In the daily Wake Up Call devotional from Seedbed on Sunday, 11/2/25, JD Walt directed us to the story in Luke of Zaccheus. He stirred a bit of discussion in the readers’ Facebook discussion group by suggestions Zaccheus was not necessarily the low-life sinner tax payer we’d all been told growing up. I responded in the discussion group to several who took issue with JD’s read of the story.
After a day and a half of people weighing in, we’d done a lot of back and forth. I gathered my various responses to several folks and tried to bring some coherence to my agreement with JD….
“Summing up my disjointed thoughts and responses to others below about why JD’s consideration of Zacheus’ conduct and response to Jesus suggests other possibilities beyond the obvious resonates with me… Is it within the character and conduct of God through the Holy Spirit elsewhere in Scripture. I believe it is:
In the Old Testament we see the Spirit of God moving around among people, equipping them for short term, long term, temporarily or permanently for His purposes. There are multiple references to people not being aware that the Spirit of God has left them. I think that is why we see God reassuring Moses, Joshua, and others again and again, “I will always be with you!” It was not generally known to be necessarily a permanent embodied and abiding Presence. It was not until Jesus Christ’s resurrection, Him breathing on the disciples and Pentecost’s igniting the Spirit’s gifts that the permanent Presence of the Holy Spirit within the very heart and mind of His people was understood by believers.
The Spirit, like the wind, goes where God wills, as Jesus tells us. I believe that with the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Christ, He was alert to where the Holy Spirit was moving around and ahead of Him as He ministered and taught. And with His sensitivity to the presence of a Spirit-Spirit connection, Jesus was obeying the will of the Father regarding whom to approach or respond to or avoid, even recognizing when the Spirit was absent from some… like when speaking to deceitful pharisees or telling satan to get behind Him when speaking to Peter and His periodic reversions to calling Peter “Simon.” He says in John 17 that He thanks God for the ones “given to him.” In His humanness, He was “live-streaming” God’s guiding will continuously as He walked along the way listening and watching.
Think about Jesus’ response when Peter replied to His question at Caesarea about “Who do you say I am?” Jesus said man could not have revealed that information to Peter, only the Spirit of God could. How was it he could see straight to the heart of faith in the centurion and others? I believe Jesus was pointing to that same ability to recognize the Holy Spirit of God in a person when He asked the rich young ruler, “Why do you call me good? Only God is good.” (Subtext: Has it been revealed to you who I am?) Only another sentence from the young man and it’s clear to Jesus that this young man is not Spirit-informed. When he left Jesus looked after him with compassion.
For those who had been preveniently prepared by grace with the gift of activated faith, all they needed was the appearance of the proper person and recognizing their need of Him to whom the Holy Spirit points – Jesus Christ Himself. Then they could vest the faith that God’s Prevenient Grace had already moved to cultivate in them, within the imago dei of their created souls as image-bearers, in the living Jesus Christ before them. For example, in the four friends of the paralytic, in the Samaritan leper, in the disciples themselves…..Jesus Christ, the incarnated God on earth, recognizes and affirms the presence of faith given and activated by God’s Holy Spirit in these people and Jesus gives them Himself as the fulfillment of their faith. Then the Holy Spirit remains, abiding in each believer permanently.
I can say that I believe the Prevenient Grace of God is moving still today all over the earth, stirring a sense of one’s need in the hollow place, the imago dei, that God created in each human being for Himself to fill. When God’s kairos time is fulfilled in a person’s life, He brings the Gospel to them through His Spirit, His church, His Word, or circumstances He allows and such a person has the opportunity to respond in faith. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And God is always looking for willing seekers to whom to give Himself through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Could it have been the case with Zacheus as one might have considered in our Wake Up Call today? I believe it could.
Dismissing the possibility that Zaccheus could have made a living in his profession without abuse of his “license” from Roman authority is itself reading with dark prejudice and prejudgment, it seems. Jesus did not say it is impossible for a wealthy man to get into the kingdom, but that it is difficult, I think. For every stereotype I have ever heard, I have observed outliers that dispute the stereotype. Zacheus went running when he heard Jesus was coming and engaged in what must certainly have appeared to be unusual and unbecoming behavior for a man of means, especially if he was a thief and unscrupulous. He was apparently desiring greatly to at least see Jesus. Curiosity? Knowledge of Jesus’ miracles? I have confidence in Jesus’ ability to see one’s heart and it suggests to me He could well have been making yet another point of smashing another cultural stereotype as was His common practice….(“Jewish men don’t talk to Samaritan women”, “Samaritans are scoundrel half breeds who would not stoop to help someone in need especially paying out of their own pockets,” “the kingdom of God is only for the Jews,” etc.)
Could it be the case in anyone who has reached a place of seeking something or someone out of a feeling of absence of meaning and purpose in their soul and yearning to have it filled?” (CBB 11/2/25)
JD closed out the discussion with his summary, too. “A few closing thoughts on Zach before moving on.
- Why is there so much energy expended in defending the conventional reading of the text. I have not changed the text or even questioned the text. I am advocating for a more careful and CONTEXTUAL reading of the text.
- Without this, We tend to see what we want to see in the text—and we tend to see it through the controlling worldview of human history which is a worldview based on honor—shame values. Jesus crushes this at every turn.
Zach is a tax collector, therefore Zach is bad guy.
All the extra biblical evidence on first century tax collectors in Israel is simply inadmissible evidence. It can’t come in wo serious cross examination.
And Can anyone show me anywhere in new
Testament where Jesus excoriates, shames or otherwise despises tax collectors? He, in fact includes a tax collector as one of the OG disciples/apostles. This has been a grossly underrepresented fact in this whole discussion. Why?
- Did anyone notice the title with which Zach addressed Jesus in the text? It’s a tell.
- Notice the way Jesus frames “salvation” in Luke’s gospel. It’s more about the reincorporation of exiled people into the community than more classic evangelical notions of salvation. (Samaritans, lepers, poor, tax collectors, etc.) The Pharisees (insiders) maintain that these people (outsiders) are exiled bc they are unclean, vile, sinners who deserved what they got. Jesus utterly crushes this world view and point of view with the utterly counterintuitive and offensive worldview of grace and truth.
All of this comes to a head with Jesus parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee in the temple.
I’ll stop there with a plea to go where the evidence leads rather than where conventional wisdom requires.
Defense rests.
love you! Bye!
jdw”