Wenn ich die überschwänglichen Kommentare von Pastoren, Bloggern und Artikelschreibern höre bzw. lese, dann wird mir zuweilen mulmig zu Mute. Kevin DeYoung hat über das Bild, das wir von Jesus zeichnen, nachgedacht.
As precious as this truth is—that Jesus is a friend of sinners—it, like every other precious truth in the Bible, needs to be safeguarded against doctrinal and ethical error. It is all too easy, and amazingly common, for Christians (or non-Christians) to take the general truth that Jesus was a friend of sinners and twist it all out of biblical recognition. So “Jesus ate with sinners” becomes “Jesus loved a good party,” which becomes “Jesus was more interested in showing love than taking sides,” which becomes “Jesus always sided with religious outsiders,” which becomes “Jesus would blow bubbles for violations of the Torah.”
DeYoung zieht die fünf Abschnitte, in denen Jesus in Gemeinschaft mit Sündern portraitiert wird, zur Untersuchung heran.
So what lessons can we draw from these episodes? In what way was Jesus a friend of sinners? Did he have a grand strategy for reaching tax collectors? Did he indiscriminately “hang out” with drunks and prostitutes? Was he an easy going live-and-let-live kind of Messiah? What we see from the composite of these passages is that sinners were drawn to Jesus, that Jesus gladly spent time with sinners who were open to his teaching, that Jesus forgave repentant sinners, and that Jesus embraced sinners who believed in him.
