Here We Go Again

The Disciples’ Dilemma is Ours, Too

Matthew sat down behind his tax collector’s booth. It was just another day for him. He’d been doing this for enough years now, and everyone knew he was a wealthy man. He had no external needs or even wants, yet he was empty inside.

This emptiness had most recently turned Matthew’s attention to the Torah. He wondered if the answers to his questions might be found there, or via some of the other Jewish prophets who were a part of his heritage.

As Matthew’s mind grappled with the teachings he had been exposed to in the synagogue, he harassed the man in front of him into paying his taxes. The grumbling Jew complained about the exorbitant “surcharge” that Matthew routinely tacked on for everyone who came before him. Of course, folks hated him, but Matthew considered himself an astute businessman, and his wealth seemed to confirm his perspective.

Yet the more wealth Matthew accumulated, the greater his emptiness grew.

All of a sudden, a voice interrupted Matthew’s thoughts. He had noticed a man standing a few feet away, observing his tactics with the taxpayers shuffling before him. However, when the man spoke, it startled Matthew.

“Matthew, follow Me and be My disciple.”

As Matthew rose to comply, he instantly recognized the man to be Jesus, the one everyone had been talking about because of His teachings and the miracles He performed.

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Three years after that first encounter with Jesus, Matthew was grappling with his future, along with the ten other men he had come to love. The one who had called Matthew to follow Him and become His disciple had just ascended to heaven after suffering a humiliating death and rising from the grave just a few weeks earlier.

As the disciples struggled with the departure of the man who had said to each of them, “Follow Me and be My disciple,” they openly acknowledged that they had several options.

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As I’ve personally evaluated the disciples’ circumstances—“losing” their Rabbi, the Son of God, with whom they had spent three years—I believe the following options are likely ones they considered.

1. Return to the normalcy of their previous occupations.
2. Take the knowledge they had gained from Jesus and use it to fight the evils of their government, seeking to establish a “righteous” earthly kingdom. After all, this is what most of their family and friends regularly complained about.
3. Follow the example of Jesus and share the truth of the Gospel, which would transform the hearts of their neighbors while also securing eternal life for all who would embrace the truth.

The first option would have been the easiest and perhaps the most secure. They knew how to fish or collect taxes or do whatever their previous profession had been BC (before Christ). This would have been comfortable and required no sacrifice, no courage, and no cross bearing. However, it also would have had zero impact on your life and mine, or the lives of millions of Christ followers over the last two thousand years.

The second option would have been fraught with great risk and significant threat to their own personal safety. They knew and could see the rampant corruption in society within the government, the tax system, and the religious establishment. Rome was an evil empire. The Jewish religious rulers were corrupt and self-serving. The disciples had previously inferred in their conversations with Jesus that they were waiting for the Messiah to overthrow the corrupt institutions of their day. Had they chosen this option, though, their lives would certainly have been cut short, and their influence lost. Furthermore, the Gospels that tell us of Jesus would likely never have been written, and probably none of the rest of the New Testament.

The third option, while seemingly foolish and futile by any earthly standard, was no doubt the hardest for the disciples to consider from a human standpoint. Their training and experience would have suggested option one. Their passion, longing for justice, and perhaps even power and notoriety, would have steered them to option two. Yet they chose the least likely option. They chose simply to follow the example of Jesus.

Their three years with Jesus allowed them to see the heart of God up close and personal. They saw that while Jesus was surrounded by corrupt politicians, government officials, religious hypocrites, and injustice everywhere, the Son of God did not commit His fleeting time trying to right all the wrongs of society. Jesus was disengaged politically, but not because He didn’t care about government. In fact, it was Jesus who ordained government, the institution He would use to raise up some rulers and demote others while offering some degree of human oversight of the affairs of humankind.

However, Jesus knew there would never be any true external reformation unless there was first internal transformation. The heart would never be transformed via kingdoms, politicians, laws, or human initiatives. Consequently, Jesus committed His energies, passion, and work to the heart, and His example illustrated His priority continuously.

Jesus placed the overwhelming focus of his three years of ministry in speaking eternal Truths to the hearts of His neighbors. He understood and taught that His neighbor was anyone in need. Like the Good Samaritan, Jesus showed mercy and compassion to the throngs He encountered daily. Those throngs included every kind of “despicable” person you can imagine. If I’m honest, most of them, at their hearts, were just like me, and perhaps you as well.

With Jesus as their teacher and perfect example, is it any wonder that the disciples, whom we now call Apostles, followed directly in the footsteps of their Mentor? They could do no less.

Thus, of all the options the Apostles could have chosen, they selected the eternally significant one. The other options were temporal, at best, but they understood the words of Jesus when He taught them, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”(Mark 8:36).

If you are a follower of Jesus today, you can thank not only the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross two thousand years ago but also the fact that a small group of ordinary men, with no formal training and no external credentials, were willing to simply follow the example of Jesus. They forsook or diminished their professions, and the lure of power and prestige. Instead, they chose the eternal over the temporal. Should we do any less?

I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. (John 13:15)