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John Gill
Then drew near to him,.... To "Jesus", as the Persic and Ethiopic versions express it: this was on the sabbath day, and either when he was in the Pharisee's house, where he was invited to dinner, Lu 14:1 or rather when he came out of it, when the multitude, who could not come near him whilst there, took the opportunity of gathering about him; even all the publicans and sinners; whom the Pharisee...
Matthew Henry
Evil manners, we say, beget good laws; so, in this chapter, the murmuring of the scribes and Pharisees at the grace of Christ, and the favour he showed to publicans and sinners, gave occasion for a more full discovery of that grace than perhaps otherwise we should have had in these three parables which we have in this chapter, the scope of all of which is the same, to show, not only what God had...
Charles H. Spurgeon
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. The Pharisees and scribes formed the outside ring of Christ’s hearers, but the inner circle consisted of the guilty, the heavy-laden, and the lowly. They pressed as near to Christ as they could, that they might catch his every...
Charles H. Spurgeon
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. However sunken they might be, they knew their best Friend; they recognized their Benefactor, so they gathered around him. They knew who it was that smiled upon them, and who would fain uplift them; so they came clustering around him, like bees fly to the flowers: “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to...
Charles H. Spurgeon
Then drew near unto him and the publicans and sinner, for to hear him, and the Pharisees, and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, The deepest feelings of our Saviour’s heart seem to have been brought out by the two classes of persons here mentioned, his pity and compassion towards the sinful, and his righteous anger at...