Scripture Reading: Luke 14:1-14
Our Savior did not refuse any invitation to a proper social function. In this His example is important for us. He wants His people to be in the world, though not of the world. He does not desire us to withdraw from men, but to live with them in life’s common relations, only being careful all the while that we live the true life as citizens of heaven. We are to be the salt of the earth, our influence tending to purify and sweeten the life about us. We are to be the light of the world, shedding brightness upon earth’s darkness, helping weakness, comforting sorrow.
John the Baptist would not have accepted the invitation of this Pharisee. He was an ascetic. His theory of life required him to keep out of the world, witnessing against its evil by withdrawing from it. But Jesus did not follow John in this. He gave men a new type of religion. His first public act, after returning from His temptation, was to accept an invitation to a wedding feast. His theory of life was that the truest and most effective protest against the world’s evil may be made from within, by living a holy, godly, and beautiful life in the midst of the world’s evil.
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