The Bible Study Podcast, episode one. Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Today in the Bible study podcast, we'll be studying Luke 15.

Luke 15 begins this way.

Now, the tax collectors and sinners were all gathered around to hear him, but the Pharisees

and the teachers of law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

At this point, Jesus tells three well-known parables, this parable of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son, or the prodigal son.

But let's look first at the situation that's going on here.

Jesus is eating, it says, with tax collectors and sinners.

Now, before we talk about what a sinner is, let's talk about what sin is.

The word sin in the Old Testament, or sorry, in the New Testament, is literally a term

that's borrowed from archery, and it means to miss the mark, to fall short of the goal,

or to not do exactly what is expected.

And so sinners in general is all of us, according to Paul's letter to the Romans,

all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God. So when this talks about sinners, he's particularly

talking about notorious people, people who are notorious for their sin. They are known by the community as people who are not doing the right thing.

And Jesus is eating with them.

And then he's also eating with tax collectors.

And what's the story with tax collectors?

Well, we have to remember that this is taking place in Israel,

and Israel is at the time occupied by Rome.

So somebody who is a tax collector is working for the occupying army.

There are a quizzling.

They're a trader, basically.

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