Luke 5:27-32 — You Didn’t Come to Find the Found…

READ THIS: Luke 5:27-32

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

WHAT’S THIS MEAN, ANYWAY?

There’s something really cool about these verses that can be easy to miss. Today, we just read the story of the disciple Matthew being called to follow Jesus! This may be confusing, because you’re probably like “um… it said his name was Levi,” but Matthew was another name he had (we don’t know if Jesus gave him the name Matthew after this encounter, but he goes by both in the Gospel stories). Many people who have read the Bible know that Matthew was a tax collector, and many people know that tax collectors weren’t really known for being the best people in town. Most Jews at this time saw tax collectors as traitors because they chose to take money from the Jewish people and give it to the Roman Empire (while also keeping lots of it for themselves). Many tax collectors had little to no connection with their Jewish friends and family because they would label them as traitors.

What’s so cool about Jesus’s encounter with Matthew/Levi is where Jesus met him. Jesus chose to call Matthew/Levi in a place where Matthew could have been feeling a lot of shame: the tax collector booth. It was a place where anyone else would see him as awful (as shown in verse 30, where people are shocked that Jesus would even associate with him). But Jesus went to that place of shame and said “Matthew, I choose you.” This idea is summed up so well in the last two verses of this passage, where Jesus says that He didn’t come to earth to take care of the healthy (those who already knew God), but rather He came to the people who needed Jesus, and He came to places where they needed Him most!

THINK ABOUT IT:

1. What is your “tax collector booth?” Where is a place in life where you have felt far from God or alone?

2. If Jesus didn’t come to help the healthy or “find the found,” so to speak, does that mean He doesn’t care about them? Why or why not?

TRY THIS:

Guess which song was written about THESE verses!!!!

Answer: Spotify and/or Youtube

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