Greek Maththaios (from Hebrew Mattityahu, "gift of Yahweh"). Also called Levi (Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27-28). A Jewish tax collector working for Rome at the customs booth in Capernaum when Jesus called Him: "Follow me." He got up, left everything, and followed (Matthew 9:9, Luke 5:28). He then threw a great feast at his house for Jesus with his fellow tax collectors and "sinners" — the event that triggered Jesus' famous saying, "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:32). Traditionally recognized as one of the Twelve Apostles and the author of the first Gospel.
Matthew's Gospel is the most deliberately Jewish of the four. His trademarks: (1) Old Testament fulfillment formulas — some 40 explicit OT citations, often introduced with "this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet," establishing Jesus as the climax of the Hebrew Scriptures; (2) Structured as five teaching blocks that may parallel the five books of Moses — the Sermon on the Mount (5-7), the Mission Discourse (10), the Kingdom Parables (13), the Church Discourse (18), the Olivet Discourse (24-25); (3) Jesus as the New Moses and Greater David — survives Herod's slaughter of infants echoing Moses's escape from Pharaoh, comes up out of Egypt, passes through waters of baptism, goes into the wilderness, ascends a mountain to deliver the Law; (4) "Kingdom of heaven" rather than "kingdom of God" — reverence-circumlocution avoiding the divine name, typical of Jewish piety; (5) The Great Commission uniquely in Matthew 28:18-20. That Matthew — a despised tax collector, considered a traitor by most Jews — wrote the most Jewish Gospel showing Jesus as Israel's promised King, is the kind of irony only grace produces. Matthew understood redemption of a traitor from the inside. His Gospel is written for everyone who assumes the kingdom is closed to them.