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Volume 3 · Honest HereticsLesson 25About 22 minutes

Who Is Welcome

Who would feel unwelcome at your table?

Honest Heretics edition for skepticsSwitch to Centered (for believers)

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The center · Matthew 11:19
19The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.”

In this lesson

Most churches put "All are welcome" on the sign out front. Then a visitor walks in. Some find a seat and a friend. Others notice the looks at their clothes, their tattoos, their accent, their past, and they do not come back. Many churches are known less for whom they welcome than for whom they keep out.

You're not imagining it. If you were the one who got the looks, or watched someone else get them, you saw something real. Many churches sort people by class, race, clothing and history, and they do it in the name of a man whose critics mocked him for the company he kept. His own record makes the case.

Measured against the center

A contradiction
A church known for whom it keeps out contradicts the man his critics called a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

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