notorious

Luke 15 

1 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 

2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain 

that he was associating with such sinful people;

even eating with them!

There are some interesting aspects of these 2 verses.

The most obvious is that Jesus WANTED to hang with "notorious sinners".

But even more intriguing is that these same "notorious sinners" WANTED to hang with Jesus.

I would hazard to say that there must have been something very different & compelling about Jesus & His attitude & treatment of these "notorious sinners" that would make them WANT to be with Him.

And it also begs a question about each of us who claim to be followers of Jesus...

Is it obvious in today's world that the "notorious sinners" of our day WANT to hang out around us? Is there that much of Jesus poking out of our personalities & interactions that they WANT to be around us?

And the other question is do we WANT to hang around "notorious sinners" - or is our Christianity so prissy & precious that we can't allow our witness to be sullied by being caught by our Christian buddies in the presence of people our buddies might not approve of?

Something to think about...