Mark 2:14-22 "Jesus Friend of Sinners"

James Reed's FORGE

According to a quick internet search, our national budget for fiscal 2022 was 1.688 trillion dollars. That’s a of tax dollars. It is almost beyond comprehension. In fact, we were talking about it a bit last week as we tried to wrap our heads around the concept of a trillion. As of February 2023, the US national debt was 31.4 trillion dollars. I did the math on our national budget only—not our national debt. Here’s what I came up with:

If you began at the birth of Christ spending $2,286,039.32 a day, every day, without any time off for weekends or holidays, and continued spending at that rate through the fall of Rome, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, right on into the Twentieth Century till today, you would have just now succeeded in having spent $1.688 trillion. That comes out to spending $95,251.64 an hour for the last 2,023 years.⁠[1]⁠

It’s been said that two things are certain: death and taxes. Today, we’re going to take a look at Christ’s calling upon a tax collector named Levi. Today we’re going to look at that calling, a conflict, and a question—and all of these point to the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

⁠[1]⁠ R. Kent Hughes, Mark: Jesus, Servant and Savior, vol. 1, Preaching the Word (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1989), 67.

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