The Scribe by Francine Rivers Read Free Book Online

John, and he encouraged me: “Speak to the Master.” I dared not share my deepest hope with John: to become a disciple, to be worthy enough to travel with Him.
    Surely, all my training, all my hard work and self-sacrifice, had prepared me to be counted among His disciples. I thought I could help Him. I had connections, after all. I wanted Jesus to know how hard I had worked all my life to keep the Law. When He knew these things, I expected Him to give me the assurance I wanted. I had much to offer Him. He would welcome me. Or so I thought.
    I was a fool!
    I will never forget Jesus’ eyes as He answered my questions.
    I had sought His approval; He exposed my pride and self-deceit. I had hoped to become one of His disciples; He told me what I must give up to become complete. He gave me all the proof I needed to confirm He was the Messiah. He saw into the heart of me, the hidden secrets even I had not suspected were there.
    And then Jesus said what I had longed to hear. “Come, follow Me.”
    I could not answer.
    Jesus waited, His eyes filled with love.
    He waited.
    God waited and I said nothing!
    Oh, I believed in Him. I did not understand all He said, but I knew Jesus was the Messiah.
    And still, I walked away. I went back to all I knew, back to the life that left me empty.

    Months passed. How I suffered, my mind tortured by thoughts of Sheol! When I went up the steps of the Temple, I put coins in the hands of beggars, and cringed inwardly. I knew the truth. I gave not for their sake, but my own. A blessing—that’s what I was after! Another mark in my favor, a deed to bring me closer to the assurance of hope and better things to come. For me.
    What I had viewed as blessing and God’s favor had turned out to be a curse testing my soul. And I had failed, for I had no conviction to give up what gave me honor and position and pleasure. Again and again, I failed. Day after day, week after week, month after month.
    I wished I had never heard the name of Jesus! Rather than ease the restlessness of my soul, His words scourged my conscience and tore at my heart. He turned the foundations of my life into rubble.
    Passover approached. Jews poured into Jerusalem. I heard Jesus had ridden the colt of a donkey up the road lined by people waving palm fronds and singing, “Praise God for the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in highest heaven!”
    Jesus, the Messiah, had come.
    I didn’t go out to see Him.
    When He entered the Temple, He took a whip and drove out the money changers and merchants who filled the court that should have been left open for Gentiles seeking God. He cried out against those who had made His Father’s house of prayer into a robbers’ den. People scattered before His wrath.
    I wasn’t there. I heard about it later.
    He taught in the Temple every day. His parables exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, fanning their hatred while they pretended not to understand. They twisted His words, trying to use them against Him. They oppressed those who loved Him, even threatening a poor cripple with expulsion from the Temple because he carried his mat after Jesus healed him on the Sabbath.
    “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
    I trembled when I heard Him. I hid at His approach.
    “Everything you do is for show! On your arms you wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and you wear robes with extra long tassels. And you love to sit at the head of the table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues! Woe to you!” His voice thundered and echoed as He strode the corridors of the Temple. “You shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public.”
    Scribes shouted against Him, but they could not drown out the truth that poured from His mouth. He indicted the priests, who were to be shepherds of God’s people and behaved, instead, like a pack of wolves