Partakers Christian Podcasts

   11. Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners Mark 2:13-17 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi (Matthew) son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 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.” At the start of this chapter, Mark 2, we see Jesus’ proclaiming that he is able to forgive sins – much to the consternation of some members of the religious establishment who accused Jesus of blasphemy as only God can