Before and after pictures are always fascinating to me.
You know—like the ones you see in the newspapers or magazines; or, more commonly now, on commercials for diets, plastic surgery, or hair replacement.
The Word of God gives us a striking picture of a “before and after” of an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His name is Matthew, aka Levi, son of Alphaeus.
We have some insight into his life before and after his meeting with Jesus.
This study of God’s Word of this converted Jew will yield spiritual profit.
- Matthew before he met Jesus.
➢ He, like all the apostles, was a Jew.
➢ He was familiar with the Old Testament, quoting from it more than any other gospel writer and citing passages from the Torah, the poetic books and the prophets.
➢ He was looking for the Messiah.
➢ He was also known as “Levi” (the house of the “priestly order,” set apart for worship).
➢ He was from Capernaum, located on the northern end of the Sea of Galilee, an important east-west trade town—visited by travelers from Mesopotamia; sheiks from desert oases, artisans from the east, and entrepreneurs from Rome. Roman roads made travel to and from there possible. When Jesus was rejected by Nazareth, He made His “base of operations” Capernaum, where He did much of His teaching and healing. (Mark 1:33,34)
➢ He was a tax-collector, a “publican,” employed by and for Rome.
- These were known as “leeches.”
- None were detested more by the Jews than tax collectors. A common saying among Jews: “Take not a wife out of that family wherein is a publican, for they are all thieves, robbers and harlots.”
- They were cut off from family, friends, country, and the synagogue.
- When publicans came to John the Baptist, asking him what they could do, he answered them, “Exact no more than that which is appointed you.” (Luke 3:12,13)
- Matthew at the time he met Jesus, Matt. 9:9-13.
➢ Jesus met Matthew where he was (He found him!).
➢ Jesus gave him a simple command: “Follow me.”
- He was not commanded or asked to quit anything.
- He did not ask him to make any promises.
- He did not lecture Matthew on the evils of what he was doing. “You don’t quit something and then believe; you believe and then quit.”
- Matthew knew he needed Christ; he knew he couldn’t help himself; he knew what he was doing would never bring satisfaction; he repented—had a change of mind—and believing, followed Jesus.
- Matthew after he met Jesus.
➢ He was an obedient follower, Matt. 9:9.
➢ He was a dedicated follower, cf. Luke 5:28. (He left his job, his high paying position, but, thankfully he kept his pen!).
➢ Matthew, in his gospel, systematized the Sermon on the Mount; Jesus’ parables on the kingdom; and the teaching about the second coming of Christ. He gave us the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph.
➢He was an enthused follower of the Lord Jesus, Luke 5:29. In Mark 2:15ff. it says Matthew gave a dinner to Jesus, the disciples, and “publicans and sinners.” Three times “publicans and sinners” are mentioned as being present at the meal—they were, no doubt, the only friends Matthew had at that time.
➢ He was a faithful follower of Jesus, Matt. 10:3. He will receive that which Jesus promised in Matthew 19:29: “Everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”
Despised as he once was by contemporary Jews, Matthew—by the grace, mercy, and love of God—will have his name inscribed on one of the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem. (Rev. 21:14) Tradition records that he was burned at the stake. In his prominent place as a tax collector in Capernaum, he heard much of the miracles and of the messages of Jesus of Nazareth. On that day that Jesus stopped where Matthew was sitting at the receipt of custom, when Jesus simply said to this son of Alphaeus, “Follow Me,” Matthew “arose and followed Him,” and never looked back.
He was never one of the inner circle of His master; never was he out front or the first to speak up. But his mind never stopped rehearsing and recording what Jesus did and said; and, at the right time, Matthew took up his pen and wrote a book designed especially to appeal to his Jewish brethren in an attempt to once and for all prove to them that Jesus of Nazareth—by His birth, His life, and His death—fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy of this One who presented Himself as sent from God to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death spoken of by the prophet Isaiah centuries before His coming—by the sea, beyond Jordan to Galilee of the Gentiles, to proclaim “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:12-17)
“And as He passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed Him.” (Mark 2:14)
YOU and GOD 