Silk Purses Out of Sows' Ears

Read Matthew 9:9-17

      Matthew was a tax collector.  Given Israel’s political situation – having been conquered by and subsumed into the (Gentile) Roman Empire, that made Matthew a traitor.      

      One secular Bible scholar thinks it unlikely that such a person living on “the despised outskirts of Jewish life” could have possibly written this gospel that so clearly appeals to Jewish people to believe in Jesus.  Oh, really?  God delights in giving and enabling unlikely life-assignments.  He called a stutterer like Moses to be His representative before Pharaoh.  He transformed “a son of thunder” into the apostle of love.  He made the Pharisee of Pharisees into his apostle to the Gentiles.  And what he will make of and accomplish through each one of us cannot be anticipated by our natural inclinations or limitations.