7 Things You Didn't Know About Matthew

matthew what are we to think of this disciple i mean how did this former tax collector end up becoming a follower of the messiah is he more than just the writer of one of the gospels so much of our attention goes to the story that he wrote about jesus but what is his story well today we're going to take a close look and i'm going to reveal to you seven things you probably didn't know about matthew so let's get started one thing you may not know about matthew is that he was probably one of the few disciples who could read and write it's hard for us to imagine this today but for most of history most of the world was illiterate education in many instances was reserved for the wealthy those who could afford for their children to go to school rather than work to support the family even as recent as the last century there were many people in america who simply never learned how to read and write and this is still the case in many parts of the world today and this was most certainly the case for the disciples at the time of jesus for one thing there was no public education system like we have today the only school that members of the jewish community would go to was hebrew school and even this was only reserved for boys young boys who would go to learn the torah and one of the things that they would focus on was learning the hebrew alphabet well enough to be able to read from the torah scroll in public worship but even this wasn't what it seemed see more important than learning to read scripture was the value placed on memorizing it young boys would memorize whole books of scripture and because of this they'd be able to fluidly read from the torah scroll even if their actual reading skills were very low things were different though for somebody like matthew from scripture one of the first things that we learn about matthew is that he was a tax collector and this was a position that required the ability to read and write matthew would have had to keep records track accounts and there's no way that he could have done any of this without the ability to read and write but there's even more to it than that it's not just that matthew could do these things on a basic level matthew would have had to communicate in several languages he lived in the roman empire where the official language was latin greek however was also a common language used throughout the region and then of course he was part of the jewish community and so he would have had to be familiar with hebrew and aramaic matthew would have had some level of familiarity with each of these languages and and this fact also gives us some insight into matthew's gospel see his gospel at least the one used for our bible translations today is written in greek it contains many instances of aramaic it draws from hebrew scriptures it is this window into all the influences surrounding matthew and the languages he would have had to understand and this is something i find so exciting as we read the bible as we look at these details in scripture we begin to better understand who the men and women recorded in these pages were and what their world was like it helps us to understand the challenges the the influences the cultures that surrounded them and it brings the scriptures to life their world helps us to better understand god's word and those influences are definitely evident in our next fact about matthew at the time of jesus the roman empire was expanding and taxes had to be collected to pay for that expansion the empire covered practically every piece of land surrounding the mediterranean sea it was expanding into asia africa britain and maintaining this type of empire was expensive in order to pay for all of it the romans imposed three types of taxes first they taxed one-tenth of all harvested grain and one-fifth of harvested fruit next they imposed a poll tax which was a set amount for each adult and then finally they collected an income tax of 1 of a person's total business income in addition to these taxes there were also taxes on goods tolls etc now because of the scale of this taxation because it was so grand rome needed to hire local people to enforce it governors would hire local individuals who were familiar with the area knew the wealthy people who were living there and understood the local economy people would bid for the privilege of collecting taxes it could be incredibly lucrative and if they won this opportunity they would pay rome what was required and collect whatever they wanted pocketing the prophet because of the way this system was set up tax collectors were notoriously dishonest and when we look closely at scripture we can see all sorts of hints about this there is clear disdain for tax collectors but beyond just the animosity towards this population scripture also gives us a glimpse into the level of wealth attached with this position when matthew just leaves his tax booth to follow jesus this moment is meant to capture our attention for those living in the first century they would have known just how much he was giving up to follow jesus they understood how great this sacrifice was he was willing to give up everything and this is one of those things that's important for us not to miss when we're reading the bible a story like matthew leaving his tax booth isn't just an account of something that happened it has rich meaning it tells us that this is what it looks like to be a follower of jesus it means that we're willing to surrender everything to follow him that we hold nothing back from him that when we become his followers we turn away from our old life our old ways but for many of us and i know i've struggled with this at some points in my life there are times when our life before we met jesus in our life after don't really look much different from one another we believe in jesus but we keep doing the same things living the same life and stories like that of matthew are meant to awaken us to remind us that following jesus is a life of full surrender and that following him should impact every part of our lives how we spend our time what we do with our money and even our relationships which leads us to another very interesting thing about matthew that we might not realize matthew impoverished the disciples like i mentioned earlier rome was expanding and the empire was expensive but this wasn't the only thing people had to pay for local residents also had to pay for the works of their regional leaders for instance the reign of herod the great was incredibly expensive the anatolia fortress the fortification of masada and the expansion of the temple were all projects completed during herod's reign when herod died the territory was split amongst his sons and one of his sons antipas ruled over the galilee region the region from which many of the disciples came now antipasto's projects weren't nearly as grand as his father's but nevertheless the taxes that matthew collected in capernaum which is where he had his tax booth would have supported antipas's territory they would have gone to projects like the rebuilding of the city of sephora and the construction of the capital city of tiberias and the expenses of these taxes would have driven people into poverty people like the disciples who were already just scraping by to survive the taxes matthew collected would have focused on taxing anything that traveled by land and sea which means he would have definitely taxed peter andrew james john and anyone else who fished on the sea of galilee you know when we imagine the disciples it's tempting to imagine them as this friendly band of brothers they love each other they get along all the time but when we step back and we think about it that's really just an assumption isn't it i mean we may have some logical arguments for thinking that way perhaps we assume that their decision to follow jesus made them all docile and friendly and forgiving which let's be honest would be the first and only time that happened to everyone in a church i mean just ask the apostle paul right but the truth is scripture actually gives us more reason to believe that there was some real tension among the disciples at least to begin with there would have been animosity towards matthew he'd hurt the other disciples and and while they may have worked it out over time the effects of his efforts as a tax collector would have surely been felt and felt strongly when his ministry with jesus began another thing that you might not realize about matthew is that his name is actually pretty ironic matthew in hebrew is matitshayu it comes from the word mathat which means gift and the word yah which is short for yahweh the word for god in other words matthew's name means gift of god ironic isn't it i mean who would ever consider a tax collector a gift of god but it actually gets even more interesting you see matthew has two names in the bible his other name levi is the name of the priestly tribe of israel that's easy to imagine that matthew's family had really high hopes for him when he was born i mean they called him a gift from god they connected him to those who served god just imagine the pain and the irony that they would have experienced when he decided to leave to go serve rome they would have felt betrayed i mean it's likely that they would have disowned him but what makes matthew's story so amazing is that we see how jesus redeems him jesus changes his story he restores him despite how far he'd fallen and this is something we're supposed to feel as we're reading matthew's gospel there's this beauty in the fact that the man writing these words about himself knows how his story began and how it ended he knows what it was like to be so powerfully changed and he's using his own story as a testimony to others to people like me and you to let us know that we are not beyond redemption i mean you may have made mistakes that have harmed others your family may have had wonderful plans for your life but you walked away from them all you may have been disowned you may have gone down a path that still makes you sick to your stomach as you think about the things that you've done and the damage you've left behind but to you jesus says you are not beyond redemption i can give you a new life you can have a second chance through me this is what matthew experienced and it's what you can experience but one of the things that makes matthew's story so interesting is that not only would he have had to experience forgiveness from the disciples and jesus but among that group may have been one of his own family members you see one of the other things that we learn about matthew when his name is first mentioned in the gospels it's that he's possibly related to another one of the disciples in mark's gospel mark says and as jesus was passing by he saw levi the son of alphaeus sitting at the tax booth and he said to him follow me and then in the next chapter as he's listing the names of the disciples mark also says these are the twelve that jesus appointed simon to whom he gave the name peter andrew phillip bartholomew matthew thomas and james son of alphaeus now when you look at these two passages side by side you probably notice this name that appears twice alpheus matthew is the son of alphaeus but then there's also james the son of alphaeus now perhaps alpheus was a common name at the time of jesus and this is just a coincidence or you might ask if james and matthew are brothers why wouldn't the bible just say so clearly and those are good questions but one thing that does stand out to me as we read matthew's gospel is that in his own gospel matthew doesn't introduce himself like mark does mark refers to him as levi the son of alphaeus but matthew just refers to himself as matthew he never mentions his father's name only james is the son of alphaeus now like we've said before the fact that matthew is a tax collector means that he very likely was disowned by his family and if this is the case it explains why he might not mention his father's name his father alpheus would have told him he would have said matthew you are no longer my son and if indeed james and matthew share the same father it reveals to us just how complicated and possibly awkward that relationship would have been i mean both of them have been called by jesus but their relationship as brothers would have suffered serious damage up to that point i mean who knows if they even had a relationship i can't help but think of this situation and be reminded of jesus's parable of the two brothers in luke's gospel in this parable one brother has turned his back on his father the other has remained the dutiful son but in the end we're reminded not only of a god who welcomes back even the most wayward of us into the family we're also shown that the desire of the father is for us to be reconciled to our brother i mean if matthew and james were brothers just imagine how this story would have struck them how it would have connected with matthew's desire to be reclaimed by his father how it would have drawn out the need for reconciliation amongst these brothers now of course we will never know for certain if this was the case and what the relationship between these two men truly looked like but seeing it through this lens does remind us of our own need for reconciliation in our lives of god's invitation for us all to return home and be welcomed back into god's loving arms despite our past and of god's desire for healing in our relationships with others for us to show them the same forgiveness we've been offered perhaps you have a place in your life right now where you know god is urging you to mend a broken relationship to offer forgiveness to reach out and to connect i want to encourage you to take the first step and let god begin to heal that part of your life because if matthew is an example of anything he's an example of just how much grace and forgiveness had to have existed within this community of disciples that jesus was forming two thousand years ago and what jesus desires for this community that he's forming through us today when we look at matthew we see a man who was considered by the people of his time to have turned his back on his hebrew family he chose rome and wealth over his community so it might surprise you to learn that matthew's gospel is actually the most jewish oriented of the four throughout the gospel there are frequent references to the old testament his opening genealogy seems as if it was created to be a bridge between the old testament and new testament and a jewish reader would have easily recognized the gospel semitic style for instance matthew's use of the aramaic term raqqa would have shown his people that he was one of them he understood their common language he was no longer an outsider but there's one other thing about matthew's gospel that shows us that he truly did reclaim his hebrew identity which is that matthew's gospel was written in hebrew eusebius reports that papia said therefore matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the hebrew language but each person interpreted them as best he could this quote suggests that matthew wrote his gospel in hebrew or possibly even aramaic and others throughout history have attested to this as well irenaeus says matthew also issued a written gospel among the hebrews in their own dialect while peter and paul were preaching at rome and laying the foundations of the church jerome claimed matthew composed the gospel of christ at first published in judea in hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed he recorded that his gospel was written in palestine preserved at caesarea collected by pamphlets and attested to by the nazarenes of berea and syria and finally eusebius also says that pantiness a missionary in india found a copy of matthew's gospel in hebrew there in 180 a.d which means that these hebrew versions were circulating and if you think about it this makes sense like we talked about at the beginning most jewish people would not have read greek greek may have been the common language throughout the empire but matthew wanted a version that all jewish people could read he wanted to make sure that they knew that the messiah had come i mean matthew's account was firsthand he'd watched all of these things happen his life had been changed drastically and he knew the mission before him i mean it's like the end of matthew's gospel records jesus said therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything that i have commanded you and surely i am with you always to the very end of the age matthew's gospel is matthew living out that great commission making sure that all people know this good news and that god's kingdom spreads to the ends of the earth and it's a reminder to us too that we are on the same mission that god has given us the command to go and make disciples to pass along the teachings of jesus to baptize in the name of the father son and holy spirit and to proclaim to the world that jesus is not dead he's risen and he is still with us even to the end of the age my hope is that this video is a means of passing that good news along to you but i also want to pray for you as you take up this great commission and work to share this good news with others because you are an essential part of god's work in this world you're here to be a blessing to this world to tell others about jesus and to help build god's kingdom right here on earth and i want to pray that not only will you realize that and believe it but that god will bless you as you try to live it out so let me pray for you god i pray for every person watching today and the call that you've placed on their life thank you for matthew's story and this reminder that through jesus we can all be redeemed and i pray for your blessing upon those listening that as they work to share this good news as they take up this great commission that their hearts will be opened lives will be changed and that we might experience your kingdom among us just as the disciples did 2 000 years ago we pray these things in jesus name amen well that's it for this week thank you so much for watching if you haven't done so already please take a moment to click that thumbs up to say that you like the video and then while you're down there click that subscribe button and the bell next to it so that you hear about these videos as soon as they're released also if you haven't already signed up for our monthly newsletter check out the description where you will find a subscription link each month we'll take you beyond the video with insights and details that i couldn't include in videos like this one will take you beyond the words helping you to see familiar scriptures in a whole new way and will take you beyond the walls helping you to see how you can live all of this out and be a part of the mission of bringing god's kingdom here to earth i'm really excited about this so please make sure to check out that link and subscribe again thank you so much for taking the time to watch these videos i am so grateful to you and until next time have a great week and god bless you

Channel: Brandon Robbins

Views: 233,228

Rating: 4.9753442 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: HHVm8oOPTPU

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021