Mark 2:16

‘And the Scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners”.'

The sight of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners offended the Scribes. They were still following Him about in order to observe Him, still upset because of what He had previously said. Now they felt that they had indeed been justified in their views and criticism. He was mixing with the wrong kind of people and showing a lack of concern for ritual cleanliness. Eating with such people was against all that they believed in.

Let us first be fair to them. There was some truth in their attitude that mixing with riffraff and immoral people was not advisable. Such company could lead men into sin and worse. That is common sense. And they had made great efforts to lift themselves above the average man, and did not want to be in danger of being dragged down. But where they failed was in their self-satisfaction and in their failure to recognise the difference between general partying on the one hand, and mixing with such people when they were genuinely seeking spiritual help on the other. Their view was that such people must sort themselves out first, and then acceptance of them could be considered. But until then they must be avoided.

We note that they did not approach Him directly. Possibly they feared His forthright response. Even feared that somehow He might show them up. He seemed so good at doing that. But they could not withhold their condemnation. So they muttered to His disciples. Possibly they hoped to woo them from One Who was so clearly in the wrong.

We note also that these were ‘Scribes of the Pharisees' (there were also Scribes of the Sadducees and more independent Scribes). And they were almost certainly comparatively local (the Jerusalem Scribes would be called in later - Mark 3:22). They were the local legal experts, well versed in the teachings of the Elders, that oral law that they so prized, which had taken the Law of Moses and added to it hundreds of regulations to ensure that it was properly kept. And they were Pharisees.

There were only about six to seven thousand Pharisees in all. They were generally ‘good living' men, but often self-righteous, and strove to please God by keeping the hundreds of regulations laid down by their Scribes. By this response to the covenant they hoped to achieve eternal life. They not only accepted the Law of Moses as Scripture, but also the prophets. And they believed in the resurrection from the dead.

The people in general looked up to them and listened to and respected them and their teaching. They taught in the Synagogues and were regularly consulted, especially their Scribes. But as such people will, many of them had begun to feel themselves superior to everyone else. Many of them overlooked the fact that true goodness consists in the attitude of heart and instead concentrated on ‘doing the right thing', a large part of which consisted of ritual acts such as various washings at different times of the day, careful tithing, and observance to the letter of the traditions of the Elders which were often clever ways of avoiding the force of the Law, ‘making the word of God void through their tradition' (Mark 7:13). Thus their sense of superiority increased, and the result was that many became hypocritical. They ignored justice and mercy and the central demands of the Law and concentrated on making great demands on people in lesser matters, demands which they could not meet satisfactorily themselves. They often became ultra-critical, separatist and intolerant. And it was of this kind that the opposition to Jesus was mainly made up.

So it was such men who criticised Jesus, men who thought they were on the right track, possibly even almost ‘there', and who were offended that He did not fully agree with them. That He did observe their general teaching comes out in that they never criticised Him personally for actually breaking their ritual requirements, but what they objected to was the extreme claims that He seemed to be making without their support, and His readiness to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to ordinary people without insisting on all the legal requirements. And now He had added this, that He mixed with and ate with recognised sinners and despised tax collectors. He was keeping bad company.