A Zealot and a Tax Collector

The New Testament shows us two groups of people: the tax collectors and the zealots. The former were Jews who collected taxes from their fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. They made their living by charging an extra amount on top of what everyone owed. Some of them extracted as much as they could and became very well-to-do. Many Jews saw tax collectors as traitors because they became wealthy by collaborating with the Roman authorities at the expense of their own people.

The zealots strongly believed that the Romans should not rule their land, and they considered violence an appropriate response. Some factions of the zealots we would probably call terrorists today. They murdered in the name of religion, and they hated traitors, specifically tax collectors. 

Putting those two together probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but what do we see in the gospels? “He [Jesus] called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Matthew 10:1-4, ESV, my emphasis). 

Jesus put a tax collector and a zealot together in his closest group of disciples. Matthew wrote this and included those labels so we would know about the potential conflict here. Jesus specifically called them to work and live together, and you can be sure he did that on purpose. 

Our tendency is to hang out with people like us, but that’s a club, not church. Church represents Jesus’s loves, not your likes. God can put you with people who irritate you. That’s how sandpaper works. You get the rough edges rubbed off of you, and you become more like Christ. 

So the next time your zealot nature sits next to an irritating tax collector, think about how Jesus may have placed that person in your life to make you a stronger Christian. Once you get that far, think about how God is almost certainly using you to sanctify somebody else, and then rejoice. This is the church as Christ intended it!

^{After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.}