alike. In addition, if we read this story together with the rest of Luke 5, we should link what Jesus says here with its other stories. They are also about the call of disciples (Peter, in 5:1-11), the healing of the sick (the leper, in 5:12-16) and forgiveness of sins (the paralytic, in 5:17-26). Altogether, this gives us a glimpse of the priorities of Jesus’ emerging ministry.

Going Deeper

The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues:

Who were the tax-collectors, and why were they so disliked?
What is the significance of banquets, especially this one here?
What does Jesus mean by ‘repentance’, both here and elsewhere?

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