Absolutely.
Mark 2:15-17
15 “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Don’t usually save too many inside the walls of the Church....the Church being Christ followers of course.
many people use that to excuse wanting to hang out with sinners- “Well they can’t hear if we Christians aren’t present” (or some variant of that)
Problem is that we’re not really hanging out with them to heal them- We’re simply hanging out and silent about Christ- IF we weren’t- and we WERE doing what Christ wanted us to do, they, the sinners, would do one of two things, get saved and stop the sin, or get lost- (ie drop the Christian like a hot potato because the Christian is antithetical to their sinful lifestyle)
The key to those verses you mentioned is right at the end where Jesus states He called the unrighteous to salvation- He didn’t simply hang out with them for the sake of hanging out ‘as an example to Christians to go and do likewise’- He gave them the gospel- IF we’re honest with ourselves, how many times are we giving out the gospel when we hang out with sinners? Indifferent to their sin?
The following is a pretty good article that discusses this very point:
“It’s true that Scripture tells us of Christ eating with sinners (Luke 15:1) and publicly coming to their defense, as was the case with the adulteress who faced public stoning. And, yes, in simply speaking up for them, or to them, He was defying social customs of the time and causing heart palpitations in the poor Pharisees who’d never before witnessed such a thing. The New Testament tells several stories along these lines. But it certainly doesn’t tell any stories where Christ accompanies a sinner in his sin, or sits by while a sin is being committed, or forgoes an opportunity to call a sinner to a life of holiness.
Christ dined with sinners in order to draw them closer to the truth. To the adulteress He said, “Sin no more.” To anyone who came to Him, He said, “Pick up your cross and follow me.” Christ instructed. He exhorted. He commanded. He showed the way. He did not “hang out.” There was a purpose to all of these encounters, and the purpose was always to bring the sinner out of his sin. The purpose, in other words, was to heal them.”
https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/matt-walsh-no-jesus-didnt-hang-out-with-sinners