• On Tax Collectors

  Contributed by Ross Cochrane on Mar 20, 2010 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Discipleship

  Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

ON TAX COLLECTORS

In Kiev, MONEY CHANGERS sit in little booths with a small window. You can't see their faces, and they mutter to you in Russian as you hand over American dollars in exchange for Grivnas. Whenever I exchanged money, I seemed to be getting more Grivna for my dollar because the Ukrainian Grivna was losing value so quickly (As I write this one Ukrainian grivna = 0.1 Australian dollars).

When I think of Matthew as a TAX COLLECTOR, I think of him sitting in one of these little Urkrainian money changing booths. Matthew is one of the most despised of people - a tax collector, a Jewish traitor who had sold out to the Romans, a man from the ATO (Australia) or the IRS (America). He was working for the Romans (Israel). No-one likes a tax agent. Mostly they are corrupt (Oh, oh. I can feel and audit coming on. Corrupt then of course, not now...never now.)

JESUS CALLS HIM AND HE FOLLOWS.