{"id":445,"date":"2015-06-16T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T00:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=445"},"modified":"2015-06-13T21:15:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-14T01:15:24","slug":"wednesday-june-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, June 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

MATTHEW 9 9\u00a0<\/sup>As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, \u201cFollow Me.\u201d So he arose and followed Him. 10\u00a0<\/sup>Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that<\/em> behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11\u00a0<\/sup>And when the Pharisees saw it,<\/em> they said to His disciples, \u201cWhy does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?\u201d 12\u00a0<\/sup>When Jesus heard that,<\/em> He said to them, \u201cThose who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13\u00a0<\/sup>But go and learn what this<\/em> means: \u2018I desire mercy and not sacrifice.\u2019 For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.\u201d 14\u00a0<\/sup>Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, \u201cWhy do we and the Pharisees fast often,[d<\/a>]<\/sup> but Your disciples do not fast?\u201d 15\u00a0<\/sup>And Jesus said to them, \u201cCan the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16\u00a0<\/sup>No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17\u00a0<\/sup>Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Chrysologos:<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 sitting at table has more significance for Matthew than just dining. Jesus will be feasting not on food but on the return of sinners. He will call them back through feasting, collegiality and human affection, enjoying himself with their pleasant conversation while reclining at table. He knew that if they recognized him as a powerful judge they would be shattered by the terror of his majesty and overwhelmed by the sheer presence of God unveiled. Thus, veiled in a human body he was able to communicate with humans. He who wanted to assist the guilty hides the fact that he was a judge. He who did not deny dignity to faithful servants conceals his lordship. He who desired the weak to be embraced by a parent\u2019s love covers his majesty.<\/p>\n

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MATTHEW 9 9\u00a0As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, \u201cFollow Me.\u201d So he arose and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-daily-devotional","has_no_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}