Bible Study series: Matthew 9:9-13 Jesus associated with tax collectors. Why not call one of them, under the Father’s guidance?
A warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together. I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 9:9-13
9 Then Jesus went on from there and saw a man sitting at the tax booth, called Matthew, and said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10 And it happened that as he was reclining to eat in the house, look! Many tax collectors and sinners were coming and reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they began to say to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “The healthy have no need of a doctor; however, the sick do. 13 But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” [Hos. 6:6] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matt. 9:9-13)
Comments:
9:
Some unfriendly critics of Christianity cannot believe that a man would give up such a lucrative business on the command of two words. It is psychologically nonbelievable. In reply, however, recall that I have observed that Matthew should be nicknamed Matthew the Trimmer. He has the habit of omitting many details. Secondly, everyone in the area must have heard of the miracles and teachings which Jesus did. Surely Matthew did too. (Mark 2:13 says Jesus was also teaching the people.) Third, it could be that Matthew was feeling guilt for his probable corruption and his status as a sinner. A change was needed, he may have thought.
To find out who Matthew / Levi was, please see the post:
The Meaning of the Names of the Twelve Apostles
Quick write-up about him:
Matthew would have collected taxes under Herod Antipas either at the lake where ships brought back trade goods (if they were collecting taxes from fishermen) or more likely along the Via Maris, the major trade route from the north that passed by Capernaum. The taxes would have been paid on trade goods as well as on fish caught by commercial fishermen in the lake (two different groups of tax collectors). (Osborne, comment on 9:9).
10:
“Eating with sinners connoted approval of them; by contrast, a pious person normally preferred to eat with scholars” (Keener, p. 293)
Let’s look at tax collectors more closely, since the pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) is about him and his ilk.
Tax collectors were considered awful and evil, for they took advantage of people and charged too much, so they could skim money off the top. They were also in league with Rome.
Their identity and roles can be read in a little more detail at this link:
Quick Reference to Jewish Groups in Gospels and Acts
The main point is that tax collectors were considered bad in the eyes of the people.
Luke and Mark say that Levi (Matthew) prepared a great feast in his house (Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32). Once again, Matthew trims such details.
“sinners”: it is the adjective hamartōlos (pronounced hah-mahr-toh-loss and used 47 times and 5 times in Matthew), and it means as I translated it. It is someone who does not observe the law, in this context. But let’s explore the term more thoroughly.
BDAG, a thick Greek lexicon, defines the adjective as follows: “pertaining to behavior or activity that does not measure up to standard moral or [religious] expectations (being considered an outsider because of failure to conform to certain standards is a frequent semantic component. Persons engaged in certain occupations, e.g. herding and tanning [and tax collecting] that jeopardized [religious] purity, would be considered by some as ‘sinners,’ a term tantamount to ‘outsider.’” Non-Israelites were especially considered out of bounds [see Acts 10:28].)” “Sinner, with a general focus on wrongdoing as such.” “Irreligious, unobservant people.” “Unobservant” means that the sinner did not care about law keeping or observing the law.
Bible Basics about Sin: Word Studies
Human Sin: Original and Our Committed Sin
“recline”: that’s how they ate back then. Contrary to Da Vinci’s Last Supper, where everyone was sitting in chairs at a table, they used to lie on the floor with mats at a low table or maybe the food was on other mats.
“disciples”: BDAG says of the noun (1) “one who engages in learning through instruction from another, pupil, apprentice”; (2) “one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views, disciple, adherent.”
Here it is probably the twelve, and not the second-tier disciples in a house like this.
11:
“Pharisees”: You may learn about them at this link (and look under v. 10):
Quick Reference to Jewish Groups in Gospels and Acts
As I noted in other chapters, first-century Israel was an honor-and-shame society. Verbal and active confrontations happened often. By active is meant actions. Here the confrontation is both verbal and acted out. Jesus healed the paralytic, so he won the actual confrontation, and this victory opened the door to his verbal victory with religious leaders who were binding people up with traditions. They needed to be loosed from them. Jesus shamed the leaders to silence. He won. It may seem strange to us that Jesus would confront human opponents, because we are not used to doing this in our own lives, and we have heard that Jesus was meek and silent.
More relevantly, for many years now there has been a teaching going around the Body of Christ that says when Christians are challenged, they are supposed to slink away or not reply. This teaching may come from the time of Jesus’s trial when it is said he was as silent as a sheep (Acts 8:32). No. He spoke up then, as well (Matt. 26:64; Mark 14:32; Luke 23:71; John 18:19-23; 32-38; 19:11). Therefore, “silence” means submission to the will of God without resisting or fighting back. But here he replied to the religious leaders and defeated them and their inadequate theology. Get into a discussion and debate with your challengers. Stand toe to toe with them. In short, fight like Jesus!
Of course, caution is needed. The original context is a life-and-death struggle between the kingdom of God and religious traditions. Get the original context, first, before you fight someone in a verbal sparring match. This was a clash of worldviews. Don’t pick fights or be rude to your spouse or baristas or clerks in the service industry. Discuss things with him or her. But here Jesus was justified in replying sharply to these oppressive religious leaders.
12:
“healthy”: it could be translated as “strong.”
“sick”: We should not see this one word in this one verse as moral sickness, but the term does mean that in other verses, more often than not. Here it means physical illness or sickness.
13:
“but go and learn what this means”: the Pharisees prided themselves on knowing Scripture, and here Jesus is telling them to go back home and learn what this verse really means. They called him “teacher,” and now he is about to school them (Osborne on 9:12)!
“righteous”: first, some interpreters say that certain people are righteous in their behavior. Paul testified that before he came to Christ he kept the law blamelessly and was faultlessly righteous in the law’s terms (Phil. 3:4-6). The law, particularly the Ten Commandments, are not that difficult, particularly for the extra-scrupulous. He was an ex-Pharisee, much like the ones at this feast. I have no doubt that he kept the law, outwardly. Even “Average Joes and Janes” don’t steal or commit perjury or commit adultery, nor do they make images of gods. They can live free from coveting their neighbors’ possessions, in outward appearance. This interpretation says Jesus was not calling the Pharisees to repentance, because they were indeed righteous on a social level and by outward appearance, but he was calling the sinners and tax collectors to repent. Note, however, that Jesus did in fact call Matthew, and not the Pharisees.
Second, some interpreters say he is using irony. The issue is of the heart. Jesus deepens the requirements and turns them into love for God first. If we love God, we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) and on the Plain (Luke 6:17-49), Jesus deepens the requirements of the law to the heart, and everyone fails in some way. Therefore, they are unhealthy in some way before God and need him through Christ. No one can be righteous enough for God, and if the Pharisees saw their own need, they would realize this. It is they who need the doctor—the healer of their souls. Jesus is calling them to repentance, if they could only see it.
My preference: the second interpretation, with some truths in the first one. All Jews, even the extra-devout, need Jesus their Messiah. Jesus association with sinner scandalized the extra-devout Jews of his day, just as it scandalizes the extra-devout Christians of ours. But we cannot live in isolation from those who need the message of the kingdom the most (Turner on 12-13).
8 Righteousness of the Kingdom
Jesus’s call goes out to anyone who sees his need for the kingdom and the King. Anyone can respond. But if anyone thinks he is self-sufficiently healthy, then he probably won’t respond to the call.
Jesus quotes this verse from Hosea 6:6 because the Pharisees were so enmeshed and bogged down in the finer points of the law, particularly the laws about the clean and unclean, that they forgot about the deeper and relational truths.
See my posts about the clean and unclean in Leviticus:
Clean and Unclean Food in Leviticus 11 from a NT Perspective
Skin Disease, Mold in Leviticus 13, 14 from a NT Perspective
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”: This is the Semitic way of saying “mercy rather than sacrifice.” “A rather than B” or “A is much more important than B.” The negation (“not”) is not absolute (Carson). In Hosea’s cultural context, he was not absolutely denying sacrifice, just its over-emphasis. And so it goes with the righteous (in their own eyes). Jesus would like to reach them too. And many priests (different from Pharisees) converted to their Messiah (Acts 6:7). Saul the Pharisee also converted (Acts 9:3-9). Generalization always have exceptions.
Blomberg:
Characteristically, only Matthew has Jesus quote the Old Testament (Hos 6:6). “Not X but Y” is a Semitic idiom for “more Y than X.” Hosea did not abolish the sacrificial cult but graphically emphasized the priority of interpersonal relationships over religious ritual. On mercy see under 5:7. Jesus introduces the quote with the command “go and learn,” a standard charge from rabbis to their disciples. Jesus is dealing the Pharisees a double rebuke by treating them first as learners rather than teachers and second as beginners who have yet to learn Scripture correctly. His logic is impeccable; the Pharisees have no reply. “I have come” hints at his prior existence in heaven, from which he was sent. (comment on 9:12-13)
5. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Came Down from Heaven
GrowApp for Matt. 9:9-13
1. Matthew seems to have responded quickly to Jesus’s call to follow him. Did you respond quickly, or did it take time, when he called you?
RELATED
9. Authoritative Testimony in Matthew’s Gospel
1. Church Fathers and Matthew’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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