Luke 5:29 — Community Reflections

LUKE 5:29 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.”

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them — the great banquet is Levi's immediate response to his call: he hosts Jesus, and the banquet is populated with Levi's social network — tax collectors and others (sinners, implied). The kingdom feast begins with the kingdom's unexpected guests — the very people whose exclusion from respectable tables Jesus is about to defend.

Church Fathers on Luke 5:29

After the healing of the sick of the palsy, St. Luke goes on to mention the conversion of a publican, saying, And after these things, he went forth, and saw a publican of the name of Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom. This is Matthew, also called Levi.
Augustine · 4th century

Now Luke and Mark, for the honor of the Evangelist, are silent as to his common name, but Matthew is the first to accuse himself, and gives the name of Matthew and publican, that no one might despair of salvation because of the enormity of his sins, when he himself was changed from a publican to an Apostle.
Bede · 8th century

For Levi had been a publican, a rapacious man, of unbridled desires after vain things, a lover of other men’s goods, for this is the character of the publican, but snatched from the very worship of malice by Christ’s call. Hence it follows, And he said to him, Follow me. He bids him follow Him, not with bodily step, but with the soul’s affections. Matthew therefore, being called by the Word, left his own, who was wont to seize the things of others, as it follows, And having…
Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century

Read all 21 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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