Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You a Good Host? | New Testament | Matthew 9

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Are you quick to welcome people in? Do you seek out others who might be less popular? How likely are you to offer to host someone for dinner? In today's episode, Patrick looks at the hospitality expressed in Matthew 9 as an example of how to host well. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in 2023. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Matthew 9

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Do you see yourself as a host? Would people describe you as hospitable? Do you have a practice of inviting people into your home, welcoming them in, feeding them? I don't know if I could answer yes to any of those questions myself. But if you were asking about my wife, the answer would be easy.

Yes, absolutely. We joke that she's the social chair of our marriage because she's always the one who's asking, who can we have over? Who can we feed? Who can we welcome? That means that on most weeks, we have people over several nights throughout the week. And if I can be honest, that's not always easy. I mean, we both work full-time jobs. We've got kids in school and then activities. So cleaning up the house and making food, it can get stressful. And that's to say nothing of the fact that hosting is expensive, especially with food inflation. But I've really grown to love my wife's seriousness about hosting. Every time she invites someone over, I see a small reflection of the God I love

and the heart of the woman that I love, because God's a host, and he wants his followers to be hosts as well. God seeks out the lost, the sick, the hurting, and invites them into his family. And he does that, more often than not, through people like you and me. In Matthew 9, we read the story of Matthew's calling. Despite being the author of this gospel, Matthew is absent for the first eight chapters. But in chapter 9, Jesus meets him, and this interesting story unfolds. Matthew 9, verse 9. As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. Here's what I find so interesting. When Jesus meets people, it often leads them to see the ways they failed to live up to God's calling. Sometimes they'll audibly repent on the spot. Other times they'll go and try to make amends for what they've done wrong. And I think that this story about Matthew is no different. You see, Matthew was a tax collector. This means that despite being Jewish, he worked for the Romans who were occupying and controlling Jewish cities in Galilee. Now, Roman taxation was infamous because it took

from people who already had very little, and it moved their money upward to those who had a lot more. Perhaps even worse, taxes funded the military forces oppressing the very people getting taxed. And if that wasn't enough, tax collectors were free to demand more than what the Romans collected. The tax collector could keep the difference. All in all, it was a kind of mafia safety racket and it enriched everyone who was willing to play along. Financially, Jewish tax collectors were far better off than their peers. And this is why so many people hated tax collectors. They colluded with their enemies and oppressors.

took what little people had and took more than they needed. So imagine yourself as a poor fisherman. You're wearing threadbare clothing. You're barely making enough to subsist. You're walking down a dusty street and a Roman soldier shoves you aside because you're in his way and there's nothing you can do. So you just take it. And behind him is one of your fellow Jews. He's dressed in fine clothing. He's got nice sandals. He's bathed. He's clean. And he just left his nice house. But you know how he got it all by taking from people like you who had nothing to give because he's a tax collector. And now imagine your shock when an itinerant preacher who's announcing the kingdom of God and he's preaching good news to the poor. He's healing the sick. He's casting out demon. Imagine that guy

comes along and calls the tax collector to follow him. How would you feel? That tax collector is trash. He's not worthy of following you, rabbi. Now imagine how the tax collector felt. Perhaps he felt the same. I'm a traitor. I'm a thief. I'm trash. I'm not worthy to follow you.

But he does follow Jesus. And what he does next is he throws a party for all the sinners, for the people who are most down and out, the gamblers, the prostitutes, the drunks. And we have to ask, why does Matthew do this? I believe that it was an act of repentance. because by throwing a feast and feeding the least fortunate, he was giving his home, his money, his time to the very people that he hurt.

Of course, that couldn't atone for his sin. But I hope you see the point. The tax collector knows he doesn't deserve the hospitality of Jesus, which in turn inspires him to show radical hospitality to others. The story continues. Verse 11. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. The Pharisees are incensed by the whole spectacle. I mean, Jesus is a host who welcomes sinners, and that proves to them that Jesus is just a fraud.

But of course they're wrong. It's proof that he's a doctor, that he's come to heal the sick. The Pharisees would never host sinners precisely because they believe that they deserved God's hospitality. Jesus flips the script and says, No one who's sinned and rebelled against God deserves his hospitality. Not the tax collectors, not the Pharisees. But if you don't know that you're sick, you'll never come to God for healing.

And if you never come to God for healing, well, you'll remain sick, but you also remain self-righteous and self-focused. Do you know that you need healing? do you know that you're sick? Do you know that Jesus is the doctor who's come to heal you? When you come to see the truth, your wife is turned upside down. And just like Matthew, you'll be inspired to show the hospitality God showed you to other people. Yeah, I get it. Hosting is hard, it's time consuming, it's costly. But so what? Consider the cost God paid to host you. Doesn't that give you a desire to go and do likewise? And not just for the people who can pay you back, but for everyone for the sinners, for the tax collectors. Today, I want you to rejoice because the divine

host has welcomed you into his family, even though you never deserved it. He loves to host you. And I want you to pray that God would give you a desire in your heart to not only repent of your sins, but to also be like him, to become a host to others as an expression of his love for them. Thanks so much for listening. Before you shut your podcast app off, I want to invite you to read the New Testament with us. It's great that you're listening along with these podcasts, but if you want to take one step further and get through the entire New Testament in a year, click the link in our show notes. If you do that, you'll get a PDF with the reading plan that we're going through. You can use that plan to read one chapter of the New Testament every weekday and then listen to

the corresponding episode where we'll explain some of what it means for you and your life.