The professor and the prostitute

Luke 7:36-50 is about a Pharisee and a sinful women we would better understand it as a professor and a prostitute. In our culture today a Pharisee is about the same as a college professor of religion on steroids. Some commentators think the women in the story was a prostitute and in our society today that would be about the same as a prostitute. Verses 44-47 makes us ask the question who is better? Would you rather be the professor or the prostitute? Look at the verses before you answer.

⁴⁴ Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman (the prostitute) kneeling here. When I entered your home, (the professor) you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. ⁴⁷ “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”

Believe it or not most of us tend to come down on the side of the professor. We are “good”, we don’t do bad things, we go to church once and awhile, we pray when we have a need, but do we love Jesus. Thinking we are good or at least better than someone else is one of the biggest traps we can fall into. We then tend to love ourselves instead of Jesus.

However the prostitute knew how bad she was, she knew who Jesus was, she appreciated what Jesus could do for her, and she loved him and served him because of it. Look at the above verses again and notice what Jesus said about the response from each of these people. One didn’t do anything for Jesus and the other kissed his feet and loved him greatly. So if you really stop and look at the sin in your life are you a professor or a prostitute. Both sinned and needed Jesus, one knew it and the other did not, one was forgiven and the other, woe to them.