“His personal experience of costly discipleship gives particular weight to his recording of Jesus’s teachings about the cost of following him.”
Matthew was a tax collector before becoming one of Jesus’s twelve apostles. Tax collectors in first-century Palestine were among the most despised people in Jewish society – considered traitors who worked for the Roman occupying forces. For Matthew, following Jesus meant literally walking away from a lucrative career and accepting social ostracism.
DAY 1
Peter
THE DISCIPLE WHO RESISTED THE CROSS
“Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!”
Peter represents the natural human response to Jesus’s message about suffering. He wanted the benefits of following the Messiah without the cost. His rebuke of Jesus reveals how deeply our human instincts resist the idea that the path to life leads through death.