Mark 2:13–17: Christians Keep Getting This Story About Jesus Wrong
Study Guide: Mark 2:13-17
There’s a popular way to tell this story about Jesus.
Jesus is the nice guy who hangs out with the people nobody else wants. The religious crowd is judgmental and uptight, but Jesus is accepting. They draw lines; Jesus tears them down. They avoid sinners; Jesus eats dinner with them.
It’s an appealing interpretation, especially if you’ve ever felt judged, excluded, or looked down on by religious people. And to be fair, there are some real nuggets of truth in it. Jesus absolutely did move toward people others avoided. The religious leaders really did object to the company He kept. Jesus wasn’t afraid that someone else’s reputation would rub off on Him.
But having pieces of truth doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve understood Mark’s point.
What if Jesus wasn’t eating with tax collectors and sinners primarily to demonstrate that He accepted people the religious crowd rejected? What if the dinner table wasn’t actually the point?
Look carefully at how Mark tells the story. Before Jesus ever sits down to eat, He walks up to a tax collector and says, “Follow me and be my disciple” (Mark 2:14, NLT). Then, after the religious leaders question Him, Jesus explains why He is there: “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Mark 2:17, NLT).
The story begins with a call to follow Jesus and ends with Jesus explaining that He came to call sinners.
The dinner is in the middle.
That might change how we read this familiar story.
📖 TODAY'S PASSAGE
READ: Mark 2:13-17
BIG IDEA
Jesus moves toward sinners not merely to accept them where they are, but to call them into a new life of following Him.
👀 WATCH FOR THIS
As you read, notice the words Mark uses to describe what Jesus is actually doing with the people around the table. Is Jesus simply spending time with them, or is something more happening?
🎥 WATCH THE TEACHING
This study guide goes with our teaching from the Daily Bible Podcast.
You can watch the teaching first and then work through this guide, follow along while you watch, or come back afterward and use the questions to dig deeper.
SETTING THE SCENE
Jesus is back near the Sea of Galilee, and His public ministry is growing quickly. In the scenes immediately before this one, Mark has shown Jesus forgiving and healing a paralyzed man, which sparked controversy with the teachers of religious law (Mark 2:1–12). Now another confrontation is coming, but this time the issue isn’t what Jesus says. It’s who Jesus chooses to be around.
Capernaum was positioned near important trade routes, making it a natural place for collecting tolls and customs. That brings us to Levi.
Levi is sitting at his tax collector’s booth when Jesus walks by. Tax collectors were deeply disliked in Jewish society. They participated in a taxation system connected to the ruling powers, and the system gave plenty of opportunity for abuse and personal profit. To many of Levi’s neighbors, he wasn’t simply the annoying guy from the tax office. He represented cooperation with the system ruling over them.
And Jesus is about to do something nobody in the crowd expects.
1. THE TAX COLLECTOR’S BOOTH — Mark 2:13–14
Jesus has been teaching another crowd beside the lake when He walks past Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at his tax collector’s booth.
Mark doesn’t tell us what Levi had been thinking about Jesus before this moment. He doesn’t tell us whether Levi had heard Jesus teach or witnessed one of His miracles. Those are interesting questions, but Mark apparently doesn’t think we need the answers.
What matters is what Jesus does.
He looks at Levi and says, “Follow me and be my disciple” (Mark 2:14, NLT).
That would have been surprising.
Tax collectors occupied an uncomfortable place in Jewish society because their livelihood connected them with the political and economic system controlling the region. Whatever Levi’s personal character may have been—and Mark doesn’t give us his résumé—his occupation alone would have placed him among people many respectable Jews viewed with suspicion or contempt.
Yet Jesus doesn’t walk around the booth.
He walks toward Levi.
But notice why. Jesus doesn’t approach Levi merely to make him feel included. He gives him an invitation that will redirect his life:
Follow me.
That distinction matters for everything that happens next.
2. JESUS CALLS LEVI — Mark 2:14
Levi’s response is remarkably simple: “So Levi got up and followed him” (Mark 2:14, NLT).
Mark has shown us something similar already. In Mark 1:16–20, Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James, and John away from their fishing work to follow Him. Now He interrupts another ordinary workday, except this time Jesus chooses the guy many people probably wouldn’t have put on the disciple recruitment list.
There is also something important that Mark does not describe.
Jesus doesn’t give Levi a probationary period before allowing him to become a disciple. Levi isn’t told to spend six months repairing his reputation and then come back when respectable people are more comfortable with him. Jesus calls him right there at the booth.
At the same time, Jesus’ welcome shouldn’t be confused with an invitation for Levi to remain exactly where he is. The words “follow me” require movement. Levi gets up.
Grace comes before Levi has proven himself worthy of it, but grace is calling him somewhere.
That is an important balance in this story. Jesus moves toward Levi exactly where he is, and then He calls Levi to leave his old direction and begin following Him.
3. LEVI BRINGS HIS OLD CROWD — Mark 2:15
The next scene takes us to dinner. Mark describes Jesus eating with Levi and many other tax collectors and people described as sinners. Luke’s account gives us an additional detail: Levi held a banquet for Jesus in his own house (Luke 5:29).
That helps us picture what is happening.
Levi has begun following Jesus, but his social world hasn’t magically disappeared. The people he knew yesterday are still the people he knows today. His relationships don’t evaporate because he has a new Rabbi.
Instead, something fascinating happens: Levi’s old relationships become the place where other people encounter Jesus.
Mark tells us that many tax collectors and other sinners were eating with Jesus and His disciples, adding that “there were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers” (Mark 2:15, NLT).
That last detail is easy to skim past.
These aren’t merely people Jesus hopes to reach someday. Some are already following Him.
Jesus is right in the middle of this crowd. He eats with them. He knows them. He allows Himself to be publicly associated with them.
Levi follows Jesus and then brings Jesus right into the middle of the people he already knows.
That sounds a lot like disciple making.
4. JESUS GETS IN THE MIX — Mark 2:15
It would be easy to turn this dinner into a generic lesson about hospitality: Christians should eat meals with people who aren’t like them.
That isn’t a bad idea. You should probably do that.
But Mark is showing us something bigger.
Jesus is intentionally close to people who need what He came to bring. He doesn’t pursue sinners from a safe religious distance. He doesn’t wait for them to become respectable enough to enter His social circle. He goes where they are.
At the same time, Jesus’ presence among them isn’t aimless.
Remember what happened immediately before the dinner: “Follow me.”
Remember Mark’s description of the crowd: some of these people were following Jesus.
And remember what Jesus is about to say immediately afterward: “I have come to call” sinners.
That puts the dinner in its proper place.
Jesus isn’t simply demonstrating that He is comfortable around people with messy lives. His proximity has a purpose. He is close enough to know them, eat with them, talk with them, and call them to follow Him.
The meal matters, but the meal serves the mission.
5. WHY IS JESUS EATING WITH THEM? — Mark 2:16
The teachers of religious law who were Pharisees see Jesus eating with this crowd and ask His disciples why He eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:16).
Their objection deserves more careful thought than simply casting them as the villains.
The Pharisees took obedience to God seriously. They cared about holiness, faithfulness to Scripture, and maintaining the identity of God’s people in a world filled with pagan influence. Those concerns weren’t automatically bad.
From their perspective, Jesus’ behavior raised a legitimate question: If this man represents God, why is He willingly sharing a table with people openly identified as sinners?
Meals carried social meaning. Eating together could communicate relationship and fellowship. Jesus wasn’t accidentally standing beside questionable people in the grocery store. He was deliberately sharing a meal with them.
The problem wasn’t that these religious leaders cared too much about holiness.
The problem was that their understanding of holiness left them unable to recognize what God’s holiness looked like when it walked directly into a room full of sinners.
Jesus wasn’t contaminated by getting close to broken people.
He had come to rescue them.
6. JESUS CAME FOR THE SICK — Mark 2:17
Jesus hears their question and responds with a simple picture everyone could understand:
“Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” (Mark 2:17, NLT)
That analogy matters because it keeps us from falling into either of two opposite mistakes.
One mistake is believing Jesus stays away from sinners because holiness requires distance. Jesus clearly rejects that idea. A doctor who refuses to get near sick people isn’t much use as a doctor.
But the opposite mistake is reading Jesus’ meal with sinners as though Jesus is saying there isn’t really anything wrong.
That doesn’t work either.
Doctors get close to sick people because they are sick.
Jesus’ analogy assumes that something is genuinely wrong and that the people around the table genuinely need Him. His closeness isn’t indifference toward sin. It is part of His mission to rescue sinners from it.
Then Jesus explains His mission: “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Mark 2:17, NLT).
That brings us right back to Levi’s tax booth.
Jesus said, “Follow me.”
Levi followed.
Levi brought Jesus into the middle of his existing relationships.
More sinners began following Jesus.
Jesus then explained that calling sinners is why He came.
Mark has given us the point of the story.
We shouldn’t replace it with a safer one.
🔎 DON’T MISS THIS: THE DINNER IS IN THE MIDDLE
One of the easiest ways to understand this passage is simply to notice how Mark builds it.
At the beginning, Jesus tells Levi:
“Follow me.” (Mark 2:14)
At the end, Jesus explains:
“I have come to call...” (Mark 2:17)
And between those two statements, Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners.
That structure helps us avoid reducing the story to either “Stay away from sinful people” or “Jesus just accepted everybody exactly as they were.”
Neither captures what Mark actually shows us.
Jesus moves toward people others might avoid. He shares their table. He welcomes them into relationship. But all of that takes place within His larger mission of calling people to follow Him.
The dinner isn’t meaningless. It may actually show us something important about how Jesus carries out His mission.
Relationship creates proximity. Proximity creates conversation. And somewhere in the middle of ordinary life, meals, friendships, and conversations, people get the opportunity to encounter Jesus.
Dinner can be a bridge. Following Jesus is the destination.
THE BIGGER LESSON
It’s tempting to turn Mark 2:13–17 into a story where everybody gets an easy role.
The Pharisees are the judgmental religious bad guys. The tax collectors are misunderstood outsiders. Jesus is the accepting nice guy who shows Christians that we should stop judging people and start eating with them.
That version is simple.
Mark’s version is better.
The religious leaders are right that sin matters. Jesus never says otherwise. In fact, He describes sinners as sick people who need a doctor. Their mistake is failing to understand why Jesus would deliberately move toward those who need Him most.
And the tax collectors aren’t presented merely as innocent victims who need religious people to become more accepting. They need Jesus. Levi is called away from his tax booth to follow Him.
Jesus refuses both categories we often try to force onto Him.
He is neither a religious gatekeeper who waits for sinners to clean themselves up before approaching nor a passive friend who gets close but never calls anyone to change direction.
He moves toward sinners because He came to call sinners.
WHO IS JESUS?
Jesus is the doctor who deliberately moves toward sick people because they need what only He can provide. He isn’t frightened by messy lives, bad reputations, or uncomfortable relationships.
He came looking for people who need Him.
WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY MEAN TO FOLLOW HIM?
Following Jesus means we can’t spend our lives safely surrounded only by people who already think, believe, and behave like us.
But it also means our goal is bigger than simply becoming nicer people with a more diverse dinner table.
We move toward people because Jesus moved toward us, and we want them to have the opportunity we received: To know Jesus and follow Him.
👀 LOOK BACK — WHAT DOES THE PASSAGE ACTUALLY SAY?
What does Jesus actually ask Levi to do in Mark 2:14, and how does Levi respond?
According to Mark 2:15, who is gathered around the table with Jesus? What does Mark tell us about their relationship to Jesus?
Read Mark 2:14–17 again. What connections do you see between “Follow me” at the beginning and “I have come to call” at the end?
🪞 LOOK IN — WHAT IS HAPPENING INSIDE ME?
Are there certain kinds of people you instinctively keep at a safe distance because being around them feels awkward, uncomfortable, or risky to your reputation?
Which mistake are you more likely to make: keeping people who need Jesus at a distance, or building relationships without ever becoming intentional about helping them encounter Jesus?
Have you ever reduced following Jesus to simply being a nicer or more accepting person? What might this passage add to that picture?
⬆️ LOOK UP — WHAT DOES THIS SHOW ME ABOUT JESUS AND GOD?
What does Jesus’ willingness to approach Levi before Levi has changed anything tell you about His grace?
What does the doctor illustration tell us about the way Jesus views both sin and sinners?
What do Jesus’ words “I have come to call” reveal about the purpose behind His relationships with people others avoided?
➡️ LOOK AHEAD — WHAT WILL I DO WITH THIS?
Who is already in your life who may be far from Jesus but close enough to you for a genuine relationship to grow?
What could a natural “bridge” look like with that person—a meal, coffee, hike, project, phone call, campfire, or simply spending time together?
How could you move beyond merely being friendly and eventually give that person a genuine opportunity to explore what it means to follow Jesus?
💬 SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION STARTER
Think of someone you once expected to have very little in common with but eventually got to know. What changed once you actually spent time together?
Don’t worry about making the story spiritual. Just tell the story. Sometimes our assumptions about people survive quite well until we actually sit down and get to know them.
A NOTE FOR GROUP LEADERS
This passage could easily produce a discussion about “those people,” so help your group keep the conversation closer to home. You don’t need to finish every question. When someone mentions a person or group they struggle to understand, resist the urge to immediately correct or solve the tension.
Ask a follow-up question such as, “What makes that difficult for you?” Then listen.
Healthy silence is okay. Your goal isn’t to get through the worksheet; it’s to help people honestly wrestle with what following Jesus looks like in real relationships.
🌱 DISCIPLE-MAKER TIP: USE THE RELATIONSHIPS YOU ALREADY HAVE
Levi gives us a wonderfully uncomplicated disciple-making strategy.
He knew Jesus.
He knew people.
Then those worlds collided around a table.
You don’t necessarily need to manufacture relationships with strangers so you can “do ministry” to them. Start by paying attention to the people already around you: neighbors, coworkers, relatives, riding buddies, campground neighbors, parents at your kid’s activities, or the person you regularly talk with over coffee.
Don’t treat them like projects. Build real relationships.
Then look for natural opportunities to bring Jesus into those relationships. Tell them what you’re learning. Ask what they believe. Invite them to read a passage with you. Invite them into a group.
Sometimes disciple making begins with something as ordinary as, “Want to grab dinner?”
🤝 DON'T JUST STUDY IT — PRACTICE IT
Choose one person you already know who doesn’t appear to be following Jesus.
Don’t preach at them this week.
Move toward them.
Send a text. Make the phone call. Invite them for coffee, dinner, a hike, or something you would naturally do together.
Then begin praying specifically:
“Jesus, help me build a genuine relationship with this person, and give me an opportunity to invite them toward You.”
The goal isn’t dinner.
Dinner may simply be the bridge.
📌 REMEMBER THIS
Jesus didn’t just get close to sinners. He got close enough to call them to follow Him.
📖 NEXT: MARK 2:18–22 — WHY AREN’T YOUR DISCIPLES FASTING?
Jesus has already irritated the religious establishment by forgiving sins and eating with the wrong crowd.
Now another question comes.
John the Baptist’s disciples fast. The Pharisees fast. These are serious religious people doing something deeply rooted in their devotion to God.
But Jesus’ disciples?
Apparently they’re eating.
So people ask Jesus why.
His answer involves a wedding, a groom, an old coat, a new patch, old wineskins, and new wine.
It sounds like several unrelated illustrations piled together until you realize Jesus is making an enormous claim about who He is and what His arrival means.
So why weren’t Jesus’ disciples fasting?
That question is bigger than it looks.
📺 KEEP GOING THROUGH MARK
Follow the complete Gospel of Mark Verse-by-Verse Bible Study as we work through the entire Gospel together.
New Daily Bible Podcast teachings and study guides will be added throughout our journey.
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