An Iberian wolf (Canus Lupus Signatus), a subspecies of gray wolf, is found in northwestern Spain and northern Portugal (a region known as the Iberian Peninsula). Essentially, all of Spain and Portugal comprised the Iberian Peninsula, up to the Pyrenees Mountains, which is a natural barrier between Spain and France. It is the mountainous regions that are home to a healthy population of many Iberian wolf bands, estimated at just under 3,000 members.
A wolf subspecies will mate with other wolf subspecies, and even coyotes and dogs. When that happens, the DNA pool becomes contaminated, resulting in gains and losses in the health of the generations of wolves that result from the crossbreeding. There are no coyotes in the wild on the Iberian Peninsula and, in theory, domestic dogs that are let loose in the mountainous region will not live long in the wild. Search the web for images of Iberian wolves to see an impressive array of captivating faces, yellow eyes, and reddish-brown fur with gray markings. Their appearance is striking, and while one can’t help but admire them, they also communicate, “Yes, I’ll eat you.”
An apex predator that requires 2.2 pounds of meat in their diet every day, you’d better not only forage into their territory at night, when they actively hunt in packs. The success of the wolf in taking prey, including domesticated livestock, and in ancient times a weak child or adult as well, caused the subspecies to be put on “the kill list” in most towns and cities. Today, Iberian wolves are somewhat sheltered in mountainous areas, but as their population increases, so does the need for packs to move closer to humanity. Then the old fear returns and humanity takes them out of the picture. Search the web for Matthew 9:9-12 to read what happened to “a kind of wolf” that lived among the Jewish people more than 2020 years ago.
Matthew, the author of the Christian Bible passage you are reading, was a tax collector for the Roman Empire. Jewish tax collectors were employed by the Romans because they knew which Jews earned income, when, how, and how much profit they earned, better than any Roman could. The Romans did not pay them. Rather, they required tax collectors to deliver a certain amount of value at specified times each week, and any tax collected by them in excess of that amount was their service fee to maintain. The better the tax collectors did their job, the greater their personal wealth. To the Jewish population, these tax collectors were like wolves attacking their own people.
Jesus, the Christ that was promised, selected Matthew to become one of his 12 disciples, a small number of men whom Jesus taught during his 3-year ministry. For God’s purpose to be fulfilled, the ministry of Jesus had to be remembered and understood by the rest of humanity alive, then, today, and in the future. With two words (“Follow me”), Jesus’ invitation to Matthew compelled him to turn away from his lucrative business to become a disciple. Powerful Jewish priests (the Sadducees) and enforcers of Jewish religious law (the Pharisees) publicly harassed Jesus, accusing him of being a “rogue rabbi” for employing and being close to “evil people” such as tax collectors, adulterers, and sick people like lepers.
Why do you suppose God would want his son to represent himself in this way? For me, there is only one answer: Because he can. I think it was a subtle demonstration of the power of God who can wash over us all like a mighty wave of the ocean and turn us into anything, however he chooses. to show us the wayto invite us to search it, and he will delight in your doing your best to get to know him. He already knows you. Search the Internet for four Bible passages that tell us how precious each child is to God and how great His hopes are for each of us: Jeremiah 1:5, Galatians 1:15, Isaiah 44:24, and Isaiah 49: fifteen.