Thinking about Matthew

Lately I've been reading a great book about the Old Testament, written by Christopher J.H. Wright, called "Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament." In the book, Wright does a great job of showing Jesus' identity to be completely consistent with, and the fulfillment of, God's plans in the Old Testament. I always find thinking about the OT refreshing, since so much of the time it gets neglected by modern Christians. What really stuck out to me though was the way Wright explains the OT quotes in the first few chapters of Matthew's gospel. Matthew quotes the OT five times, using the words "This was to fulfill what was written in . . . ". By doing so, Matthew takes a sweep of the OT and its promises, and shows Christ in them, making Matthew one of the greatest OT theologians of all time (though certainly Paul and the author of Hebrews would also be in the running). Now who is Matthew? He is a tax collector. We therefore know that he was, at the very least, a collaborator with the Roman occupiers. He was also quite possibly corrupt, as his wages were gotten by taking 'extra' taxes on top of whatever the authorities wanted. He was in fact such an unsavory character that more 'respectable' people (read: religious authorities) took offense at Jesus dining with him and his friends. In a world where groups of people spent their lives studying, memorizing, and understanding (or so they thought) the Old Testament, the guy who would understand what the OT was really about, and apply it correctly, was Matthew. Of course, a renowned OT scholar also 'got the message' and truly understood it - Paul. But even here we see that the 'religious' man had to be struck blind and receive revelation before he could be turned, whilst the ordinary bureaucrat got up and left everything at Jesus' word. This is both a great encouragement to all of us who yearn to know God's Word, and a terrible warning, lest we EVER think that our own scholarship, or religiosity, could ever bring us true knowledge of God. Let us always praise, submit to, and depend on the Holy Spirit, that same Spirit who opened the eyes of bureaucrat and Pharisee alike. As we read our Bibles, that is the only ground worth standing on.