My favorite character on The Chosen show, chronicling Jesus’s ministry with his disciples, played very well by his actor! I relate most to him and Thomas. In this depiction, Matthew’s alienation as a tax collector is highlighted, being viewed as a traitor to his fellow Jews and patronized by the Romans he works with. After witnessing Jesus’s early miracles, his logic-based thinking is rattled and he struggles to make sense of what he’s seen. Towards the end of the first season, he is surprised when Jesus calls him to be his disciple but joins Him regardless, ignoring the bitter attempts by his Roman guard to deter him.

Jesus doesn’t care about what our backgrounds are or what we’ve struggled with- He wants to use YOU! This relates to my favorite theme in visual media, when the “other” is validated and accepted.  One of my favorite verses is 1 Corinthians 1:27-29: “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of us or even what we may think of ourselves, because God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.