Why did Jesus eat with sinners?

To share a meal was to accept and belong with someone. Jesus deliberately ate with tax collectors and sinners to come close to the very people the religious excluded, saying, 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick' (Matthew 9:12). He came for those who knew they needed him.

What does 'friend of sinners' mean?

It was originally an insult from Jesus' critics (Matthew 11:19), meaning he kept company with the disreputable. Jesus embraced it, revealing that he welcomes people before they are 'good enough' and befriends exactly those who feel unworthy of God's table.

A meal of Jesus

The Friend of Sinners

Dinner at Matthew's house · Matthew 9:10-13

When Jesus sat down to eat with tax collectors and sinners, the religious leaders were scandalized. His reply became one of his defining lines: 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick' (Matthew 9:12). He deliberately shared the table with the people everyone else excluded.

The scene

“And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples... They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”Matthew 9:10-12

What the table means

In the ancient world, to share a meal with someone was to say: I accept you, I am one with you, you belong at my table. That is exactly why the religious leaders were horrified. Jesus, a rabbi, was reclining at dinner in the home of Matthew the tax collector, surrounded by 'publicans and sinners,' the collaborators and the disreputable, the very people a holy man was supposed to avoid. They asked his disciples, with real scandal, 'Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?'

His answer went to the heart of everything: 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' He did not come to reward the healthy and impressive; he came for the sick, and you do not heal the sick by keeping your distance from them. So he came close, close enough to eat with them, to laugh at their table, to be counted among them. They called him, as an insult, 'a friend of publicans and sinners.' He wore the insult as his name. It is still the best news in the world: Jesus is the friend of sinners, which means he is a friend to us.

They meant it as an insult: a friend of sinners. He wore it as his name.

There is a place set for youIf you have ever felt too compromised, too far gone, too much of a mess to belong at God's table, look at who Jesus chose to eat with. He did not wait for them to reform; he came to their houses and sat down among them as they were, and that nearness is what changed them. You do not need to be well before you come to the Physician. Being sick is the only qualification he ever asked for.

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The table is still set

Jesus is still the friend of sinners, still the host who welcomes the ones everyone else would seat at the back. You do not have to become presentable first; the whole point of every one of these meals is that he sat down with people before they had cleaned themselves up. The Living Bread is a quiet place to pull up a chair, read the Gospels, and pray, and discover that a place was set for you all along.

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Jesus Christ is Lord.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Jesus eat with sinners?: To share a meal was to accept and belong with someone. Jesus deliberately ate with tax collectors and sinners to come close to the very people the religious excluded, saying, 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick' (Matthew 9:12). He came for those who knew they needed him.
What does 'friend of sinners' mean?: It was originally an insult from Jesus' critics (Matthew 11:19), meaning he kept company with the disreputable. Jesus embraced it, revealing that he welcomes people before they are 'good enough' and befriends exactly those who feel unworthy of God's table.

More at the tableDinner with Zacchaeus Jesus vs religion Am I good enough for God?All the meals