After choosing a few fishermen, where do you stop next?
Oh I know, lets add a tax collector to the bunch!!!!

¹⁰And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
¹¹And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

Publican was really publicani dealing with public money and with public funds. Tax collectors, hated, in the pay of Romans regarded as traitors.

A Tacitus tells us that he once saw a monument to an honest tax collector.....so rare he received a monument.

But he did take something important with him. His pen. The pen!!!!! Tax collectors? Good at record keeping? He went on to write one of the most important books that the world has ever read.

But, Jesus chose him. Why on earth did he choose him?

Jesus was able to see in him something that was over and above what other people saw. He could see over the veneer of what he had become and saw the possibility of who he could be.

That’s what Jesus sees with us, that’s the call of our service, he sees our potential, but we choose whether we respond or not. That’s our choice!!!!!

Matthew gave up comfortable job and found destiny; he gave up a good income and found honour. There were immediate results of his decisions. He invited his friends to hear the word. It is our duty to share what we have.

Matthew and the sick. We need to look on people who have made mistakes not as someone who deserves contempt, but as someone needing love.

In choosing Matthew, Jesus was looking past who he was then, to who he could be. That requires the eyes of love to see that.

Are we looking at the world with the eyes of love or contempt?

Does the calling of Matthew make you want to look at the world differently?

It should!