What Jesus did and didn’t do
Ross Douthat
Jesus doesn’t urge Peter to go ahead, betray me, I understand.
Jesus doesn’t tell the woman taken in adultery: go back to your lover because your situation is complex.
Jesus doesn’t tell Zacchaeus the tax collector: actually keep the money you have unjustly taken because you need it to support your family.
Jesus dines with sinners, he hangs out with prostitutes and publicans, he evangelises the much-married Samaritan woman, he welcomes thieves into eternity. But he never confirms them in their sins, or makes nuanced allowances for their state of life; that sort of rhetoric is alien to the Gospels.
