Z
Z
Zacchaeus
The name of the chief was Zacchaeus. That is important to remember, because it means “pure” or “innocent.” The man was far from pure or innocent, as we shall see. But the beauty of the story is that his meeting with Christ restored him to his better self. The soil and stain were rubbed off his name, and it stood forth again in all its clearness and beauty.
CEM, Great Interviews of Jesus, p. 53
There was a soft spot still left in Zacchaeus’s heart, and that soft spot was this: Zacchaeus was as eager as any schoolboy in all Jericho to see Jesus who He was. And like any schoolboy he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Jesus, for He was to pass that way. And simple things like that, childlike and schoolboy-like things like that, always touched our Lord’s heart. Of such is the kingdom of heaven…. “Curiosity and simplicity,” says Calvin, “are a sort of preparation for faith.”
AW-BC, p. 487
All Zacchaeus’s past life, all his real blamefulness, all the people’s just and unjust prejudices, and all the bad odor of Zacchaeus’s class, it did not for one moment turn our Lord away from Zacchaeus’s house.
AW-BC, p. 488
I cannot get out of my mind the deep share that Matthew the publican must have had in the conversion of Zacchaeus…. And when Jesus suddenly stopped under the sycamore tree that day and said, Zacchaeus, come down, and when Zacchaeus dropped that moment at our Lord’s feet, no one’s heart in all the crowd went out to the trembling little tax-gatherer like Matthew’s heart.
AW-BC, p. 489
“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The story ends with this great declaration, and illumines it in a remarkable and perhaps unexpected way. In the story we discover what our Lord meant by seeking and saving…. [I]t is the account of one of the last men that Jesus gathered to Himself before His Cross.
GCM, The Great Physician, p. 249
We all know that a publican was a tax-gatherer. There were many such, and the rank and file of them were under the direction of chief publicans. Zacchaeus was one of these. The district was under Roman rule…. Rome fixed the rate of taxation, and handed the schedule of the same to the man so appointed…. The chief publican was required to remit according to that regulation the amount represented by the population. Then Rome closed its eyes. So long as the chief publican rendered the right amount, that is all the imperial government asked…. We remember when the publicans went to John the Baptist and said to him: “Master, what must we do? He said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you.”
GCM, The Great Physician, pp. 250–51
[Luke 19:8] It is of the utmost importance that we understand that in these words Zacchaeus was not telling the Lord what had been the habit of his life, but what he was about to do as the result of that interview…. A radical change had taken place in the man. The habit of his life might have been expressed in the word, “I get.” He now is saying, “I give.” He had entered, mastered by greed. He came out, mastered by grace.
GCM, The Great Physician, p. 255
He was looking for the Savior, and the Savior was looking for him, and what a delightful time it was when they met!
Moody, Words, Work, and Workers, p. 247
Zedekiah
“The man who cannot say ‘No’” is what Charles Spurgeon called this last king of Judah. “Zedekiah was a gentleman of a sort wonderfully common nowadays. A good-natured, easy man; his nobles could get anything they liked from him…. He had a great respect for the prophet [Jeremiah]; he liked to visit him, and know what message he had received from God. He did not wish to have it known that he did consult him; but still he liked to steal away in private, and have a talk with the man of God.” Spurgeon went on to list the kind of people we have even today who are like Zedekiah. “This softness of character takes different shapes, but it is the same base metal, the same worthless dross, in every case.” These people want to know what religion is fashionable, but they never make a profession of faith. They try to stand on both sides of an issue but “are very weak, and apt to yield.” He then explained the causes for this kind of person: a general “softness of character” and “a selfish love of ease” that makes them cowards. “The bottom of all is, however, that when a man is thus timid about doing right, and can easily be persuaded to do wrong, there is a want of the fear of God in him.”
CHS, 36:674–80