How I Became a Tax Collector

Me and my family travel a lot to import some of the cloths we make for our store in Jerusalem. One day while we were in

Caesarea Maritima to restock our supplies, a man that must have known about our family business, asked me to become a tax collector for the Roman government. I thought this was a great job because I didn't really want to be working with my father all my life so I accepted. For this job, i had to move to a city near the sea of Galilee, called Capernaum. My job was pretty easy because I was backed by the great Roman army. The only problem with my job, was that some of my friendships with others grew apart because with being a tax collector, many people start to dislike you and I experienced this in a major way. I started to only hang out with publicans which made my image worse.

The Pharisees

While me and the other disciples were eating with Jesus, The Pharisees asked Jesus why he eats with Tax Collectors because they are sinners. It was obvious that this comment was directed at me. I took offense to this and probably would have said something that I would end up wanting to take back but the Lord spoke before I could let a sound out. Jesus said that he did not need to save the people that had stuff in their life, but the ones that needed love and someone to look up to. I was very surprised that Jesus remained so calm to The Pharisees mean criticism.

I Was Collecting Taxes the Other Day When...

It was just another day at the office doing what I do best, collecting taxes. A man approached me while I was working and asked me to follow him. I knew of this man and heard lots of incredible stories about the people he saved. I wanted to ask him why he chose a tax collector like me, who commits all types of sins, to join him, but I refrained and decided to follow him. I could not tell if Jesus was telling me to connect with my roots more when he came to my house and met all of my family. After meeting my family, we all had a huge feast and it was great.