Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
This is the opening line of a parable — a short teaching story — that Jesus told to people who were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. The temple in Jerusalem was the central place of Jewish worship, where people gathered to offer prayers and sacrifices to God. Jesus introduces two characters whose contrast would have been immediately striking to his audience: a Pharisee, a highly regarded religious leader known for meticulous obedience to Jewish law, and a tax collector, a Jewish man who worked for the Roman occupying government and was widely despised as a traitor and cheat. These two couldn't be more different in social and moral standing. Yet Jesus places them side by side, walking through the same door, heading to the same place to pray.
Lord, thank you that both men could walk through the same door. When I start deciding who deserves to pray and who doesn't — including myself — remind me that you're the one who opens it. Let me come with nothing but need. Amen.
Jesus was a master of the setup. He puts two men in the same frame — one everyone would root for, one everyone would write off — and walks them both through the same door. The temple was, in one sense, open to all. But it was anything but neutral in the minds of his audience. A Pharisee there? Expected, even reassuring. A tax collector? That's the equivalent of putting a beloved community pastor and the town's most notorious con artist in the same pew on a Sunday morning and saying: both came to pray. But here's what the opening line quietly insists: both men came. Not to argue theology, not to be seen differently, not to score religious points — both men showed up with some impulse toward God. Maybe that's where the story really starts — not in what they say when they get there, but in the simple fact that they came. Whatever you've done, whatever category people have assigned you, you're allowed to walk through that door. The question was never whether you're welcome. The question is what happens once you're inside.
Why do you think Jesus chose these two specific figures — a Pharisee and a tax collector — to open this story? What did his original audience almost certainly assume would happen next?
Have you ever felt like you didn't belong in a place of prayer or worship — too sinful, too doubting, too far gone? What did you do with that feeling?
Does it matter why someone prays, or is simply showing up enough? What does your gut answer reveal about what you believe prayer actually is?
How do you tend to sort the people around you into categories of "seeking God" and "not seeking God" — and how might Jesus be quietly challenging those assumptions?
Who in your life have you mentally written off as unlikely to be searching for God? How might you treat them differently this week if you held that assumption more loosely?
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Matthew 6:5
Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.
2 Kings 20:5
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Luke 5:32
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:20
Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.
Proverbs 25:14
Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Philippians 3:5
For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.
2 Corinthians 10:18
Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
Matthew 21:31
"Two men went up into the temple [enclosure] to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
AMP
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
ESV
'Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
NASB
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
NIV
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
NKJV
“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector.
NLT
"Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man.
MSG