Event 44 — Jesus Calls Matthew & Dines with Sinners
Jesus stops at the booth of the most despised man in town — a tax collector who got rich cheating his own people — and says, “Follow Me.” Then He goes to dinner with all his disreputable friends.
The physician comes for the sick — grace is for those who know they need it
Jesus walks past a tax booth — the workplace of a Jewish collaborator who grew wealthy collecting Rome’s taxes off his own neighbors — and calls him: “Follow Me.” Levi (whom we know as Matthew, the man who would write the first Gospel) gets up and follows, then throws a feast and fills his house with his disreputable friends, “tax collectors and sinners,” all reclining at the table with Jesus. To the Pharisees, sharing a meal with such people meant sharing their defilement, and they are scandalized: “Why does He eat with sinners?” Jesus’ answer is His whole mission in one sentence: “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The people who think they’re well lock themselves out of the doctor’s office; the ones who know they’re sick are exactly whom He came for.
The text
Underlined words (like a physician) link down to their original-language card in Word secrets below.
13And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. 14As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.
15And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him. 16When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”
17And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew — who is Levi — tells it of himself, and adds: 9He saw a man called Matthew… and He said to him, “Follow Me.” 13“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice.’”
Mark 2:13–17; Matthew 9:9, 13 (NASB95)📖 Read all three accounts
Read Mark 2:13–17, Matthew 9:9–13, and Luke 5:27–32. “Levi” and “Matthew” are the same man — and it’s a humble touch that the Gospel writer names himself, plainly, as the tax collector Jesus rescued.
What the original words mean
Five phrases that scandalized the religious and saved a traitor.
Capernaum sat on a trade road with a customs post, and Levi worked it. Tax collectors paid Rome a fixed sum and kept whatever extra they could squeeze — so the job bred extortion. They were despised as traitors and thieves, lumped together with “sinners,” and shut out of synagogue life. Of all the people on that road, Jesus calls this one.
↑ Back to the passageThe same call given to the fishermen — and Levi’s response is just as immediate: “he got up and followed.” But the cost is different. A fisherman can return to his nets; a tax collector who walks away from his booth has burned his bridge for good. Levi leaves a lucrative, irreversible position the instant Jesus calls.
↑ Back to the passageIn that culture, to share a meal — to recline at one table — was a sign of acceptance, friendship, even fellowship. That is precisely why it scandalized the Pharisees (the “separated ones”), who avoided eating with the unclean. Jesus deliberately sits down with the very people religion kept at arm’s length. His holiness does not flee sinners; it seeks them.
↑ Back to the passageA doctor goes where the sickness is. Jesus is not endorsing sin by eating with sinners any more than a doctor endorses disease by entering a hospital; He is doing His job — coming to where the need is. And the unspoken sting lands on the critics: the only people who don’t come to the physician are those who refuse to admit they’re sick.
↑ Back to the passageThis is Jesus’ mission in one line. He does not mean some people are sinless and don’t need Him; He means that those who think themselves righteous won’t answer a call meant for sinners. The door is open — but only those willing to walk through it as sinners can enter. Grace is for the honest about their need.
↑ Back to the passageJesus quotes Hosea 6:6, sending the critics to “go and learn” their own Scripture. The Pharisees majored in “sacrifice” — ritual correctness and separation. God, Hosea said, prizes mercy above all that. A religion of separation cannot grasp a Savior whose holiness expresses itself as compassion for the lost.
↑ Back to the passageA call, a feast, and a complaint
🏺 Why a meal with “sinners” was a scandal
Two pieces of background sharpen the offense. First, tax collectors were genuinely hated — not just disliked, but classed with thieves and traitors. They collaborated with the occupying power and lined their pockets at their neighbors’ expense; their word was not even accepted in court. Second, table fellowship carried huge weight: to eat with someone was to accept them, to declare them a friend. The Pharisees — whose name means “separated ones” — built their piety around not mixing with the unclean, so that purity wouldn’t be compromised. So when Jesus reclines in a tax collector’s house surrounded by “sinners,” He is publicly tearing down the wall their whole system was built to maintain. He is announcing, with a dinner, that the kingdom welcomes exactly the people religion shut out.
A thinking tool: inversion
The “righteous” lock themselves out; the “sinners” are welcomed in
“Invert, always invert.” Common sense says the good, religious people are on the inside and the sinners are on the outside. Jesus turns it over: the door swings open for those who admit they’re sick — and the people most sure of their own health walk right past it.
This is the same reversal we’ve seen all along: the Samaritan woman over Nicodemus, the outsiders of Nazareth’s sermon over the hometown crowd. The deadliest spiritual condition is not being a great sinner; it is being a sinner who thinks he is righteous. The good news is that there is room at the table for anyone honest enough to come as they are — sick, and in need of the Physician.
How it ties to the rest of Scripture
| Passage | Connection |
|---|---|
| Hosea 6:6 | “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” — the verse Jesus sends the Pharisees to learn. |
| Luke 15:1–2 | “This man receives sinners and eats with them” — the complaint that prompts the lost-and-found parables. |
| Luke 19:1–10 | Zacchaeus, another tax collector sought and saved — “the Son of Man came to seek the lost.” |
| 1 Timothy 1:15 | “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” — Paul calls himself the foremost. |
Resources to explore
Play the video here, then dig into the text and its background.
🎬 Watch & listen
- Video: BibleProject — Matthew 1–13Overview with study notes and downloads.
- Podcast: An Intro to Reading the GospelsHow the Gospels present Jesus and the people He calls.
📖 Study tools
- Mark 2:17 interlinear + Strong’sSee “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” in the Greek.
- Full passage (Mark 2:13–17, NASB95)Read the whole text on Bible Gateway.
🔗 Cross-reading
- Luke 15Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son — heaven’s joy over one sinner.
- Luke 18:9–14The Pharisee and the tax collector — who went home justified.
Discussion questions
- Of everyone on that road, Jesus calls the despised tax collector. What does His choice say about who belongs in the kingdom — and how it gets there?
- Levi walks away from a lucrative, irreversible job the instant Jesus calls. What makes that kind of immediate, costly “yes” possible?
- Sharing a meal meant acceptance, which is why it scandalized the Pharisees. How does Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners reshape what holiness looks like?
- Jesus says He came for the sick, not the well. Why is thinking yourself “righteous” a more dangerous spiritual condition than knowing you’re a sinner?
- Only after all that does the question reach us: there is room at the table for anyone honest enough to come as they are. What keeps us from coming to the Physician as the sick people we are?