Matthew is a mysterious figure, even though we think we know him
Why Matthew? Scripture give a glimpse into the man, and the early church fathers preserve only fragments of his life, evangelism, and death. We aren’t sure how he died, but he is listed in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. He could have just as easily died at home in bed from natural causes. Matthew is one of the most enigmatic authors in the Bible. So, the natural questions arise.
Who was Matthew?
Why is his Gospel the longest one?
Why did the early church rely primarily on his Gospel for discipleship?
Why has the Lord used his testimony for more than two thousand years to mentor, coach, and teach us how to live?
✝ The man we meet through the words he wrote
Matthew was a Jew who lived under the Roman occupation in the first century AD. He was a tax collector. His world revolved around money, tariffs, and financial pressures, none of which he personally suffered. Why? Because he gathered these taxes from his own people. He was considered a collaborator and traitor. He was hated and reviled by his own people, a stigma that probably clung to him throughout his life.
He probably had a hard time relating to people. His own parents may have ostracized him, and we can be reasonably sure that he never married. He would have been awkward and aloof during his time as a tax collector, and because he was human and a sinner, like the rest of us, that probably carried over into his ministry at times.
Before Jesus called him, we know from scripture that he was wealthy. One of the reasons that people in first century AD Israel hated the tax collectors was the lack of regulation over the collection process. Rome didn’t care how much the collectors collected as long as the proper amount went to Rome. The collectors kept everything else. It was a dangerous job, but lucrative.
Wealth did not buy him dignity. To his peers he was a traitor. The Jewish people lived by covenant loyalty, and the tax collectors traded covenant faithfulness for Roman gold.
🧔🏽♀️ Enter Jesus
Jesus saw people not for who they were but for who they could become. He pulled four men out of fishing boars. He gathered ordinary men who each had a skill set and the first and foremost of those skills was hard work. Some worked with their hands, like Peter, Andrew, James, and John, the four fisherman. Others worked with their minds like Matthew, Luke, Paul and others.
On the day that Jesus walked past Matthew’s tax office, scripture tells us that he looked him straight in the eye and said, “Follow me.” Matthew left everything. He left the money, the records, probably what ever security team he had cobbled together, and he obeyed. That single moment changed everything for Matthew, and now, two thousand years later, it continues to change lives.
✨ God uses the unlikely
God has taken the unlikely and placed them at the center of his work. Scripture tells us that we do not come unless we are drawn to Him. I am just an old ruck hobo, an infantry soldier, and He radically changed my life in an instant.
🕖 Time and Place
There are two schools of thought regarding the time period of Matthew’s writing. The first, and most commonly accepted by the church, is that he wrote his Gospel around AD55-60 in Jerusalem. For my purposes, I am using a more secular, scholastic approach and placing him in Antioch around AD 75-80, the center of the Christian wold after the sacking of Jerusalem by Titus. This is strictly literary license on my part.
This old ruck hobo is a storyteller, not a preacher.
👀 Different
Each Gospel gives us a different facet of Jesus. Mark shows Christ the Servant. John portrays the Son of God. Luke reveals the Son of Man. Matthew writes about his sovereignty and Kingship. From his first lines to his last, Matthew portrays royalty, fulfillment, and judgement.
For 1700 years, Matthew’s Gospel served as the backbone of the church’s discipleship program. It was taught in pews, carried by missionaries, memorized by catechists. New believers learned to follow Christ through Matthew’s pages. They discovered they were leaving one form of worldly government and entering another world of sacred Kingdom government. In Matthew, they found the fine print, the covenant contract that outlined their benefits under this new sovereign.
Jesus came into this world humbly. He taught humbly. He showed servant leadership. The triumphal Entry was humble to fulfill prophecy. But make no mistake. When he returns it will be astride a warhorse. His eyes will be like flame. He will carry a sword. The title “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” will be stitched on his blood soaked robes and written on his thigh
This is why we chose to dramatize his Gospel.
Matthew is an old man when we begin, writing his account in Antioch. He is weary. He knows his time is short. He feels the urgency that only a record keeper and a man used to deadlines would feel. At his side is Platon.
Platon is a fictional character grounded in reality. Early Christian writings mention believers, scribes, and traveling companions who assisted the apostles in their later years. That tradition shapes Platon. In my mind, he is a Greek Jew, probably in his late forties. He’s a former soldier, probably conscripted into a Roman Auxiliary light infantry company. He’s in his mid-40s, well built, and knows how to handle himself. He is Matthew’s traveling companion, friend, protector, conversation partner, and above all, a student.
The story you will read over the next couple of years is built on Scripture, history, and faithful imagination. It is not meant to replace the Gospel of Matthew. It is intended to help you enter it. You are meant to be in the room as Matthew tells his story to Platon. You are meant to wrestle with the questions Platon asks. You are meant to see the Messiah through the eyes of a changed tax collector, a redeemed traitor.
This is Conversations with Platon: Matthew’s Writing of His Gospel.
Ancient words, written in a dangerous setting.
The King has come.
The world must hear.