Living Stones – Saturday, January 6, 2018
The Matthew Challenge
Matthew 9:10
Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.
Just before Jesus faced those questions about fasting, he had to face questions about eating. Matthew 9:9-13. The questions about His eating were really about the company He was in while eating.
Jesus had just met Matthew and called him to become one of His disciples. Matthew, well off as he was, held an event at His house and invited his peers to meet the Jesus he had started following. In Luke 5:27-32 we get a fuller version of the events. It’s from Luke’s account, for example, that we find out that the event was actually at Matthew’s house, that it was in honour of Jesus, and that Matthew invited his professional colleagues and others of his peers. Mark also tells this story in Mark 2:14-17.
Matthew is believed to be a customs officer in the Capernaum region of Galilee. He must have heard about Jesus before and probably actually heard him preach or speak. He clearly came to the place where he was now willing to give up everything including his considerable wealth and the opportunity to earn more in order to follow Jesus. He clearly brought with him the skills he had developed for record keeping and kept an amazing record of the things Jesus said and did.
In that time Matthew would have been a hated man among his fellow Jews because he was an enforcer of the complex and onerous Roman tax system. The Roman occupiers did not implement the tax system and its collection themselves but auctioned out the tax blocks to people like Matthew who were prepared to not just implement the system, but benefit from the opportunities for corruption that it presented. Every tax collector we encountered was well off and Luke describes, Zacchaeus, a chief among them, as rich.
Jesus had a tendency to go the homes of the people He met. He seemed particularly interested in going to the homes of these despised tax collectors. When He met Zacchaeus, who was up in a tree trying to get a good view of the action, Jesus said to the short man, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Luke 19:5. Now here, we see Him at the home of Matthew.
People in any particular profession or activity tend to gather their peers around them. Military officers tend to hang out together and can often be found drinking and hanging out together in the Officers’ Mess. Gardeners tend to hang out together and talk about plants. Lawyers gather in the inns around the courts and so on. Matthew was no different. His friends were, for the most part, tax collectors and others who were enforcers for the Romans. Undoubtedly, among those, he considered friends would be those who benefited from him through corruption, like big businessmen who paid bribes in order to avoid paying the full tax burden.
We all attract those who sin just like us. The common activity and the common sins give us a basis for interaction, a set of common topics of interest for discussion, a way to share experiences, but it is also a way for us to look out for each other. People in the same profession and business sometimes even become like family.
Jesus understands this aspect of human nature. This is why when Jesus come to the sinner He comes to his or her family, friends, and associates as well. As social beings, Jesus expects us to gather those like us and bring them together to hear the Gospel message. Jesus expects that the life change that He brings to us is a life change that we would spread to those closest to us. He expected that of Matthew and the tax collector delivered.
Jesus expects that you and your place would become a centre for the Gospel. In our church, we have an ongoing activity called The Matthew Challenge ©. To participate in the Matthew Challenge ©, members are asked to make a list of five persons from among their co-workers, associates, neighbours, friends, and relatives (who don’t live in the same house). If they take one person from each category that would have a list of five persons. The persons on the list will be like them in many ways. These persons are then to be invited to their home where the host would share their testimony and invite the five friends to follow Jesus as well. Usually, if you are doing this for the first time you can invite the pastor to come and support you as you share.
John Wesley once said that “No man ever went to heaven alone; he must either find friends or make them” Matthew found his friends who, obviously, were just like him. Jesus was willing, against the religious criticisms of the time, to befriend those who were Matthew’s friends. Jesus will befriend your friends if you invite them to meet Him at your place. If the home is not yours, or is not convenient, take them someplace together. Take The Matthew Challenge ©.
Think on these things:
- Have you shared your faith in Jesus with friends and colleagues of yours?
- Take a good look at your co-workers, associates, neighbours, friends, and relatives and see if there aren’t persons who need to know Jesus?
- Would you be willing to take The Matthew Challenge ©?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would have the courage to make our home a place where we share our faith in Jesus.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
