I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 19-20.

    The story of Zaccheaus is the perfect model of Christian outreach. First, Jesus did things which made Zaccheaus curious enough to look to see what was going on. Then Jesus reached out to Zaccheaus and treated him as a friend, not as a pariah. The people condemned Jesus for associating with someone as corrupt and evil as Zaccheaus. Jesus responded by indicating that He came to seek and save the lost. This is an important lesson for the outreach we conduct today. We are not called to make our congregations better than others so that people will change from those others to ours. We are called to seek those who have not yet come to know the Lord. This theme continues in Jesus clearing the Temple. Those selling animals for sacrifice had turned the courtyard of the Temple into a stockyard, making it inhospitable to worship by Gentiles, who were allowed no further into the Temple.