The Liturgical Calendar: The Church Remembers

Today the church remembers Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.

The Tax Collector Turned Disciple Matthew, sometimes called Levi, was a tax collector and, as any student of history or scripture knows, that put him in a despised class in first-century Palestine. In fact, he was sitting in his tax office when Jesus called him to be a disciple. As if it were not scandalous enough for Jesus to include such a person in his group, he allowed and encouraged Matthew to bring in more tax collectors. Of course, Jesus demanded and got such a radical change in these men that they were no longer recognizable as tax collectors. The apostle Matthew is not generally regarded as the author of the gospel which bears his name, but he probably contributed the essential information that went into its writing. We have a lot of conflicting legends about his later life, but no reliable information.

Read the Wikipedia article here.

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