I recently got "written up" by another preacher. Okay by me - even though he never bothered to call me and ask me about the matter personally. His gripe was that I spoke at a university he considers to be "unsound." I'm sure there are things at that university I would not agree with. I am also pretty sure that there are people there who are not what they profess to be. That's true of any human institution. It's true of the university my fellow preacher attended and it's also true of my alma mater as well.
It reminds me of an incident Mark records near the beginning of his gospel in Mark 2:15-20.
"Look at him. What's he doing speaking with those folks? He must be one of them. Those sinners! He must be a sinner too. We knew it all along." What hard hearts those Pharisees and legalists had! When Jesus visited in Matthew's house there were many tax collectors and sinners eating with him and his disciples. As these Pharisees and teachers of the law witnessed this they began to question the disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners" (Mk. 2:16)?
Perhaps the temptation was there for Jesus to launch into a religious debate on judgmental attitudes, pride and haughtiness. I'm sure he could have blasted these ultra-conservative nit-pickers with their stuck up snobbiness and pinned their self-righteous carcasses to the wall. However, that was not why He had come.
One simple statement said it all. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (vs.17). His mission was to seek and save the lost. He would go anywhere, meet with any group, any time, any place - for the sake of spreading the good news of the Kingdom and bringing health and healing to a sin-sick world.
And my friends - I will do the same!
That's The Way I See It.
