Tag Archives: Unique

Matthew the Quirk

March 27, 2025 Tom Vander Well 4 Comments

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Matthew 1:17 (NIV)

Like millions of others around the world, Wendy and I have become enamored with The Chosen, a crowdfunded, independent production that is a modern retelling of Jesus’ story. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. I also recommend that you push through the first three or four episodes which provide a lot of backstory for that may not seem to be going anywhere when you first watch it. Trust me. If you watch the first three seasons and then go back and watch the first three episodes you’ll see a million things that the writers were telling you before you could actually see them.

One of the more creative choices that the writers of The Chosen have made is to make the character of Matthew a young man on the spectrum. Matthew is brilliant. He is gifted with numbers, which is why the Romans love him as a tax collector. However, the writers have chosen to portray the young disciple as socially awkward. Wendy and I even wondered if they chose to portray him with a mild form of Asberger’s. At any rate, it was an interesting choice.

What we know is definitely true from Matthew’s biography of Jesus is that Matthew loved numbers. The ancient Hebrews loved numbers. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet performed double duty, representing numbers as well as letters. Because of this, there are all sorts of patterns in the Hebrew text of the Great Story that are completely lost when you translate the text into English. And yet, some of them still remain.

In his introductory chapter, Matthew displays his love of numbers. Three times (three is the number of God, the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) Matthew uses the word Messiah (the Greek word Christos) in introducing Jesus.

He also provides a genealogy of Jesus, tracing Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Abraham. There are some fascinating and curious aspects to the genealogy he provides. Before I get to that, I’d like to share one more clip from The Chosen in which Matthew shares with Philip what it fees like to be an outcast. In context, Matthew is both an outcast as a Roman collaborator and because of the fact that he is on the spectrum (Note: You might have to click the link and watch it on YouTube. It doesn’t seem to want to play as an embedded object).

Matthew chooses to list women in the lineage of Jesus. That was certainly not customary in the patriarchal culture of the day. Of course, Jesus had an entire entourage of women who followed Him along with The Twelve, provided financially for His ministry, and served in caring for their daily needs. Of the women Matthew mentions:

Rahab: A non-Hebrew prostitute who sheltered Joshua and Caleb in the spying out of Canaan and Jericho. She was spared from the conquest of Jericho and accepted into the community of Hebrews.

Ruth: A non-Hebrew woman who, after being widowed, followed her mother-in-law (Ruth) back to Israel and was redeemed by, and married to, a Hebrew man named Boaz.

Bathsheba: The adulterous mistress of King David whose husband David had murdered in order to have her as his own.

Women, non-Hebrew Gentiles, a prostitute, and an adulterous mistress. Not quite the glowing personages one might choose to include in the ancestry of the Son of God.

Matthew goes on to list three (the number of God) sets of fourteen (two sets of seven, the number of completion) generations (a total of six sets of seven or twice the number three for a total of three meaningful subsets) that cover the span of Hebrew history from Abraham to Jesus.

Matthew also introduced the reader to a systemic pattern of “Fulfillment” that he will use over, and over, and over again in his biography of Jesus:

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet…”
Matthew 1:27

Matthew is a numbers guy, a systems guy, and in the Jesus Story he sees patterns that tie the entire Great Story together.

Next March I will celebrate the 20th anniversary of this chapter-a-day blogging journey which I started with a bit of a shrug and an attitude of “Hey, why not?” in March of 2006. In recent years, I’ve tended to trek through one of the four Jesus biographies (a.k.a. Gospels, or “good news”) in the Great Story each Lent season (40 days leading to Easter) and Advent season (40 days leading to Christmas). I noticed yesterday that we trekked through Mark, Luke, and John last year but it’s been three years since our last sojourn through Matthew.

So, in the quiet this morning, I’m excited to metaphorically lace ‘em up and revisit our systemic, numbers guy Matthew’s recollections and first-person account of being among Jesus’ core followers. I’m excited to take a fresh look at the Jesus Story from his unique perspective. My mind and heart are open to what new things I might discover this time through.

I love that God uses the uniqueness of every individual’s experience, personality, giftedness, and temperament for the good of the whole. It reminds me that even I, with my own individual and unique bents and quirks, have a role to play in this Great Story if only I will embrace it and choose in like Matthew did that fateful day when Jesus happened to pass by his Tax Collection booth and said, “Follow me.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Different

March 3, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“‘You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.’”
Leviticus 11:47 (NIV)

I like to wear hats. I have a lot of them. Not the ubiquitous baseball cap, but actual hats like a pork pie and fedora. It’s funny how often people will comment to me about it. I suppose that it’s, in part, because I’m an Enneagram Type Four, the “Individualist,” and we actually like to be a little different. It’s a thing.

Beginning with today’s chapter, we’re entering a new section of the priestly instruction manual God gave his newly appointed high priest, Aaron, and his sons. It was also an instruction manual for the Hebrew people and how God wanted them to live. This section of the manual deals with being ritually clean and ritually unclean along with prescribed rituals for dealing with any uncleanness.

Today’s chapter begins with food. God tells the Hebrews that there are certain creatures they can eat and others that they cannot. In some cases, scholars have argued that the restrictions given had certain health benefits. For example, cud chewing animals tend to secrete the toxins of the food they chew so by the time it gets to their stomach, only the most nutritious part of the food is left and the meat of the animal is healthier. While this is true of cud chewing animals, this healthy versus unhealthy distinction is not clear through all of the various types of creatures God labels clean and unclean.

What is clear is that God has chosen the Hebrews to be His people. He’s already breaking all religious convention of that day by being the one and only God and by choosing a people to perpetually dwell with, lead, instruct, and provide for. With these instructions, God is ensuring that His people will be different from all of the other peoples around them. They eat differently, they have a completely different belief system, they behave differently, and live differently.

Hundreds of years later, when God’s Son, Jesus, shows up, He will instruct His followers that they are to be different, as well. He spoke of food, as well, but this time it was metaphorically. He said that everyone knows a plant or tree by the fruit it bears. Some bear good fruit you can eat. Some bear bad fruit you need to avoid. So, He expected His disciples to bear “good fruit” through our thoughts, words, actions, and relationships that are marked with love in all its positive varietal attributes. Jesus graduates the “difference” from dietary to spiritual, from food to behavior, from meat to love.

In both cases, the underlying mission is for the world to know God through His people, that they might see, believe, and follow. With his fledgling Hebrew tribes in the toddler stages of humanity, it begins with simple instructions for how to eat. It’s much like teaching a little child how to dress, eat, and wash their hands. God is taking baby steps in His relationship with humanity the way every parent does with a child.

So in the quiet this morning, I think back to my hats. It is a little different, which I confess that I like. Nevertheless, it’s not the different that Jesus asks of me, and of all His followers. The difference He wants people to notice in me is in the way I love them and others, the way He has loved me: generously, graciously, mercifully, humbly, and sacrificially. That’s a pretty “clean” and easy instruction. Lord, help me not dirty it up today.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Sui Generis

September 22, 2020 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 33:3 (NRSVCE)

Wendy and I attended worship with our local gathering of Jesus followers on Sunday. We’ve been sitting at home watching the live steam most Sundays since March. There are three spaces set aside for worship with proper space for physical distancing. The music and teaching are streamed from the main space to the other two. The auditorium that is where we usually call home is one of the spaces in which the live worship is streamed.

We walked in and sat down. I knew we were a minute or two late, so I was surprised when we weren’t greeting with the usual decibel level of worship music. It took me a second to realize that while the video of the worship music was live, the audio wasn’t being successfully streamed from the other room. Everyone sat and waited for our faithful tech volunteers to figure out the problem.

What struck me as we waited was that there were individuals already standing in anticipation of singing, clapping, and participating in corporate worship. I stood with them. Most people were sitting quietly while we waited. When the problem was fixed and the audio began to stream, everyone who was sitting immediately stood without prompt. People began to sing. Some people raised their hands in prayer. It was like the worship version of a Lamborghini accelerating from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds.

The thing that struck me in that moment was the feeling that everyone wanted to sing. There was a feeling of hunger to be there, to worship corporately with others and to sing, pray, and shout in praise and supplication.

Today’s psalm was most likely a song written for ancient corporate worship. If you step back and look at it, the “voice” of the lyrics lends itself to the first three verses being sung by a worship leader calling everyone to worship. Verses 4-19 could very well have been for a choir or select group to then instruct through song about God’s power, sovereignty, and goodness to protect and deliver those who place, in Him, their faith and trust.

The voice of verses 20-22 switch to a corporate “our” and could likely have been for the entire crowd gathered to sing in response to pledge their faith and trust.

There is something unique about a corporate worship experience when those gathered are not just going through ritualistic motions but are truly pouring out from their spirits their gratitude, praise, pain, need, faith, and desire.

Sui generis (pronounced soo-ee jen-er-is) is a latin term meaning “of its own kind.” Usually used as a legal term, its broader definition is something that is “unique” and in a “class by itself.” I once heard it used of certain worship experiences when a crowd of individuals begin to worship and, sui generis, a powerful whole emerges from the many. From many voices one voice. From many spirits one spirit. When it happens it is truly sui generis.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about worship, prayer, and praise. I’m grateful for technology that has allowed Wendy and me to join with our fellow Jesus followers through YouTube during the pandemic. Jesus assured His followers that He would always be present when “two or three are gathered” in His name. Wendy and I have enjoyed some really wonderful moments in our worship gatherings via YouTube. I am also grateful to join with others in one place and pour out our hearts and praise just as people have been doing for thousands of years like when Psalm 33 was introduced to the Hebrew people as a “new song” to corporately proclaim God’s protection and deliverance.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Potter, The Steward, and Two Unique Pots

January 19, 2016 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Romans 9:21 (NIV)

On Sunday we had the increasingly rare pleasure of having both Taylor and Madison with us at the same time. The opportunities for the four of us to be together as family are increasingly spread out. It has happened only once or twice a year during the girls college and graduate school sojourns.

A conversation came up yesterday as Maddy Kate and I visited with my folks. “Every mother wants her grown children to live nearby,” it was observed. While I acknowledge that natural desire, I thought to myself that I have always desired for our girls to live wherever God would lead them. I want them to live out their respective roles in the Great Story. I have given up my right to expect that they might keep close to home.

With Taylor out of grad school and Madison done with her bachelor’s degree, it has been fascinating to watch their respective roads emerge. It always amazes me how different children from the same household can be. Taylor will soon enter communal living full time, offering much of her time and energy to service as she pursues a creative project with only speculative income potential. Madison, currently a flight attendant, is avidly pursing a career in corporate sales. I don’t see either of those paths leading back to Pella. C’est la vie.

I do not think either daughter is right or wrong, good or bad, wise or foolish. Taylor’s altruistic path does not make Madison’s path greedy. Madison’s path, which will afford more financial security, does not make Taylor’s path foolhardy. These two lumps of clay are each actively pursuing the purposes of the Potter, who has fashioned them into two very different vessels. Both are beautiful. Both are useful. Both have particular uses the other does not have. Both have a role in the Great story, albeit very different roles.

Today I am once again contemplating the role of parenting with a certain amount of hindsight. To try to control my child’s path and have them choose a path of my self-centered desire is to place myself in God’s shoes and presume omniscience. I’ve discovered that the Creator wears an infinitely larger size shoe than I do. Whenever I try to step into them I always trip over myself in both comic and tragic ways.

God has made me a steward of my children, not their master. My role has been to teach them to love and pursue God. If I accomplish my role, they will each be led to their purposed, respective paths. Like every other aspect of our life journey, this requires faith, just as Jesus said it would.