In Mark 2, Jesus is having dinner with his disciples and, to the Pharisees’ surprise, sinners and tax collectors. Instead of asking Jesus directly, the scribes of the Pharisees question Jesus’ disciples about this. Jesus overheard though, and he answered, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus made it plain throughout his ministry that he had come to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) and here he demonstrates that he was not going to waste time or mince words about it – those who were lost needed his presence in order that they might follow him and no longer be lost.
In the modern day, often our approach to Christianity is exactly the opposite: we seek the healthy to dine with them and consider that fellowship to be the extent of our faith for the week. Following our interactions with healthy, we do our best to avoid the sick. To be sure, we need others of the faith around us; Jesus himself had the disciples with him while he was eating with the sinners. But we must not replace our association with the sick by attending only to those who are healthy.
The world is dying in sin beyond our doors and we have access to the only medicine that can heal them: the saving power of Jesus. The Church should not be a quarantine zone away from the sick but instead, the Church should be the nurses administering the dosage that the Great Physician has instructed. This week, let’s do what Jesus did: grab our friends in the faith and go find some sick people to give them the medicine from above.
Andrew “Gif” Gifford
Dalraida church of Christ is a congregation of Christians that meet in the mid-town area of Montgomery, Alabama. Our goal and purpose is to seek and follow God and His Word in everything that we do in life.