In Luke 5:27-31, we are introduced to another individual selected by Jesus to be one of His apostles.  This man was named Levi, but he is much better known as Matthew.  The passage says, “And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and He said unto him, Follow me.  And he left all, rose up, and followed him.  And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.  But the scribes and Pharisees murmured against His disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?”

            What was a publican?  He was an employee of a group of men, or an individual man, who was a member of the publicani.  These were wealthy men of  Rome who took care of the taxes and saw to it that they were collected in the provinces.  This was a source of profit for them.  Publicans were men hired by the publicani to do the actual collecting of the taxes.  Tax collectors were generally looked down upon as their occupation lent itself to greed, extortion, and fraud.  For a nationalistic people like the Jews, these men were collecting taxes for an occupying foreign government – Rome .  Matthew was a member of this group of people, yet Jesus chose him to be one of the twelve.

            In Luke 6:12-16 we find a listing of the original twelve apostles.  The last one named in verse 15 was Simon called Zelotes.  We know very little about this man except that he was a zealot.  What was a zealot?  The zealots were fanatical Jewish Nationalists who rigorously clung to the Mosaic Law.  Initially they were brave men who disregarded the suffering involved in their struggle to preserve what they saw as the purity of their religion and to preserve what they understood to be their God-given right to possess the land of Palestine.

            This is the type of background from which Simon came.  He was a nationalist, a man devoted to the Mosaic Law, with a hatred for all things Roman.  Considering his selection as one of the twelve; doesn’t it make the selection of Matthew even more unusual?  Or considering the selection of Matthew; doesn’t that make the selection of Simon seem peculiar?

            In both cases I think the lesson to be learned is not so much from the men themselves, but from the fact that Jesus chose them.  It took the Lord to see the potential in both, a potential that perhaps others might not have seen.  Matthew would hardly have appeared to be the type of individual who would have been willing to follow Jesus.  He was a publican by choice and his lifestyle would have given no indication of the possibility of a deep religious conviction.  On the other hand, Simon was a man whose background nurtured hatred for his enemies, not love.  For a zealot, violence would not have been out of the question as the means to the desired end.

            Perhaps the next time we hesitate to approach a particular individual, or a group of people, having convinced ourselves that they are not the types of people to whom the gospel would appeal, we would do well to give them the chance.  Remember Matthew and Simon.  God does not look upon people as we do.  We are so often swayed by appearances, but the Lord looks on the heart.

                                                            Greg Litmer