My little addition to Our Daily Bread (1/20/12):
Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.
(Matthew 9:13 HCSB)
What struck me afresh from this verse is not so much what it says but what it doesn’t say. So often I have heard this quoted, as David C. McCasland did in today’s ODB from the King James or New King James Version that to see the verse end this way seemed odd yet enlightening (though to be fair the Holman Christian Standard Bible translators did in include the footnote at the end of this verse that “Other mss add to repentance”). I looked a several other modern translations I trust (NASB, NIV, and NLT namely) only to see that those translators also chose not to include the mention of repentance at the end.
In conjunction with my commitment to read through the Bible with those from my home church (see also my post 2012 Plan) where we are finishing up Genesis, this verse served only to highlight something He has been teaching me: God chooses broken people because that’s His choice. He’s God and does not need to justify His choice according to human wisdom. Quite often I wind up scratching my head wondering shy He would choose such people as “His chosen people,” but then I look in the mirror and praise Him that he chooses unworthy people.
- Andy Jentes
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