Read: Mark 2:13-17
Devotion: In Mark 2, Jesus calls Levi (otherwise known as Matthew), to be one of his disciples. The only thing that Mark tells us about Levi is that he was the son of Alphaeus and that he was a tax collector.
While it’s true that even today tax collectors still aren’t very well liked, back in first century Judea, they were hated even more. They were considered traitors to their people and on the same level as those who were marked and avoided due to their brazenly sinful lifestyles (vv. 15-16).
Suffice to say, at that time no God-fearing Jew would be caught dead talking to, let alone mingling with, a tax collector. And yet Jesus intentionally and knowingly chose to call Levi the tax collector to be one his twelve disciples. One of the men who would eventually be the foundation layers of his Church. And when Jesus called Levi, he went and followed Jesus with the same expediency as Peter, Andrew, James, and John did before him (Mark 1:16-20).
After teaching the crowds and recruiting Levi, Jesus went home to rest and eat. He was joined by his disciples and many tax collectors and sinners who had followed Jesus (v. 15). While we know that not all who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry did so with pure motives and true faith (John 6:68), Mark clearly presents Levi’s as following of Jesus and this crowd of sinners and tax collector’s following of Jesus as the same. These are people who, at the very least, recognize that they have need to follow Jesus. They too have left their former life and lifestyles and followed him.
This did not sit well with the scribes of the Pharisees. The scribes were the learned religious elite. They know their Bibles. They grew up going to Synagogue every Saturday. They sat under the best teachers. And these were the scribes of the Pharisees, the most conservative and strict party within the Jewish faith at the time.
For these men, who not only had the Law, but the traditions of the Pharisees added on top, Jesus’ company was unacceptable. But rather than asking Jesus about the issue, they go and talk to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
The question has an obviously negative tone. It’s almost rhetorical, like, “Should he be eating with those types of people?” No, he shouldn’t. They’re unclean. They’re unfaithful. They live in a way that God hates. The wrath of God abides on such people.
Although they didn’t ask Jesus these questions directly, he heard them and responded with a truism: Those who are healthy don’t have any reason to seek out a doctor. If a person is without injury or sickness or otherwise does not believe that they are injured or sick, going to the doctor’s would just be a waste of time. They have no need to go.
The sick need a doctor, however. Depending on how sick they are, they may have a desperate need for doctor. Their lives may very well be at stake. Jesus follows this truism up with the purpose of His coming, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Using the very same word that the scribes used of his present company, ‘sinners,’ Jesus elevates his truism to the realm of spiritual and eternal health.
Not only that, but he applies this truism to the crowd of sinners eating with him, the scribes themselves, and us as well. The point that Jesus is making is clear. Those who are righteous in themselves, or who at least believe themselves to be righteous, have no need of Jesus and so will not follow him. They’re already right with God and good to stand before his throne.
On the other hand those who are sinners and know it are going to be like the terminally ill person desperately trying to find a doctor who can treat them. They’re going to turn to Jesus in faith that he has the cure for their sickness. The problem for the scribes was that they were blind to the fact that they were just as sick as the sinners that Jesus was eating with. They didn’t need to follow Jesus because they had their own righteousness. They should have known, however, because they had been educated in the Scriptures since childhood, that there is no one who is good and that all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (Ps. 51:2; Isa. 64:6).
Being ignorant of their desperate sickness they sought to establish their own righteousness through religious tradition and a strict adherence to the Law (Rom. 10:3). The sinners who had followed Jesus, however, recognized their need. Without Jesus they would die in their sin and spend eternity under the wrath of God.
And so, with the same haste as they would have given to seek out a doctor had they been badly wounded, they turned to Christ and followed him. They didn’t wait nor did they try to make themselves better or more presentable by trying to mask the symptoms with good deeds. By faith they humbly recognized their sinfulness, turned from their previous sins, and followed Christ. We poor and needy sinners must do the same.
Ponder and Pray: Consider the need to recognize ourselves as sinful before we come to Christ. Why can’t we think that we’re already righteous? Finish by thanking God for his gift of righteousness in Jesus Christ.
