Did Jesus Like to Party?

Yekcidmij

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Matt 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”


It appears to me that Jesus would party on occasion with "sinners" and "tax collecters", basically, the dirtiest of the dirty. I don' think He was a glutton or a drunkard though. Those seem to be labels that were used by his opponents, probably in some sort of attempt to marginalize him. But the part about partying a little with the outcasts seems to be true. Those facts are not denied by Jesus and he actually says he will be vindicated by by the things he is doing.

What do you think?
 

He put me back together

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I think one must understand the context of the accusations. Josephus gives an account of the practices of the Pharisees, of whom he was a member for at least some time. I don't know if we could say that every code expressed therin applied to all of them on every occasion, but it does shed some light on where they were coming from when they accused Jesus.

The Pharisees, as we know to some degree, believed in a code of "clean" living beyond that expressed in the Torah. They accused Jesus on hygene. But this was more than hygene--they considered themselves defiled if they touched a member of their own sect who was of some rank lower than they. You have to understand that to an ancient Hebrew, "holy" was "set apart," special--like your dress shoes or a wedding dress. You don't roll around in the mud in your wedding dress. These guys took that concept far too literally, and in their efforts to clean the outside, they soiled themselves with iniquity and moral filth.

So, you can imagine what contempt such a group of people would have for this guy who claims to be a teacher of righteousness, and will not only allow people to touch Him, but He visits the houses of immoral sinners, eats their food, drinks their wine, and laughs with them. Glutton! Drunkard! You walk around teaching people Torah, but you party with the sinners!

But the Bible doesn't say that he got drunk, or that He ate or drank in excess. The Bible doesn't say that others did that around Him. The Bible does record, however, that He made friends with sinners, and those that received His teaching were lifted up above the "holiest," "cleanest," most "set-apart" men on the earth. And those publicans--those prostitutes, those theives, entered into the Kingdom ahead of the Pharisees, and instead of most of them.

But honestly, what they had to say about Jesus closely ressembles what I hear at times in the pulpit about those who befriend sinners.
 
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SpiritPsalmist

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Matt 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”


It appears to me that Jesus would party on occasion with "sinners" and "tax collecters", basically, the dirtiest of the dirty. I don' think He was a glutton or a drunkard though. Those seem to be labels that were used by his opponents, probably in some sort of attempt to marginalize him. But the part about partying a little with the outcasts seems to be true. Those facts are not denied by Jesus and he actually says he will be vindicated by by the things he is doing.

What do you think?

Yes, I think He liked to party. He celebrated weddings, He celebrated all of the Appointed Times, He celebrated Channukah, He celebrated when the disciples returned with a good report. He danced, He rejoiced, He gave thanks. Yes, He was also called a man of sorrows, but He did not go around with a sorrowful persona.
 
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JimB

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Was Jesus a party animal?

I don’t think so.

He was more like a physician in a hospital, there to heal, not party. Unlike us hyper-religious types, He was not repulsed by sinners, in fact he was known as the Friend of Sinners. I say that because so much of today’s modern preaching is nothing more than moralizing and is often disparaging of those dam*ed sinners whose morals we think do not match ours—i.e., sinners that Christ loves so much He gave His life for them. IMO, Jesus expected sinners to sin because that’s what sinners do and that’s why they are sinners. We do not condemn a cancer victim for having cancer and we should not expect a sinner to do anything other than sin. Sin is like a disease that cripples peoples’ souls and Jesus came to heal them by offering them the gift of faith so that they might be justified before God (with Christ’s righteousness not our own) and not because we who proclaim the Good News are any better than they.

If we say “Jesus loved to party,” I think we miss the point of why He went to parties.

~Jim
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis
 
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Was Jesus a party animal?

I don’t think so.

He was more like a physician in a hospital, there to heal, not party. Unlike us hyper-religious types, He was not repulsed by sinners, in fact he was known as the Friend of Sinners. I say that because so much of today’s modern preaching is nothing more than moralizing and is often disparaging of those dam*ed sinners whose morals we think do not match ours—i.e., sinners that Christ loves so much He gave His life for them. IMO, Jesus expected sinners to sin because that’s what sinners do and that’s why they are sinners. We do not condemn a cancer victim for having cancer and we should not expect a sinner to do anything other than sin. Sin is like a disease that cripples peoples’ souls and Jesus came to heal them by offering them the gift of faith so that they might be justified before God (with Christ’s righteousness not our own) and not because we who proclaim the Good News are any better than they.

If we say “Jesus loved to party,” I think we miss the point of why He went to parties.

~Jim
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis


Nobody who thinks Jesus celebrated and rejoiced and danced has missed the point of why He went to parties. He partied with them to the degree of living Torah in the midst of them and their lives were changed. He loved to party as per the Kingdom of Heaven.
 
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