#39 Matthew Called

#39 Matthew Called

Please first read: Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32

President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.:

  

Jesus goes forth again by the seaside, and multitudes follow him, he teaches them; seeing 

Levi - Matthew - son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt of custom, he says, “Follow me,” and Matthew follows; Matthew makes a great feast for Jesus (in Matthew’s house) and a great company of publicans and sinners come and sit down; the Pharisees murmur at this, asking why he eats with publicans and sinners; Jesus answers that the sick, not the well, need a physician, and that he comes not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (some Pharisees may have detected a bit of irony here of Jesus implying that they were at the top of the list of those needing to repent and change.) (p.218)

                                                                          

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

By now in His ministry Jesus’ notoriety as a teacher and worker of good (miracles/healings) is established throughout all the Holy Land. Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, and “doctors of the law” come from Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem to see and hear Him. Jesus is in the process of restoring the gospel for his day and dispensation. So far he has revealed new doctrine, ordained new officers, approved the baptisms of John, and preformed baptisms himself. In time he will call his Twelve special witnesses, give them the keys of the kingdom, and the power to bind on earth and seal in heaven. (Volume 2. p.55)

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie: 

It appears that when Jesus saw Matthew and said unto him, “Follow me.” Matthew immediately “left all, rose up, and followed him.” Matthew was a Jew. He was also a publican (a collector of taxes for the Romans) and all such were hated and despised by his people. It was particularly offensive for one of their own race to be so engaged. Publicans were customarily considered to be sinners. Rabbis ranked them as cutthroats and robbers, as social outcasts and religiously half-excommunicated. They were forbidden to serve as judges or to give evidence, and it was common to say of them: “A religious man who becomes a publican is to be driven out of the society of religion. It is not lawful to use the riches of such men.”

Matthew was one of these social outcasts; his friends and associates obviously belonged to the same group; and when he gave a feast (a sort of reception) for Jesus, it was publicans and sinners who assembled to meet the Master. When Jewish leaders criticized Jesus for eating and associating with such unsavory individuals, Jesus’ reply was “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” The Pharisaic religion was one of ritualistic forms, of rules and ceremonies, of rites and sacrifices; actually, no one needed a physician more than the spiritually sick Pharisees. (p.180)

The author, Farrar, in his book titled “Life of Christ,” provided the following passage:    

At or near Capernaum there was a receipt of custom. Lying as the town did at the nucleus of roads which diverged to Tyre, to Damascus, to Jerusalem, and to Sepphoris, it was a busy centre of merchandise, and therefore a natural place for the collection of tribute and taxes. These imposts were to the Jews pre-eminently distasteful. The mere fact of having to pay them wounded their tenderest sensibilities. They were not only a badge of servitude; not only a daily and terrible witness that God seemed to have forsaken His land, and that all the splendid Messianic hopes and promises of their earlier history were merged in the disastrous twilight of subjugation to a foreign rule which was cruelly and contemptuously enforced; but more than this, the mere payment of such imposts wore almost the appearance of apostasy to the sensitive and scrupulous mind of a genuine Jew. It seemed to be a violation of the first principle of the Theocracy, such as could only be excused as the result of absolute compulsion. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the officers who gathered these taxes were regarded with profound dislike. It must be remembered that those with whom the provincials came into contact were not the Roman knights – the real publican, who farmed the taxes – but were the merest subordinates chosen from the dregs of the people, and so notorious was a class for their mal-practices, that they were regarded almost with horror, and were always included in the same category with harlots and sinners. When an occupation is thus despised and detested, it is clear that its members are apt to sink to the level at which they are placed by the popular odium. And if a Jew could scarcely persuade himself that it was right to pay taxes, how much more heinous a crime must it have been in his eyes to become the questionably-honest instrument for collecting them? If a publican was hated, how still more intense must have been the disgust entertained against a publican who was also a Jew? (p. 199)

Geikie:

  

Capernaum had a strong staff of custom-house officers, or publicans.   Much goods, merchandise and traffic flowed through it and dues and fees were required on most of it.   There were tolls on the highways, the bridges, docks at the lake and various other locations where payments of duty were required.   The Roman contracts required set amounts to be paid…anything extra they could charge and collect could kept as payment for their services.   This obviously opened the door for much fraud and animosity.

This was a critical time for Jesus, and his admission of a publican as a disciple could not fail to irritate his enemies still more, but he had not hesitation in his course. Sent to the lost, he gladly welcomed to his inmost circle one of their number in whom he saw the germs of true spiritual life, in calm disregard of all prejudices of the time.

It was natural that Matthew should celebrate an event so unique as his call by a great feast at his house; and no less so that he should invite a large number of his class to rejoice with him at the new era opened to him/them, or that he should extend the invitation to his friends of the proscribed classes generally … persons branded by public opinion as “sinners.” To the Rabbis, and the Pharisees at large, nothing could be more unbecoming and irregular than the presence of Jesus at Matthew’s feast. To be Levitically “clean” was the supreme necessity of their religious lives. (p.401)

Note: I first read Papini’s book, “Life of Christ” in 1958.  I very much enjoyed the style of writing, it’s beauty, and the feelings of love for the Savior which I felt from the author’s words. I include a couple of paragraphs, hopefully, for your enjoyment.   

“Matthew is the dearest of all the Twelve. He was a tax-gatherer, a sort of under-publican, and probably had more education than his companions. He followed Jesus as readily as the fishermen. “And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican name Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom:  and he said unto him, follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his own house.” It was not a heap of torn nets which Matthew left, but a position, a stipend, secure and increasing earnings.

            “Giving up riches is easy for a man who has almost nothing. Among the Twelve Matthew was certainly the richest before his conversion. Of no other is it told that he could offer a great feast, and this means that he made a greater and more meritorious sacrifice by his rising at the first call from the seat where he was collecting money.”

“Matthew and Judas were perhaps the only ones of the Disciples who knew how to write, and to Matthew we owe the first collection of Logia or memorable sayings of Jesus. In the Gospel which is called by his name, we find the most complete text of the Sermon on the Mount. Our debt to the poor excise-man is heavy; without him many words of Jesus, and the most beautiful, might have been lost. This handler of drachmas, shekels and talents, whom his despised trade must have predisposed to avarice, has laid up for us a treasure worth more than all the money coined on the earth.” (p. 228)

Edersheim:  

The term Pharisee means “separated one,” setting ones-self apart. This implies the Pharisee wants no contact, nothing to do with these unworthys; the exclusion of sinners. This was a main point of contention between them and Jesus. By calling Matthew (a publican, a sinner) to Jesus’ inner circle, Jesus would be knowingly attacking a very basic tenet of their doctrine. The actions and teachings of Christ are an absolute and fundamental contrariety to that of the Rabbis. This also sends a message to others who are ostracized by the Jews that they too may be welcome in this new gospel. (p. 508)

Glenn R. McGettigan

             August 2015; Revised October 2015

            

References:

“Our Lord of the Gospels.” Clark

“Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.” Edersheim

“Life of Christ.” Farrar    

“Life of Christ.” Geike   

“Doctrinal New Testament Commentary.” Volume 1. McConkie

“Mortal Messiah.” Book 2. McConkie

“Matthew: A New Translation.” Albright & Mann    

“Life of Christ.” Papini