Sometimes that's a popular passage that is popularly taken out of context and abused, sometimes by people who want to bolster there own modern day opinions or superiority. I rarely see this entire passage quoted and taught in the first century time frame of its context. Traveling from city to city by foot on dirt roads can hardly be compared to today's internet evangelism, but some people try. Wiping the dust of a city off of ones feet after much weary travel and repeated rejection, is often used as an excuse for today's modern-day fruit inspectors to give another individual the proverbial 'spiritual finger' of ignorance or indifference.
You say you look for fruit first? And if YOU can't see any...?
Forgive me if I'm missing something, I don't intend to debate, as I believe you are well-intended, but where are we called to first be inspectors and then determiners of another persons 'fruit'? Didn't Jesus say, Let he who is WITHOUT sin first cast a stone (judgment and condemnation) And aren't we called to see and remove the log in our OWN eye, so then we can HELP another remove a splinter from theirs?
I have heard a lot of words of 'love' and building up of another this week, in religion and particularly in politics, even from 2 presidents yesterday, gently and kindly and passionately, and it's been enough to turn ones stomach.
Well said, and thank the Lord for His patience grace and mercy towards us. Jesus said IT is finished, salvation, it is done, the penalty HE PAID in full, praise the Lord, but WE are, or I should say, I am, still a work in progress, many of us are at different stages of growth at any given time.