The first gospel within the New Testament is the Gospel according to Matthew.  A quick history lesson about the time this man lived in, and his chosen profession would explain much of God’s love, and His ministry of reconciliation.  You see at this point of history, Israel was under Roman rule.  The Roman government would actually auction off to wealthy Romans the right to tax the various conquered people for a period of about 5 years at a time.  So it makes sense then that those Romans who purchased the right to tax those peoples would in turn try to exact the most taxes possible.  Obviously, these Romans could not themselves manage the task of tax collection from a whole people, so they would hire local persons, called publicans, to be tax collectors on their behalf.  So here you have a conquered people, under the rule of a foreign government, being taxed to extreme measures, by one of their own.  To make things even worse, often the publican would seek to enrich himself by taxing the people even more than his Roman employer required.  Now it makes sense that these people were the most hated persons around.  Their company often included theives, murderers, prostitutes and the like.  Literally they were considered a traitor.

So we come to Matthew.  Now Jesus only chose 12 persons in all of history and time to be unique as disciples.  These were the men that literally walked with God in the flesh, Jesus, for 3 years during His ministry.  Jesus, had obtained a high regard by those around Him as a wise and good teacher by the time that He came across Matthew.  Likely this was not a fact lost on Matthew.  Matthew had a choice when Jesus said to Him “follow me”.  Clearly, abandoning his post as a tax collector would cause him to forfeit his job, and any hope of being enriched in this life, after all, there weren’t a lot of people lining up to give publicans a back up job.  Each of us, if we take seriously the call of God through Jesus would see ourselves through Matthew.  In fact, looking outwardly by the world’s standards of happiness, no one would ever choose to follow God on their own.  It is only the grace of God that gives us eyes to see our need for Him, and His worth above anything the world could offer.  We know that Matthew did follow Christ, and the first thing He did was throw a party, and invite all his murderer, theive, publican, and prostitute friends over to show them His new friend Jesus.

Matthew 9:9-13 – “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.  And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Have you made a similar trade in your own life?  You cannot accept Jesus without giving up something, I assure you.  Do you so value Jesus, that you want to introduce everyone around you to Him?  Each of us is a traitor, not in the way Matthew was to his people, but in that we have rejected the One True King, Jesus, by our sin.  Yet knowing that about us, Jesus, has reconciled us to Himself through His blood.  This death was not the end, however… Jesus has given us the same mission – to trade our lives to begin a ministry of reconciliation with others.  What are you willing to trade from your life today?

Grace and Peace,
Adam