<p>15:2<i> And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying: This man receives sinners and eats with them</i>-The Lord was criticized for &ldquo;receiving sinners&rdquo; and eating with them. Instead of the usual and expected Greek word <i>dechomai</i>, we find here the Greek <i>prosdechomai</i>- He welcomed them <i>into fellowship</i>, symbolizing this by eating with them. This was an act which had religious overtones in first century Palestine. Notice that <i>prosdechomai</i>&nbsp;is used by Paul to describe welcoming a brother / sister in spiritual fellowship (Rom. 16:2; Phil. 2:29). The Lord fellowshipped people in the belief that this would lead them to repentance, following His Father&rsquo;s pattern of using grace in order to lead people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). He didn&rsquo;t wait for people to get everything right and repented of and <i>only then</i> fellowship them, as a sign that they were up to His standards. &nbsp; <br />The theme of eating continues after Luke 14- for Luke 15 contains parables told by the Lord in answer to the criticism that He ate with sinners (Lk. 15:2). He explained that He had come to seek and save the lost, and that was why He ate with them (Lk. 15:4 cp. Lk. 19:10, where He justifies eating with Zacchaeus for the same reason). Note how in the case of Zacchaeus, the man only stated his repentance after he had 'received' Jesus into his house and eaten with Him. This exemplifies how the Lord turned upside down the table practice of the Jews- He didn't eat with people <i>once they had</i> repented, but <i>so that</i> His gracious fellowship of them might <i>lead them to</i> repentance. The parables of Lk. 15 speak about eating in order to express joy that a person had repented and been saved- the eating was to celebrate finding the lost sheep, coin and son. But the Lord was saying that this justified His eating with not yet repentant sinners. Thinking this through, we find an insight into the hopefulness of Jesus for human repentance- He fellowshipped with them and treated them <i>as if</i> He were celebrating their repentance; for He saw eating with them in this life as a foretaste of His eating with them in His future Kingdom. He invited them to a foretaste of the future banquet. His fellowship policy was therefore to encourage repentance; and seeing He wished all to be saved, He didn't exclude any from His table.<br />The Lord was criticized for &ldquo;receiving sinners&rdquo; and eating with them (Lk. 15:2). Instead of the usual and expected Greek word <i>dechomai</i>, we find here the Greek <i>prosdechoma</i>i &ndash; He welcomed them into fellowship, symbolizing this by eating with them. This was an act which had religious overtones in 1st century Palestine. Notice that <i>prosdechomai</i> is used by Paul to describe welcoming a brother / sister in spiritual fellowship (Rom. 16:2; Phil. 2:29). The Lord fellowshipped people in the belief that this would lead them to repentance, following His Father&rsquo;s pattern of using grace in order to lead people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). He didn&rsquo;t wait for people to get everything right and repented of and only then fellowship them, as a sign that they were up to His standards.</p><p>The parables of the lost coin and lost sheep invite the hearer to identify with the heart of the God who seeks His lost. But the final climax of this triad of parables is that of the lost sons. Here the audience has to place themselves in one of two camps- the self-righteous son who ends up not eating with the Father, or the prodigal who sins so awfully and then eats with the Father in the hushed humility which experience of His grace along can bring. The Jews were worried about whom they might eat / fellowship with, just as many in the body of Christ are today. But the Lord turned it all around- <i>you</i> are a serious sinner, you need to make that long walk home to the Father in your day by day repentance, and eat with Him by His grace. He is seeking <i>you</i> to eat with Him; the question of whom <i>you</i> eat with is utterly secondary to that.</p>