by Jilene Scherenske
Matthew’s later life
The Bible does not record much else about Matthew. We know he remained faithful to the Lord from that day on, humbly falling into the background. Having been a tax collector we know that Matthew was most likely wise, disciplined, good with figures, and acquainted with Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. It was with these skills that he wrote the gospel of Matthew. His gospel was aimed at the Jews. He was determined to prove that Jesus was the Messiah promised by the Old Testament prophets. As we have said he often referred to what the prophets said about the Messiah, evidence of how well he knew the Old Testament. As a bookkeeper, he was detailed and thus a perfect man to trace the genealogy of Christ from the royal line of David and Abraham to Joseph. In his gospel we find several of Jesus’ sermons: chapters 5-7 contain the Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 10 gives the sermon on the proclamation of the kingdom in conjunction with the sending out of the twelve. Chapter 13 deals with the seven parables on the growth and worth of the kingdom. Chapter 18 handles lifestyle in the kingdom including humility, children’s spiritual welfare, and forgiveness. Chapter 23 contains Christ’s repeated woes on the hypocritical religious leaders. Chapters 24-25 give us the Olivet discourse dealing with the second coming. This man whose pen once recorded all the moneys he was deceitfully collecting now recorded the details of many of Jesus’ sermons. His gospel also reveals his amazement that Jesus would save his group of people – publicans and sinners for he mentions this six times. In Matthew 5:46-47 he recalls Jesus’ words: For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? As we have seen in Matthew 9, it was the publicans and sinners that sat down to eat with Jesus. They were the only category of people at Matthew’s great feast. In Matthew 11:19 Matthew names Jesus as the “friend of publicans and sinners”. Lastly, as we saw earlier, scripture records in Matthew 21:31-32: “…Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” Matthew declares that it was the publicans and harlots who believed in Jesus! In the gospels three tax collectors are recorded as getting saved – Matthew, Zaccheus, and the publican mentioned in the parable of Luke 18:10-14. Scripture makes it very clear that this group of people were the most receptive to Jesus. They were a needy people spiritually, considered the scum of the earth, compared in scripture to the religious leaders of the day who thought themselves to have arrived spiritually and in no need of a Savior. As Jesus said at Matthew’s feast in response to the self-righteous religious leaders bemoaning the fact that Jesus would eat with such scum, “…They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And so He did! And they are the ones who responded! I am sure that having Matthew as a disciple was a great aid in bringing this sinful group of people to Jesus.
The Bible does not say much about Matthew. His gospel, and the gospels of Mark and Luke record both his decision to follow Jesus (Matt 9:9, Mk 2:14, Lk 5:27) and the party he immediately threw so Jesus could speak to his friends (Mat 9:10, Mk 2:15, Lk 5:29).The only other sightings of Matthew in scripture are when he is included in the list of disciples (Matt 10:3, Mk 3:18, Lk 5:27) and the last is when he is listed with the other disciples in the upper room the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:13).