In Matthew 9, Jesus calls Levi from his tax collecting booth. Levi follows, and then throws a party for Jesus, to which he invites his friends who happen to also be tax-collectors as well as other sinners. Jesus attends the party, and the Pharisees observe Jesus at the party eating with the tax collectors, so they direct an accusatory question towards Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” Jesus hearing their question answers “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” To learn (μάθετε) here has the connotation of learning through practice. This type of learning will be an affective learning – it is learning about desire – and in this particular instance learning a desire of God's. Jesus here clearly is saying that God desire's mercy and not sacrifice. He is quoting Hosea 6:6. One of the fascinating things about this passage is that Jesus in quoting Hosea is participating in an ongoing conversation within Israel, about what God really wants. There was certainly ample evidence in the Hebrew Scripture that people could have pointed Jesus to in an effort to demonstrate that God actually really does want sacrifice, and it seems likely to me that Jesus would have already been familiar with those passages and that argument. But, here in this context of eating with those that the "religious" deemed the wrong people. Jesus draws on this passage from Hosea as the better reflection of God's desire.
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