Luke 18:9-14

Summary: The story makes sense to us as 21st century Christian readers. We get it when Jesus says the tax collector is justified and the Pharisee isn’t. But for the original audience, that statement could hardly have made less sense. The Pharisee was the well-respected, moral, upstanding, admired, Psalm 1 kind of man. The tax collector was everything well-respected Jews were conditioned to despise as corrupt and wicked. The problem, of course, is that the Pharisee thought he had no need; no need of mercy, forgiveness, or saving. The tax collector, by contrast offered to God what he finds most pleasing: the sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit (Ps. 51:17), and he’s the one who walked away justified. Here Jesus emphasizes again that salvation will not be found by the proud and self-sufficient but by the desperate and the needy.