Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
This single verse opens what many consider the most beloved chapter in the entire Bible — Luke 15 — which contains three parables Jesus tells about things that are lost and then found: a sheep, a coin, and a son. Tax collectors in first-century Judea were deeply hated figures; they worked for the Roman occupying government and routinely overcharged people, pocketing the difference. 'Sinners' was the label the religious establishment attached to anyone who didn't follow their strict interpretations of Jewish law — prostitutes, the ritually unclean, the morally disreputable. What this verse quietly notes, almost as a throwaway observation, is that these people were all gathering around Jesus — and doing so eagerly enough that it irritated the Pharisees, who muttered about it. That muttering is what prompted Jesus to tell the three parables that follow.
Jesus, you drew in the people everyone else turned away — and somehow you do the same for me. Soften the parts of me that sort people before they get close. Make me someone whose presence feels like good news, not a test to pass. Amen.
One sentence. No miracle, no confrontation yet — just a crowd gathering. But look at who's in it. People who would have been turned away from the synagogue, avoided in the marketplace, whispered about at dinner parties — they're pressing in close to hear Jesus. Not sheepishly, not hovering at the edges. All gathering around. Something about Jesus made the people who had been told they were too far gone feel like there might be a place for them anyway. That's not a minor detail. That's the whole ballgame. Here's the question this verse quietly drops at your feet: who feels welcome around you? Not in theory — in practice, in the actual texture of your days. The people Jesus attracted weren't cleaned up first; they came wrecked and stayed long enough to encounter something that changed them. If your faith, your community, your personal presence only feels accessible to people who already have it reasonably together, something has drifted off course. The tax collectors weren't gathering around the Pharisees. They were gathering around Jesus. What kind of presence do you carry into your world — one that draws the people who feel most disqualified closer, or one that, however unintentionally, sorts them out?
Why do you think tax collectors and 'sinners' — the most socially and religiously marginalized people of Jesus's day — were drawn to gather around him while the religious establishment kept their distance?
Think about the spaces you inhabit — your friendships, your church, your workplace. Who actually feels welcome there, and who might feel implicitly excluded without anyone intending it?
Does it challenge your assumptions that Jesus apparently attracted people considered morally disreputable before he said anything to them — what does that suggest about the nature of his presence?
How do you personally treat people whose choices or lifestyles you find difficult or wrong — and how does your approach compare to the picture this verse paints of Jesus?
What is one thing you could do — practically, specifically — to become the kind of person that people on the margins of faith feel safe approaching rather than avoiding?
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Matthew 5:46
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Matthew 11:19
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Luke 5:32
But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Matthew 9:13
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
1 Timothy 1:15
But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.
Matthew 21:28
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Acts 2:38
Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
Matthew 21:31
Now all the tax collectors and sinners [including non-observant Jews] were coming near Jesus to listen to Him.
AMP
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.
ESV
Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.
NASB
The Parable of the Lost Sheep Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him.
NIV
Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.
NKJV
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.
NLT
By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently.
MSG