Who did Jesus hang out with when He was on earth? Who were Jesus' friends?
Here's the answer:
Jesus hung out with his disciples and the people who needed Him the most.
When Jesus was on earth, He traveled around quite a bit to tell people about God. Because of this, He got to know a wide variety of people.
You would expect that Jesus, who is God’s Son, would want to hang out with good people, wouldn’t you? The religious leaders in Jesus’ time, the Pharisees, expected that too! But Jesus wanted to hang around with the people who needed Him because of their sins.
The Pharisees were angry about this, because they expected Jesus to want to spend His time with "good" people like them. One time, when the Pharisees asked the disciples why Jesus would hang out with sinners, Jesus told them, "Those who are healthy don’t need a doctor. Sick people do. I have not come to get those who think they are right with God to follow me. I have come to get sinners to follow me" (Mark 2:17).
But even though Jesus met and cared for a lot of people, only a few had the chance to be close friends with Him. Some of those people were Jesus’ 12 disciples. When Jesus started His ministry, He called 12 men to learn from Him. He wanted to train these men to spread the good news about salvation after He had gone back to heaven. The best way for them to learn was to follow Jesus closely. Jesus was the example to them of how they were to act and live their lives.
These men would later tell thousands of people about Jesus, His sacrifice on the cross for our sins, and His resurrection—and some of them even wrote about their time with Jesus (you can find those books in the Bible!).
You can be a friend of Jesus too! If you want to learn more about that, click here.
Bible Truth
"Later Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house. Many tax collectors and 'sinners' came. They ate with Jesus and his disciples" (Matthew 9:10).
"The Son of Man came to look for the lost and save them" (Luke 19:10).
"God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life" (John 3:16).
