Stress Test Devotional May 25
May 25, 2024
LUKE 11:46 | 46 And he said, “Woe also to you experts in the law! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.
LUKE 15:1-2 | 1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus was also an advocate for many ordinary people who were excluded or marginalized even though they did not have diseases or crippling conditions. These folks were treated as “less than” simply by virtue of a feature of their natural identities. Some were unworthy of care because they were Gentiles. Some had improper theological understandings, like the Samaritans. Some were women and some were children, and their gender or age put them into positions of inferiority. Some were identified as “the people of the land,” or as the ancients would say, the hoipolloi, whose labors on the field and farm prevented them from keeping the complex cleanliness laws.
Jesus made direct challenges to the spiritual leaders of Israel, naming the injustices these groups suffered. He indirectly communicated this challenge by befriending them.
Have you ever befriended an outsider?
