Who was Matthew in the Bible?

The son of Alphaeus and one of the twelve apostles. He was a tax-collector for the Romans, called 'publican' in the A.V. He left his office immediately he was called by the Lord and entertained Him at a feast. No other incidents are recorded of him apart from the other apostles. He is universally believed to have written the gospel bearing his name. Matt. 9:9; Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13. He is called LEVI in Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27, 29.

Matthew — called also Levi, the son of Alpheus; but not the same person, we believe, as Alpheus the father of James. (Matt. 10:3; Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27-29) Though a Roman officer, he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews," and probably a Galilean, but of what city or tribe we are not informed. Before his call to follow the Messiah, he was a publican, or tax-gatherer, under the Romans. He seems to have been stationed at Capernaum, a maritime town on the Sea of Galilee. He was what we should call a custom-house officer. It was in this capacity that Jesus found him. When He passed by, He saw him "sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him." But before proceeding with the history of Matthew, we would say a few words on the character of his occupation, as it is so frequently mentioned in the New Testament, and is really a generic term.

Of Matthew we know, too, but little. His secular calling was that of a publican, or tax-gatherer — a collector of Roman revenue, an occupation especially odious in the eyes of the Pharisees, and of others, who chafed at enforced subjection to the Roman yoke. Of his father's name Mark has informed us (Mark 2:14), and has noted that he also bore the name of Levi. This last fact Luke also mentions in his account of his call, but writes of him as Matthew in common with Mark, when enumerating the Twelve. For he was one of the Twelve. Yet who was his mother, or anything else about him, we may ask in vain, as far as Scripture is concerned.

Levi — also named Matthew — was one of Jesus’ disciples. He also wrote the gospel that describes the Lord Jesus as the promised King who came to earth in order to save His earthly people, Israel, from their sins. Three gospels tell us about Levi’s initial encounter with the Lord Jesus and his calling to discipleship. Here are some brief thoughts about the account given by Mark.

Some have found a difficulty in determining whether Levi the publican and Matthew the apostle were the same person. There is, however, no sufficient reason to doubt their identity. In the lists of the apostles given in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew is named in each of them. And Mark and Luke, in narrating the call of the publican, both give him the name of Levi. The obvious inference from these passages is that, like other of the apostles, the man had two names, Matthew being his most usual, if not his only, designation after his call to the discipleship of Jesus.

In the first Gospel, Matthew, writing of the same eventful call, ascribes it to a man named Matthew (Matt. 9:9), thus indicating his own origin with the utmost candour and humility, and by the avoidance of the name Levi preventing any possible confusion as to his identity. It is granted that a crooked worldly policy animated by motives of short-sighted prudence might cause an author to conceal such a fact about himself; but he who was inspired to include the names of Tamar and Bathsheba in the genealogy of the Messiah (Matt. 1) would be preserved from the petty meanness of concealing the fact that one of the Lord's apostles was a tax-collector. "Whom do we hear to blazon the shame of Matthew but his own mouth? Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Matthew the publican. His fellows call him Levi, as unwilling to lay their finger upon the spot of his unpleasing profession; himself will not smother nor blanch it a whit, but publishes it to all the world in a thankful recognition of the mercy that called him, as liking well that his baseness should serve for a fit foil to set off the glorious lustre of His grace by whom he was elected. What matters it how vile we are, O God, so Thy glory may arise in our abasement?"

Another name of MATTHEW the apostle. Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27, 29.

With great readiness Matthew obeyed the call of Jesus. His lucrative situation was at once given up; and his conversion, so thorough and manifest, was accompanied with much blessing to others. There was a great awakening and interest among his own class. "And Levi made a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and others that sat down with them." A feast is the symbol of joy and rejoicing — the immediate effect of a hearty surrender to Christ. It is worthy of note that in his own Gospel he gives his well-known name, but neither of the other evangelists speaks of "Matthew the publican." Along with the others he was chosen one of the twelve. From that time he continued with the Lord like the rest of the apostles. Blessed privilege! — "a familiar attendant on His person, a spectator of His public and private life, a hearer of His sayings and discourses, a beholder of His miracles, a witness of His resurrection and ascension to glory." This he does not testify, though he saw it. Matthew was with the other apostles on the day of Pentecost and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. How long he continued in Judaea after that event, we are not informed. His Gospel is supposed to be the first that was written, and has a special reference to Israel.

The Publican Levi is Matthew, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. He was a tax-gatherer and as such despised by his own brethren, because he was serving the hated Roman government. Tax-gatherers and sinners the Son of Man came to call. Levi left all and followed him. That he became at once a witness for the Lord is seen by the feast he made and the large number of tax-gatherers he had invited.

The call of Matthew, the same who was chosen by the Holy Spirit as the instrument for the writing of this Gospel, is related in a few words only: "And Jesus passing on thence saw a man sitting at the tax office called Matthew, and says to him, Follow Me. And he rose up and followed Him" (verse 9). Had Matthew written this book by himself and not by inspiration he would have followed the custom of other writers in making himself more prominent. He might have begun the book with an elaborate account of himself, his earthly circumstances and spoken, perhaps, at length of the scene which is but rapidly sketched in one verse. The Holy Spirit, however, guided his pen, and in the right place in the right words he records the story of his own call. The place given to it is significant. After the Lord had shown Himself in His power to be Jehovah He now manifests Himself in His grace to the lost and outcast sinner. What a scene it is which the one little verse puts before us! There he sits gathering in the tax, no thought of Him, no knowledge of Him. As a tax-gatherer he was, with his colleagues, despised by the leaders of the Jews, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes, as well as by the mass of the people. Tax-gatherers (Publicans) were known as thieves, who enriched themselves by extortions. Another one said later, after the Lord had entered into his house: "If I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I return him fourfold." However, this was not the cause why the people hated him. They looked upon them as miserable hirelings of the Roman government, who had put themselves under the control of the Gentile rule and helped in the subduing of the land and the people, their own land and their own brethren. The taxgatherers were, therefore, considered apostates. And such a one is called not alone to follow Jesus, but called and chosen as an instrument to write the kingly Gospel. Marvelous Grace! "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16). This is perfectly illustrated in Matthew's case as well as in everyone who is saved by Grace. Well may we adoringly cry out: "Oh, the Grace that sought me!" With no thought of Him or for Him, busied in earthly things for the meat that perisheth, Matthew was called to follow Him. Matthew follows. He leaves the table, there is no bargaining on his side, no request to think it over, no desire to go first to do something else, but the first thing done was obedience to the voice which had spoken. Yet there is no claim of merit from his side in doing this. May we who are His own ever be ready in obedience to His call.

The instrument chosen by the Holy Spirit to write this Gospel was Matthew. He was a Jew. However, he did not belong to the religious, educated class, to the scribes; but he belonged to the class which was most bitterly hated. He was a publican, that is a tax gatherer. The Roman government had appointed officials whose duty it was to have the legal tax gathered, and these officials, mostly, if not all Gentiles, appointed the actual collectors, who were generally Jews. Only the most unscrupulous among the Jews would hire themselves out for the sake of gain to the avowed enemy of Jerusalem . Wherever there was still a ray of hope for Messiah's coming, the Jew would naturally shrink from being associated with the Gentiles, who were to be swept away from the land with the coming of the King. For this reason the tax gatherers, being Roman employees, were hated by the Jews even more bitterly than the Gentiles themselves. Such a hated tax gatherer was the writer of the first Gospel. How the grace of God is revealed in his call we shall see later. That he was chosen to write this first Gospel is in itself significant, for it speaks of a new order of things about to be introduced, namely, the call of the despised Gentiles.

Internal evidences seem to show that most likely originally Matthew wrote the Gospel in Aramaeic, the Semitic dialect then spoken in Palestine . The Gospel was later translated into Greek. This, however, is certain, that the Gospel of Matthew is pre-eminently the Jewish Gospel. There are many passages in it, which in their fundamental meaning can only be correctly understood by one who is quite familiar with Jewish customs and the traditional teachings of the elders. Because it is the Jewish Gospel, it is dispensational throughout. It is safe to say that a person, no matter how learned or devoted, who does not hold the clearly revealed dispensational truths concerning the Jews, the Gentiles and the church of God will fail to understand Matthew. This is, alas, too much the case, and well it would be if it were not more than individual failure to understand; but it is more than that. Confusion, error, false doctrine is the final outcome, when the right key to any part of God's Word is lacking. If the dispensational character of Matthew were understood, no ethical teaching from the so-called Sermon on the Mount at the expense of the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ would be possible, nor would there be room for the subtle, modern delusion, so universal now, of a "social Christianity" which aims at lifting up the masses and the reformation of the world. How different matters would be in Christendom if its leading teachers and preachers, commentators and professors, had understood and would understand the meaning of the seven parables in Matthew 13, with its deep and solemn lessons. When we think how many of the leaders of religious thought reject and even oppose all dispensational teachings, and never learned how to divide the Word of truth rightly, it is not strange that so many of these men dare to stand up and say that the Gospel of Matthew as well as the other Gospels and the different parts of the New Testament contain numerous contradictions and errors. Out of this failure to discern dispensational truths has likewise arisen the attempt, by a very well meaning class, to harmonize the Gospel records and to arrange all the events in the life of our Lord in a chronological order, and thus produce a life of Jesus Christ, our Lord, as we have a descriptive life of Napoleon or other great men. The Holy Spirit has never undertaken to produce a life of Christ. That is very evident by the fact that the greater part of the life of our Lord is passed over in silence. Nor was it in the mind of the Spirit to report all the words and miracles and the movements of our Lord, or to record all the events which took place during His public ministry, and to arrange them in a chronological order. What presumption, then, in man to attempt to do that which the Holy Spirit never attempted! If the Holy Spirit never intended that the records of our Saviour should be strictly chronological, how vain and foolish then, if not more, the attempt to bring out a harmony of the different Gospels! One has correctly said, "The Holy Spirit is not a reporter, but an editor." This is well said. A reporter's business is to report events as they happen. The editor arranges the material in a way to suit himself, and leaves out or makes comment just as he thinks best. This the Holy Spirit has done in giving four Gospels, which are not a mechanical reporting of the doings of a person called Jesus of Nazareth, but the spiritual unfoldings of the blessed person and work of our Saviour and Lord, as King of the Jews, servant in obedience, Son of Man and the only begotten of the Father. We cannot enter more deeply into this now, but in the exposition of our Gospel we shall illustrate this fact.