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On another Sabbath, when Jesus was a Pharisee’s guest, he healed a man suffering from dropsy (swollen limbs). Once again he defended his action. He added some advice about behavior at meals, counseling humility and advising people to invite the outcasts of society to their meals. In the parable of the banquet (vv.15-24) he warned his critics that if they excused themselves from accepting the invitation to God’s kingdom, others would be invited. The poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame (v.21) may stand for the sick and the outcasts to whom Jesus ministered in Palestine, and the people on the roads and country lanes may represent the Gentiles. And in fact the sick, the outcasts, and the Gentiles did receive the good news of the kingdom. Charles Wesley (4:275) interpreted the parable as an invitation to all men and women to accept the Gospel message:
Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,
Let every soul be Jesu’s guest;
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath bidden all mankind.
The command “Make them come in” (v.23) does not sanction religious persecution. It means that people should be made to come in “with all the violence of love, and the force of God’s Word” (Wesley, Notes, 258).