Matthew the Meticulous

Do you feel like your ship is sinking? The precision of Matthew’s gospel reminds us that Christ is right there in the boat with us.

Today’s Scripture reading is from the gospel of Matthew, and for the first time, we have some defensible speculation of what might have been unique about the apostle who wrote that gospel.

That’s thanks to the video series, The Chosen, which, as of this writing, has just launched its third season. While the series presents some backstory of Jesus’ ministry that goes beyond what the four gospels tell, nothing we’ve seen contradicts the overall story of Jesus from the New Testament. And if nothing else, the show makes Jesus more accessible to today’s audiences than any previous on-screen portrayal of him.

The gospels don’t give us a lot of information about Matthew, except that he was a tax collector who got up and left his employment when Jesus called him to be a follower. But the writers of The Chosen decided to depict Matthew, played by actor Paras Patel, as somewhere on the autism spectrum. He has some of the tics, anxieties and difficulties...