Matthew Introduction
Introduction
Matthew
The book known as Matthew is an account of the life and teaching of Jesus. While tradition says the disciple Matthew wrote it, the author never identifies himself. But he may be giving us a clue to his identity when he includes, at a strategic place in the book, a saying of Jesus that isnʼt recorded anywhere else: every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. This clue, and the character of the book itself, suggest that the author was actually someone highly trained in the Hebrew Scriptures, rather than a tax collector like Matthew.
Itʼs hard to tell exactly where and when this book was written. But much of what it says can be best understood by those who are familiar with Israelʼs Scriptures, so we can be reasonably sure it was written within a community of Jews who believed in Jesus as their Messiah. Its author was most likely, in other words, a teacher of the law who had been instructed about the kingdom of heaven that Jesus was now establishing on earth. He wrote to tell his fellow Jews how Jesus, the promised king, was creating a new community by bringing the ancient Jewish story to its climax. This book uses a combination of literary forms (an ancestor list; action sequences; collected teachings) to show that God is fulfilling his ancient promises to Israel through the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
To portray Jesus as the culmination of the work God began through Israel, the author starts the book with a list of Jesusʼ ancestors. The list highlights how Jesus was the son (descendant) of David, Israelʼs most famous king, and the son of Abraham, Israelʼs founding patriarch. In other words, Jesus is the true Israelite and the longawaited Messiah. The list is arranged to show Jesus coming at the beginning of the seventh group of seven generations since Abraham. The seventh seven was, for the Jews, a time of special celebration, so the message is that Jesus came to bring a special time of Godʼs blessing to the world.
After this opening ancestor list, the author tells the story of Jesusʼ life. He draws several parallels at the beginning of the story between Jesus and Moses. For example, like Moses, Jesus narrowly escapes death when a ruler attempts to kill all Hebrew baby boys. Just as Moses spent forty years in the desert, Jesus spends forty days in the desert before beginning his ministry. As these parallels develop, they show that just as Moses was the founder of the original nation of Israel, Jesus came as the founder of a renewed Israel.
Jesus also embodies this renewed Israel himself. His experience echoes the themes of Israelʼs experience under Moses. But where Israel failed to follow God, Jesus obeys. Soon after God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and formed them into a nation, two key events happened. Right after a covenant-making ceremony in the desert, the people fell to the temptation of worshipping other gods. Later, Israel crossed the Jordan River and followed their leader Joshua into the land God had promised them. The book of Matthew shows how two corresponding events took place at the beginning of Jesusʼ own ministry. Jesus goes down to the Jordan River and is baptized, in a ceremony that demonstrates his loyalty to Godʼs covenant with Israel. Then Jesus goes into the desert and is also tempted. But he resists the enticement to evil and triumphs over Godʼs adversary. In all of this Matthew reveals Jesus as starting a movement to renew Israel, inviting the people to a new beginning with their God.
But the author draws the most important parallel between Jesus and Moses by the way he organizes his work as a whole. Moses gave the people of Israel the Torah (or law) and it was traditionally divided into five books. In Matthew the teachings of Jesus are organized into five long speeches, which are inserted into the story at intervals. Just as Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the law, Jesus goes up on a mountain to give his first speech. In these ways Jesus is revealed as the new Moses, and his teaching becomes the foundation of the multinational community that now constitutes the people of God.
To show us how important these five speeches are, the author marks them all in the same way. Each one begins with the disciples coming to Jesus for teaching. Each one ends with a variation of the phrase, When Jesus had finished saying these things… These five speeches express five different themes, and these themes run through the episodes in the story that lead up to them. And so the core of the book is divided into five thematic sections consisting of story plus teaching. These sections address five key aspects of the kingdom of heaven:
: The first section reveals that this kingdom is based on a way of righteous living in which outward action expresses inward character (pp. 1700–1707).
: The second section demonstrates how Jesus chose twelve disciples as a symbol of the renewed Israel and sent them out on a mission to announce the coming of the kingdom of heaven (pp. 1707–1712).
: The third section explores the mystery of the kingdom: itʼs hard to recognize and easy to misunderstand, but itʼs nevertheless actively growing throughout the world (pp. 1712–1717).
: The fourth section shows how the kingdom of heaven creates a new family, the community of Jesusʼ followers (pp. 1717–1723).
: The fifth section shows that the destiny of this kingdom is for its citizens to be scattered throughout the world by their enemies, giving them the opportunity to tell people everywhere about Jesus (pp. 1723–1734).
After this new Torah has been given, the book concludes with the story of how Jesus performed a great new act of redemption for his people. In the ancient story of Israelʼs exodus, a Passover meal was celebrated and then the deliverance came. In this story, Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples and then gives his life for the sake of the world. He is then raised from the dead, the dawn of a day of new creation. Jesus announces that he has been enthroned as king: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. At the beginning of Matthew, Jesusʼ birth was announced with the name Immanuel, which means “God with us.” At the end of the book, Jesus sends his closest followers to go and make disciples of all nations, promising them, surely I am with you always.
Matthew
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The Books of the Bible™
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Matthew Introduction
Introduction
The Gospel according to St. Matthew has been called the most Jewish of the four Gospels. The author makes frequent connections with the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) and in general employs a familiar Jewish literary style. In every way Matthew endeavors to demonstrate the authenticity of Jesus as God's Messiah (Christ) who has come into human life in accord with promises made by God to the people of Israel in the books of the Hebrew scriptures (especially the Prophets and Psalms). Matthew makes clear that Jesus' coming is good news not only for Jews, but also for all the world's people.
This Gospel stands first among the four not because it was written first but because it was by far the most popular in the Early Church. It has been thoughtfully organized around five “teaching discourses” of Jesus (see indented sections of outline below). As Matthew presents him, Jesus is a Teacher of great stature and authority like Moses had been in his day (Deut 18.15). He speaks for God so persuasively that listeners marvel at his words. Significantly, like Moses, he also teaches from a mountaintop (the Sermon on the Mount), and his five central teaching sections in this Gospel compare in number with the five books of Moses (Pentateuch). Throughout this Gospel Jesus is presented as “the new Moses,” one who now speaks for God, bringing good news for his people, and for all people.
In the closing section narrating Jesus' suffering and death, Matthew brings out the majestic character of Jesus as Israel's Messiah. Jesus serenely predicted his eventual triumph over death (20.17-19), and this theme that death cannot defeat him is central to the author's purpose here. The final scene after Jesus' resurrection is again on a mountaintop, signaling authoritative revelation, and it is here that he commissions the disciples to go “and teach all nations” (28.19). Key themes in Matthew are struck again here at the end: Jesus the Teacher with authority, universal mission, commissioning of his followers to carry on his mission.
Matthew was written by an unknown Christian from Antioch in Syria around a.d. 90, but tradition has attributed this Gospel to Jesus' disciple, the tax collector of this name (but called Levi in the parallel texts in Mark and Luke).
Outline
Jesus' Origins (1.1—2.23)
Jesus' Preparation for Ministry (3.1—4.16)
Discourse 1: The Sermon on the Mount (“Living Rightly”) (4.17—7.29)
Jesus the Compassionate Healer (8.1—9.34)
Discourse 2: Mission Teaching (9.35—11.1)
Jesus Encounters Hostility (11.2—12.50)
Discourse 3: Teaching in Parables (13.1-52)
Jesus Continues His Ministry in Galilee (13.53—16.20)
Pointing toward Jerusalem (16.21—17.27)
Discourse 4: Teaching about Community (18.1-35)
Guidance for the Disciples (19.1—20.34)
Jesus in Jerusalem (21.1—23.39)
Discourse 5: The Final Age and Judgment (24.1—25.46)
Jesus' Arrest, Death and Resurrection (26.1—28.20)
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.