The Bible Study Podcast, episode 471. Today is a special episode of the Bible Study podcast and a one-week break from the Book of Proverbs.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. I'm not going to talk about

Proverbs today, but we'll talk about it next week. I want to bring you a sermon that I gave at my

home church, Bethel Lutheran Church in Cupertino last week. This was a sermon on both the old and

New Testament readings for the day. The readings for the day came from Luke 15, the story of

the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, or the prodigal son, and from Exodus 32, the story of the golden calf.

And I hope you enjoy it.

Will you pray with me?

Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight.

Amen.

First, I'd like to thank Pastor Ben for inviting me to preach this morning, and I say that

because one time when I preached in the last couple years, there was some confusion.

That morning, I read the lessons and then walked out here

and started to give a sermon some people didn't catch that i was supposed to be doing that

they thought i had overstepped my authority that i was in the wrong place and doing the wrong

thing well that's what happens to Jesus in the New Testament lesson.

There are the religious leaders who think he is in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing,

and especially with the wrong people.

He is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.

And I love the fact that our gospel lesson puts sinners in quotes, those were not there in

the ancient Greek.

So tax collectors, why tax collectors?

...