Luke 15:1
Luke 15:11Now all the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus.
is rarely engaged in JW commentary. The verse sets up the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son — parables the Watchtower reads as illustrations of Jehovah's willingness to receive returning sinners through the organisation's reinstatement procedure. The fact that Jesus himself "received sinners and ate with them" before any judicial apparatus existed sits awkwardly with the Watchtower's disfellowshipping practice and is generally not foregrounded.
Hold up against , the JW proof-text for shunning ("treat him as a man of the nations and a tax collector"). Then ask the Witness how Jesus actually treated tax collectors and sinners. He received them. He ate with them. He went looking for them. The shepherd of leaves the ninety-nine and pursues the one that wandered. Jesus's pattern is pursuit, not abandonment. The Watchtower's disfellowshipping practice forbids the rest of the flock from speaking to the wandered one — the inversion of Jesus's command. Pair with (Paul commanding the Corinthians to forgive and comfort the disciplined member after his repentance) and ("restore him in a spirit of gentleness"). The biblical model of discipline is restoration; the Watchtower's is permanent social death unless the individual returns on the organisation's terms.