Luke 5:31 — Community Reflections

LUKE 5:31 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.”

Jesus answered them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick — the medical analogy is the logical defense of the boundary-crossing table fellowship. A doctor who refuses contact with the sick has misunderstood the medical vocation. Jesus is Israel's physician — the sick are his patients, not his contamination.

Church Fathers on Luke 5:31

After the healing of the sick of the palsy, St. Luke goes on to mention the conversion of a publican, saying, And after these things, he went forth, and saw a publican of the name of Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom. This is Matthew, also called Levi.
Augustine · 4th century

Now Luke and Mark, for the honor of the Evangelist, are silent as to his common name, but Matthew is the first to accuse himself, and gives the name of Matthew and publican, that no one might despair of salvation because of the enormity of his sins, when he himself was changed from a publican to an Apostle.
Bede · 8th century

For Levi had been a publican, a rapacious man, of unbridled desires after vain things, a lover of other men’s goods, for this is the character of the publican, but snatched from the very worship of malice by Christ’s call. Hence it follows, And he said to him, Follow me. He bids him follow Him, not with bodily step, but with the soul’s affections. Matthew therefore, being called by the Word, left his own, who was wont to seize the things of others, as it follows, And having…
Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century

Read all 21 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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