{"id":563,"date":"2015-02-06T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=563"},"modified":"2015-02-01T21:42:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T21:42:44","slug":"matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 9:9-13; The Calling of Matthew (Historical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What if Matthew had said no when Jesus came calling (see Matthew 9:9-13)?<\/p>\n<p>We know that Matthew (also known as Levi) had mortgaged himself to gain a substantial portion of wealth in his world. We know that when Christ came around, he was forced to choose between that poverty of riches and the richness of poverty with Jesus. We know that leaving his position as a tax collector meant Matthew could never go back to it\u2014Herod and the others in Roman civil government wouldn&#8217;t allow that. So it was all or nothing for Matthew\u2014and he chose the all to be found in having nothing but Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>And then what?<\/p>\n<p>History and tradition tell us that after Jesus\u2019 resurrection, Matthew spent about eight years preaching in and around his home territory of Judea in Israel. After that, it\u2019s believed that he took the message of Jesus to Arabia, Syria, and Ethiopia. Somewhere in there, likely around 70 AD while in Syria, Matthew put down the stories of Christ in written form, sealing his place in history and creating for us a record that would literally lead millions and millions to faith. He finally suffered a martyr\u2019s death, being killed by the sword (or axe) while preaching in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine the theft to history\u2014and to your own personal experience with Jesus\u2014if Levi the tax collector had said no when the Messiah called? Or what might happen if you said no to Christ\u2019s personal call in your life?<\/p>\n<p>It makes you wonder\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[BBC, 202; AAB, 254; ASB, 1556; GSM, 52]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if Matthew had said no when Jesus came calling (see Matthew 9:9-13)? We know that Matthew (also known as Levi) had mortgaged himself to gain a substantial portion of wealth in his world. We know that when Christ came around, he was forced to choose between that poverty of riches and the richness of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[236,302,234],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-gods-call","tag-matthew","tag-tax-collectors"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 9:9-13; The Calling of Matthew (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 9:9-13; The Calling of Matthew (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What if Matthew had said no when Jesus came calling (see Matthew 9:9-13)? 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We know that Matthew (also known as Levi) had mortgaged himself to gain a substantial portion of wealth in his world. We know that when Christ came around, he was forced to choose between that poverty of riches and the richness of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-02-06T12:00:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-01T21:42:44+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 9:9-13; The Calling of Matthew (Historical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-02-06T12:00:55+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-01T21:42:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/02\/matthew-99-13-the-calling-of-matthew-historical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 9:9-13; The Calling of Matthew (Historical Backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}