Forgiveness connects the call of the tax collector to the healing of the paralytic – Christ’s authority to forgive sins – Mark 2:13-17.
When
Jesus pronounced the paralytic man’s sins forgiven, he offended the Scribes and
Pharisees and alienated them further by showing mercy “to sinners,”
individuals considered unacceptable by religiously observant Jews. Seeing the
Nazarene eating with “tax collectors,” the Scribes and Pharisees insinuated
that Jesus was also a notorious sinner – (Mark 2:1-17).