1/13/2012 11:27:43 PM
The Scandal of Jesus’ Ministry
Mark 2:13-17
“13 ¶ And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alpheus sitting in the tax booth, and He *said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. 15 And 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. 16 When 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?" 17 And 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.’”
Let’s begin with talking about the difference between the times that Jesus lived in and the times that we now live in and how the differences of these times makes a difference in how people view Jesus. Jesus came into the world when Judaism was apostate and it still is today. We see that the Pharisees and the scribes were outraged at Jesus and His ministry because they did not think that Jesus was “holy” enough to meet the standards (false standards) that they had set up for their religion. I read or heard some time ago how many laws and regulations these Pharisees and scribes had made up from the Law of God. There were some very “crazy” laws that they had made up out of the true Law of God and one of them was that on the Sabbath day a person was not allowed to spit on the ground. You may ask what was wrong with spitting on the ground and they would answer that you were plowing the ground when you did that and that was against “their” law.
If you take a look at Matthew 23:1-38 you will find out exactly what Jesus through of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Now if Jesus came in our time people would think that He was too “holy.” We live in a society that has great moral decay and therefore if Jesus were here He would be ridiculed for being too holy and people would not want to listen to Him because of His holiness. We live in a society where many people bow at the throne of evolution and why do they do that. It is because they are not accountable to God and therefore can do anything they want to thinking that because there is no One to be accountable they don’t have to worry about one day standing before a Holy and Just God.
When I was young we looked up to those who played ball and mostly it was baseball at that time because that we what was most popular. If a ball player did something that was wrong many people would not like it because the youth looked up to them. It is different today and the ones who are looked up to are the ones that led the most immoral lives. We now have a young man playing football who is known for his walk with the Lord, known for his praying and giving glory to the Lord for all that happens even when he fails in the game. People make fun of him, people take the Lord’s name in vain with the foulest language they can use making fun of Tim Tebow. The other day in a game against the Pittsburg Steelers, who were suppose to be so much better than his team, Tebow’s team beat them in overtime and his stats for the game were amazing total yards thrown 316; average yards per pass 31.6. While in college Tebow would write on the black dye under his eyes John 3:16 and after his team won the college championship game John 3:16 was looked up on Google more times than any other thing else. What happened? Well college players are not allowed to write anything under their eyes anymore. This is the times we live in.
Now we want to look at the text from Mark’s Gospel to help make some sense of what was going on then and what is going on now, for even thought the times are different in some ways they are still the same, but one thing remains the same and that is the Gospel.
We learned in the last lesson in Mark (Mark 2:1-12) that Jesus had authority to forgive sin, and here we will learn who is that He forgives.
Mark 2:13 “13 ¶ And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them.”
This probably happened right after Jesus healed the man that was dropped down through the roof. He probably went to the sea to teach because there were so many people there to hear Him that that was the best place to accommodate all of the people. This kind of thing happened in His ministry at other times.
Mark 2:14 “14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alpheus sitting in the tax booth, and He *said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him.”
Now we know that Levi is Matthew the author of the gospel of Matthew and here we see him as Levi and that is a Jewish name so he was certainly a Jew. He was sitting at the tax collector’s booth collecting taxes and Jesus comes along and says to him “Follow Me.” Here we begin to see why it was that these Scribes and Pharisees were upset with Jesus and His ministry because they thought they were so holy that they did not even want to get around a person like a tax collector for they were the lowest of the low. This was shocking to them to see Jesus even talk to this man and yet He did and after His call Levi (Matthew) got up from collecting taxes and began to follow Jesus.
This is still happening today for when the Holy Spirit calls a person to repentance they do just as Levi did they get up and begin to follow Jesus. We had a man in a church I use to go to that said that the Holy Spirit was like the godfather in that He gave you an offer you could not refuse and Jesus gave Levi an offer that he could not refuse and the result was to get up and follow Jesus.
John MacArthur writes on the calling of Levi by Jesus that “No self-respecting teacher, now self-respecting person would want to call a tax collector into his intimate company. No self-respecting person would want a tax collector as a friend.” Jesus was different!
It would have cost Levi a lot of money to get to buy that tax collecting station that he was at because that was how it worked during that time. Rome got most of the money while these tax collectors would cheat the people out of money and get to keep it and most of them were Jewish and that is why the hatred was so great against them for they were crooks and Levi was no different. The difference after Jesus called him was that he knew that he was a sinner but the Scribes and Pharisees did not know that they were sinners. The Gospel if for sinners who realize that they are sinners and Levi realized this and followed Jesus.
Mark 2:15 “15 And 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.”
First I want to look at this phrase “tax collectors and sinners” as there is a short note in the margin of the NASB which reads “l.e irreligious Jews.” That is kind of interesting to me in that those who thought they were righteous categorized these tax collectors as irreligious Jews and yet that is who the Gospel is for. John MacArthur writes: “This has always been the gospel message. We’re very familiar with it. The Christian faith is not for good people, it’s for people who know they’re bad. Salvation is not for people who think they are righteous; it is for the people who know they’re not righteous. It’s for people who hunger and thirst after righteousness, not people who think they’ve achieved it.”
Jesus was not in the house of Levi and it was filled with friends of Levi who were probably his tax collector friends and this is interesting in that the first thing that Matthew wanted to do after Jesus called him was to have his friend meet Jesus and have them listen to Him. This verse ends with the statement “and they were following Him.”
Mark 2:16: “16 When 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?’”
We see in this verse these Jewish apostate Scribes and Pharisees making trouble for Jesus in this verse asking why Jesus would stoop so low and eat with the lowest of the low. They could be the ones who would be yelling out crucify Him, crucify Him.
Mark 2:17: “17 And 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.’”
17 Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.’” (Message)
17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "It is not the fit and flourishing who need the doctor, but those who are ill. I did not come to invite the ‘righteous’, but the ‘sinners’.’” (Philips)
We see here in a nutshell who the Gospel is for and who it is not for. Anyone who knows that they are a sinner and has the desire to admit this and then comes to Jesus knowing that He has provided payment for their sins and as Romans 10 says “believes in their hearts” then they will be saved. However those who believe that the death of Jesus is not enough to pay for their sins and believe, like the Scribes and Pharisees that they can be righteous on their own will not be saved for again we hear the words of Jesus “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners”
1/13/2012 12:27:20 PM
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