Matthew 21:31, 45 NIV
"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
"The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them.
They knew he was talking about them so they plotted against him. In this chapter, Jesus presented himself to Jerusalem as her King, cleared the temple, cursed an unproductive fig tree, and challenged the Chief Priests and Pharisees through his parables. When they understood what he was saying, they decided to get rid of him. That is always the solution when we don't like what we're hearing. Shoot the messenger, or at least seek to discredit the messenger.
I fear that is what we Christians often do as well. Too often we fail to think, reason and evaluate critically and biblically. By critically, I don't mean having a critical spirit. I mean discerning between truth and error. We hear of, or read a new book. The author raises some important issues. Because we reject his answers, or his personal theology, we dismiss the entire work and fail to recognize or deal with the valid issues he raised. A church movement starts but, because of faulty theology, we dismiss the movement out of hand without asking what it is about the current condition of the church that caused this movement to start. We discredit the messenger without hearing the real issue.
On the other hand, we pride ourselves in having our theological i's dotted and t's crossed, but are we actually doing what Jesus has called us to do? I have a feeling that most of us would feel more comfortable with the Pharisees than with the tax collectors and prostitutes. But which ones did Jesus say were getting into the Kingdom? It wasn't the Pharisees.
Father, don't let me get away with ignoring the troubling things Jesus says. May I hear clearly, follow closely, and yield quickly no matter where that takes me.
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