Having Meals with Sinners

Mark 2:15-17 (New International Version)

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Sinners. Who are they actually? In the passage above, the word sinners is actually phased in a Quote-Unquote manner. Why? I think it is because every single human being is a sinner and when the Pharisees made that comment, the word has to be Quote-Unquote since the Pharisees themselves are also sinners.

Let’s consider another passage below.

Luke 18:9-14 (New International Version)

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Both the Pharisee and the tax collector are sinners. There is no distinguished spiritual difference between the two of them at all. Similarly, when we know ourselves as Christians, are we like the Pharisee, as we come to Christ, we thank God that we are not like those guys who work with us – robbers, evildoers, adulterers, scolding vulgarities all the time and that we even boast in the fact that we read our bibles and pray daily? Or are we like the tax collector, as we come to Christ, we humbly ask God to have mercy on us as sinners?

All of us (Christians or non-Christians) are sinners as defined by Romans 3:10-12 and Romans 3:23. The only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is a Christian is one who has experienced the G.R.A.C.E of God through Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross while the non-Christian has not yet received or experienced it. Without G.R.A.C.E, there will absolutely be nobody who can even come before God’s Holy Presence. All deserved to be punished for the sins which are committed against the Only One True Holy God of the Bible.

Because of sins in our lives, we are labeled as sinners. All of us, regardless of race, are sinners. Without Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross, there will be no G.R.A.C.E at all to redeem anyone of us. Therefore, we as the redeemed children of God should extend Jesus Christ’s G.R.A.C.E to all those who are in our midst and still viewed by God as sinners without Christ’s G.R.A.C.E. They are the pity ones who urgently need to experience God’s forgiveness, mercy and pardon.

Let us as the redeemed children of the Promise welcome sinners into our fellowship and share Christ’s amazing G.R.A.C.E with them. We want to be like Christ who eats with sinners and befriend sinners. Indeed, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’