GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 2:15
Sharing Good News
Being around someone with “good news” is exciting. Their enthusiasm is contagious; it seems to “rub off” on everyone around. Many fans in cities, for example, whose sports team wins a championship, break out in wild excitement.
According to St. Mark, shortly after Jesus called Levi, the tax collector, to leave his occupation and become a disciple, “And it happened that he was reclining in his [Levi’s] house, and many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for they were many, and they followed him.” (2:15) Luke said Levi “held a great banquet.” (5:29) Levi had good news, and he wanted to share it. So he called his friends. As a tax collector, Levi was not part of the “upper crust” of society. However, with a house large enough and a budget large enough to hold a “great” banquet, he may have been financially ahead of the poorer “upper crust.”
Many other tax collectors and sinners who were following Jesus were invited. The word “sinner” at the time covered not only lawbreakers, but ordinary people, then considered “people of the land,” people who were not as punctilious about how many times they washed their hands before eating, people who did not observe all the rules or the regulations of conventional Pharisaic piety, people with whom the orthodox had no fellowship with.
That same excitement flows from believers today who want to share the good news of Jesus and eternal life with everyone they meet.
Directory