Who was Matthew in the Bible?
Matthew appears in the Gospels first as a man sitting at a tax booth, and then, within a single sentence, as a man walking behind Jesus. Everything else Scripture tells about him — his other name, his old job, his place among the twelve, and the book that carries his name — grows out of that one moment.
The Man and His Names
The basic facts about him are few, and the Gospel writers spread them across several books.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe 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.
The name itself carries a meaning worth noticing, given how his story begins.
Arend RemmersThe name of the author, Matthew, is listed in all lists of apostles at the seventh or eighth place... While on this occasion Luke calls him "Levi, the tax-gatherer" and Mark "Levi, the son of Alphaeus", he is called "Matthew" only in our gospel... The name Matthew can be traced back to various Hebrew names: Matthija, Matthitja, Mattanja or Matthai, which all have the same meaning - "gift of the Lord".
Why His Job Made Him Despised
To collect Rome's taxes as a Jew was not simply an unpopular career. It put a man on the wrong side of his own nation's hopes.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHe 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... For this reason the tax gatherers, being Roman employees, were hated by the Jews even more bitterly than the Gentiles themselves.
The Call
Two words from Jesus ended one life and started another. What makes the scene striking is how little preparation there was on Matthew's side.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe 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.
He answered without hesitation, and what he did next spread the effect of his conversion through his whole circle.
Church HistoryWith great readiness Matthew obeyed the call of Jesus. His well-paid position was at once given up; and his conversion, so thorough and clear, 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.
How He Wrote About Himself
Read the three accounts side by side and a quiet detail emerges. The other writers protect his reputation; he does not protect it himself.
The Bible TreasuryIt is Luke and Mark that tell us all those pleasant things which were so creditable to Matthew... But Matthew himself only gives the most brief and formal account. (Matt. 9:9-10.) ... Please notice: he does not even say that it was his (Matthew's) house they sat in, much less that it was "a great feast" which he was giving, to which he had invited all his old publican friends; for he is like Jacob, "a plain man," and he is too honest and genuine a man to be ashamed either of his old friends or of his new master.
In the list of the twelve, he is the only one given a job title — and he gives it to himself.
The Bible TreasuryWho do we hear announcing 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 put their finger on the stain of his unpleasant profession; he himself will not hide it or soften it at all, but publishes it to all the world in a thankful recognition of the mercy that called him.
Why He Was the Right Writer
At first glance he was the least likely man to present Israel's King to Israel. Looked at more closely, the choice fits the book exactly.
William KellyAt first sight he might seem the least eligible for presenting the Lord to the Jews, for, as a class, none were in such disrepute as those Jews who agreed to gather the taxes which the Romans imposed on their nation. But, looked at more closely, nothing could have been in more admirable keeping with the line of things which the Holy Spirit traces in his Gospel, for Jesus there is not the Messiah only, but the rejected Messiah... And who is so fit a witness of the grace which would seek the least worthy, if those "that were invited" would not come, as he who was called from the hated tax office?
Summary
- Named — Levi, son of Alphaeus, a Jew collecting Roman taxes; only his own Gospel calls him Matthew, a name meaning "gift of the Lord."
- Called — He was sitting at his money with no thought of Christ when two words reached him; the grace was entirely on the Lord's side.
- Left — He gave up a well-paid post at once, and his surrender was so complete that it stirred a wide interest among his own class.
- Owned — Mark and Luke shield him with the name Levi; he alone labels himself "the publican," publishing his old shame as a thankful record of mercy.
- Used — The despised tax-gatherer became the writer of the Gospel of the rejected Messiah — the fittest witness that grace seeks the least worthy.