Author: Rod Reasen II
MEDIC! MEDIC!
If you have ever watched a war movie, you have heard those cries of a soldier after seeing a friend be torn by the violence of war. Moments go by as the blood rushes from their body, and all the while, the heroic medic leaps over trees and flying debris to reach his newest patient, seeking to save him before he is lost. Today’s lesson has no shrapnel flying and no medic rushing in to apply a tourniquet, but as we will see, the right Person was already on the scene.
Matthew 9:10-13 (ESV)
“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’” [1]
The analogy might feel misplaced until you remember who threw this dinner. Matthew, at this point a very new convert (see He Saw a Man), had chosen to put his old, sick life behind him, the life rooted in himself, his desires, and his ambitions, and had chosen to seek the Great Physician’s healing. His method was simple. He invited all of his friends to a big feast at his house. A personal favorite of our family is having friends over for any event we can excuse. Holidays, sporting events, birthdays, you name the special occasion, or make one up if needed, and we love to host, cook, and fellowship.
Matthew invited all his friends, and, as we read here and in the parallel accounts in Mark 2:15-17 and Luke 5:29-32, they were tax collectors and sinners. Naturally. Matthew would not have had “Christian” friends as we would say today. Think about yourself in this setting before you came to Christ. What did your friend group look like? How would they have been described? Matthew, an eyewitness to the transformative power of Jesus in his own life, did what all mankind does after seeing or experiencing something incredible. He told his friends.
Charles Spurgeon saw Matthew’s playbook as normal:
“The new convert most naturally called in his old friends, that they might have the advantage of our Lord’s teaching: they would come to a supper more readily than to a sermon, and so he gave them a feast, and thus attracted them to the place where Jesus was. We may use all lawful means to bring others under the sound of the Word.” [2]
But the passage does not sit there, although we will come back to this method and the Pharisee definition later. The writers do record the critics’ accusations. The Pharisees apparently heard about the tax collector’s great feast and, likely not invited, still wanted to prod at the disciples. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus, knowing their thoughts and hearing their question, answered with a proverb and a homework assignment from their own playbook: The Old Testament. Quoting Hosea 6:6, Jesus reminds them: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
He identified with sinners the way a physician identifies with his patients, and Matthew, having been healed of his eternal sickness, called in the only Medic with power over both the physical and the spiritual lives of his friends. John MacArthur once said, “Most people have the idea that religion is for good people. But the truth is, it’s for bad people who know just how bad they are. That’s why they come to God.” [3]
Some of you have had to call MEDIC! in the field. Many reading this will only know the scene from a screen. But how much more urgent is the call when the saving is of eternal value? We treat this life as precious, and of course it is, but should we not treat the life that lasts forever with far more care? Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” [4] We just assume the appointment is scheduled for when we are older.
And so, like on a battlefield when the words sound across the air, MEDIC!, where is your urgency to save your friends?
Penn Jillette of the magic duo Penn & Teller, an outspoken atheist, was handed a Bible by a man who met him after one of his shows. The encounter moved him so much that he recorded a video about it and asked the question the church should be asking itself:
“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” [5]
He was invited to the feast by a man who loved him enough to be embarrassed. We do not know whether Penn ever accepted the invitation, but we know he appreciated the warning.
There is one more feast on the calendar. The Bible closes with an invitation to it: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” [6] Matthew’s table was a preview of that one, and the guest list is still being written.
Will you attend the greatest feast yet to come?
Will you be inviting others to join you?
Stay on Mission
FAQ’s
Matthew, also called Levi, ran the tax booth in Capernaum, collecting tolls for Rome from his own people and keeping everything he could take above the quota. His profession made him a traitor in the eyes of his neighbors, barred from the synagogue and counted among the most despised men in Israel. Jesus called him anyway, and Matthew left the booth, followed Him, and wrote the Gospel that bears his name.
Jesus was answering the Pharisees with everyday logic. Nobody faults a doctor for spending his time with the sick, because the sick are the reason doctors exist. Jesus came as the Great Physician for souls, so a room full of sinners was exactly where He belonged.
Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6, where God rebukes a nation that kept its religious rituals running while its heart was far from Him. God is not after empty religious performance. He is after hearts that show the same mercy toward people that He has shown toward us, and the Pharisees had mastered the ritual while abandoning the mercy.
The name Pharisee comes from a Hebrew root meaning to separate, and separation was their entire program. Sharing a table in that culture communicated acceptance and fellowship, so eating with the unclean was unthinkable to them. Their system had no category for holiness that moves toward sinners, which is exactly the holiness Jesus displayed at Matthew’s table.
The same scene is recorded in Mark 2:15-17 and Luke 5:29-32. Luke tells us it was Levi’s own house and calls it a great feast, and Luke adds the fullest form of Jesus’ words: “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” The Physician sits with the sick in order to heal them, not to leave them as they are.
Matthew’s first act as a follower of Jesus was to bring his entire old network into the same room with the Savior, and Spurgeon called it a strategy worth copying. Leaders should use every lawful means, a table, an invitation, an open home, to bring people under the sound of the Word. The goal is never to blend in with the room but to bring the Physician into it.
No. Jesus never disputed the diagnosis that the guests were sinners; He disputed what should be done about it. A physician who sits with the sick is not endorsing the disease; he is treating it, and Jesus came to call sinners to repentance and healing, not to leave them where He found them.
Footnotes
[1] Matthew 9:10-13, The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025). Scripture quotations are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon, The Gospel of the Kingdom: A Popular Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (1893), on Matthew 9:10-12. Public domain.
[3] John MacArthur, “Receiving the Sinner/Refusing the Righteous, Part 1,” Grace to You sermon 2263 (1980), gty.org.
[4] Hebrews 9:27, King James Version.
[5] Penn Jillette, “Penn Says: A Gift of a Bible,” video, December 2008.
[6] Revelation 19:9 (ESV).
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