"I’m just not good enough to go to church...I feel like such a rotten sinner." Where would anyone get the idea they need to be perfect in order to start attending God’s Church? Are those within flawless? What does God expect from us? What kind of people does He call…the rich and famous…the intellectuals…the righteous…the do-gooders?

The first people Jesus calls into His church were His disciples…what were they like? Who were they? And most importantly, were they perfect?

Most of the disciples lived in the region of Galilee, which was predominantly rural, consisting of small towns and villages. Galilee’s residents weren’t the cream-of-the-crop people – they were common folk, mostly farmers and fishermen. Yet Jesus chose all his disciples (except for Judas Iscariot) from Galilee. Christ deliberately passed over the religious and influential and instead chose a group of common sinners to be his disciples.

John D. Payne writes, "Matthew 10:1-4 names the 12 men who are chosen by Jesus and sent on God’s mission to humanity. The 12 names, however, are a litany of dysfunction and weakness. Peter is emotionally unstable, given to fits of temper and totally unreliable. Matthew’s employment is morally and socially reprehensible. James and John are ill-tempered and place selfish interests above group loyalty. Simon the Cananean hates Jews who collaborate with the Roman occupation. We might say that Jesus’ 12 disciples are his "dirty dozen"! (Were 12 Disciples Original Dirty Dozen? Times Record News, August 11, 2008).

Matthew is next, an unusual choice—a tax collector, hated by religious Jews for collaborating with the Roman occupation. The Jewish Talmud taught that it was righteous to lie and deceive a tax collector, because that was what a professional extortioner deserved. For a Jewish man like Matthew to be a tax collector was even worse. His occupation made him a traitor to the nation, a complete social outcast. He would also have been a religious outcast, forbidden to enter any synagogue, and forbidden to sacrifice and worship in the temple. He was in essence worse off religiously than a Gentile. Also notice in the Gospels the term tax collector is always grouped with the word "sinners" in the same phrase.

Matthew was well-to-do though, he held an enormous banquet at his house in Jesus’ honor. And who was invited? People like himself—tax collectors and sinners… the dregs of society. Yet they were the only friends Matthew probably had, and he wanted his friends to hear about Jesus!

Luke 5:29-32 says: "Then Levi [Matthew] gave Him a great feast in his own house. [Step number five…rejoice! Christ is among us!] And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Jesus’ purpose was not to hobnob with the rich and famous, the religious bigots but to serve those who actually needed him. He saw their potential and was preparing them for a job he knew each of them could handle.

Luke 7:29 says after Jesus commended John the Baptist’s ministry, that "when all the people heard Him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John." Jesus admonished the religious leaders with these words: "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him" (Matthew 21:31-32).

Susan R. Garrett, professor of New Testament writes in The Temptations of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel 1998: "When modern critical scholars read Mark, they ask, "Why did Mark portray the disciples in such a bad light?" But Mark’s earliest readers would have focused not on Mark’s literary strategies but on the events depicted in the narrative. They would have asked something like this: "What could it mean that the disciples whom we know as great leaders once acted so shamefully?" And the answer to that question would have been obvious: God had opened the eyes of the disciples, and had transformed them from ones who misunderstood and tested Jesus into worthy servants, even fearless leaders."

The Apostle Paul reminds us, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1Corinthians 1:26-27 NIV). This was to give everyone hope.