Matthew 9:9
As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and He said to him, "Follow Me." And he rose and followed Him.
The four Gospel writers were the original "four calling birds." Like all such talkative critters, calling birds learn to call by being called. Before they met Jesus, the Gospel writers had nothing in common: a tax collector and collaborator with the Romans, a young man at loose ends, a Gentile doctor hundreds of miles away from Judea, a fisherman eking out an existence on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. But then, one by one, they were called, just as Matthew was — and they found their voices and answered. In the call of Jesus there is more than one kind of revelation. For Jesus does not merely reveal the Father to us. He also reveals us to ourselves. In saying "Yes" to Jesus the evangelists found that they could speak in their own voices to the world. They also found that, for all their individuality, they could speak as one in a common love and a common mission. That's why they went out into the world to call people into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
