MATTHEW

Whether in ancient times or modem, human beings are capable of great evil. Yet none is beyond redemption.

Eighteenth-century pastor John Newton was once a slave-trader, which meant he was involved in one of the most heinous travesties the earth has ever known. This was a man whose daily treatment of his fellow human beings was abusive and unjust. Only later did Newton come to realize what a blind and wandering wretch he truly was. His sense of awe at God's sweet mercy and forgiveness inspired him to write the beloved hymn "Amazing Grace."

If the timeline of history were different, perhaps the biblical disciple Matthew would have appreciated John Newton's great hymn. Matthew was a tax collector, a profession notorious in ancient times for its abusive practices. In fact, a genuine form of enslavement was being perpetrated against the Jews through excessive taxes. Yet when Jesus of Nazareth showed up at the tax booth, Matthew's life—like Newton's—was suddenly diverted down a new path toward freedom and redemption. So what did Matthew do with the bountiful forgiveness he found in Christ? In other words, what did he accomplish for his Savior after Acts?

To answer that question, we must first understand who Matthew was before he discovered the amazing grace of God.

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THE COLLABORATOR IS CALLED

During Matthew's lifetime, his homeland of Galilee was controlled by the Romans through the puppet ruler Herod Antipas. The foreign overlords demanded two things of their subjects: peace and taxes. Yet the job of tax collection didn't originally belong to the Roman government like our IRS today. Instead, aristocratic capitalists called publicans formed tax-collecting businesses. Though these big shots operated out of Rome or the provincial capitals, local tax gatherers from the nearby population provided the necessary "boots on the ground" at each collection point.

Matthew was a man like this—a Jewish collaborator with Rome's appointee, Herod Antipas, who levied heavy taxes to fund his many building projects. Obviously the traitors who helped Antipas would be resented by those who had to hand over their hard-earned wealth. Sellouts like Matthew were agents of the oppressive Roman regime, often getting filthy rich by overcharging the little guy. The Jews hated the publicans in general, but they especially despised the local Jewish representatives who carried out the actual process of examining goods and exacting taxes. Such people were lumped with other "sinners" as hardly worthy of being considered Jews—until Jesus came along and offered Matthew a new life.

The calling of Matthew as a disciple of Jesus is recounted in the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., the three gospels that outline their story the same way—Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Mark's gospel puts it like this:

[Jesus] went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he rose and followed him. And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:13–17, italics added.)

This account, like Luke's version, calls the tax-collecting disciple "Levi." Matthew's gospel, however, changes the name to "Matthew" (9:9). Apparently this disciple went by two names. When the gospel of Matthew was written, his identity needed to be clarified so everyone could see that the man writing the story was one and the same as the despicable tax collector. This demonstrates that the early Christians weren't shy about reading a biography of Jesus attributed to a notorious sinner. Just the opposite—Matthew's sinfulness is highlighted in the text. Yet due to his transformation by the Lord, he was able to write the ancient church's most widely read gospel account!

As a tax agent, Matthew would have been literate in both Aramaic and Greek. He was no peasant laborer but a businessman who worked for Gentile bosses, kept careful records, and wrote out customs slips. The Bible portrays him as having a very nice home with a dining room large and well-furnished enough for many other rich men to gather there. Yet underneath all the trappings of wealth, Matthew may have felt pangs of guilt. Here was a man who, instead of commiserating with his countrymen, joined an abusive system and worked the angles to profit at the expense of his fellow Jews.

The place where Matthew's traitorous work took place was Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. But unbeknownst to him, Jesus had decided to make this little fishing village the home base of His ministry in fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah (Matt. 4:12–17). Capernaum was also the probable hometown of Peter. We can imagine Matthew living a life of considerable comfort here, yet always having to bear the burden of social rejection. For that reason he was ripe for the harvest when Jesus issued the call, "Follow me."

Abandoning his life as a tax collector, Matthew became one of Jesus' inner circle, the Twelve. He lived and ate and prayed with his Rabbi on a daily basis. Then, after the Romans crucified Jesus on the cross of Calvary, Matthew was one of those who witnessed the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:5) and saw Him ascend into heaven (Acts 1:1–14). From this point on, Matthew disappears from further mention in the Bible. Yet he is known by all Christians today because of his one great legacy to the church: he wrote the first gospel in the New Testament.

Or did he?

MATTHEW WRITING MATTHEW

For many years—centuries, even—the church believed Matthew wrote the first of the four gospels. The canonical order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is familiar to anyone who has ever cracked open the Good Book. Yet despite this long tradition, most scholars today don't consider this order of authorship to be correct. Only a few conservatives still defend it, while many other conservatives do not, along with the majority of liberals (refer to the introduction for clarification of these approaches).

The Synoptic Problem

The questions of when Matthew's gospel was written, and according to what sources, and in what relation to the other gospels, are all part of the complex academic debate called the Synoptic Problem. The issue arises because Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so alike in their wording and outlook that mere coincidence cannot explain these similarities; yet it is extremely difficult to reconstruct the exact literary relationship between the three works. Scholars have put forth many complicated...