PBC Matthew: Introduction
Jesus of Nazareth has a strong claim to be the most influential person who ever lived. Two thousand years after his own time, hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world are glad to be known as Christians, as his friends and followers. The life he lived, the things he said and did, how he died and what happened afterwards, make a remarkable story. Christians have always wanted to know about Jesus, to understand the Lord who launched our faith.
Why write Gospels?
That is why we have Gospels. Probably they arose something like this. For a few years after Jesus’ time, people remembered what he had said and done. Memories were good in the ancient Middle East, as they have to be in any culture where paper is expensive. But the people who remembered gradually died out, and Christians wanted a record of Jesus that they could keep. So about a generation after Jesus’ lifetime, the Gospels started to appear.That is very approximate. Nobody really knows when Matthew was written. Guesses vary from about ad40 to ad100. Many scholars come down in the middle of that range, between about 60 and 90. Around that time, the record of Jesus’ life that we call Matthew’s Gospel was put on to paper.
Global or local?
For whom was the Gospel written? Two answers are popular today. One says that Matthew (and Mark, Luke and John) always meant their Gospels to be widely read. The Church of that day was spread across much of southern Europe, western Asia and northern Africa. There were good communications between various Christian centres. The Gospels were bound to travel. The Gospel writers believed that Jesus’ story was worth telling and wanted to preserve it for their own generation and those who would follow. From very early on, the four Gospels belonged to the whole Church.A second approach suggests that the four Gospels were written for Christians in different local areas. Each of the writers was trying to help the Christians he knew best. So each Gospel is angled differently, to reflect the needs and circumstances of the writer’s own local church. If we follow that sort of tack, we may try to read between the lines of each Gospel to find out about the needs and situation of the first readers, as well as about Jesus himself.
I think there is some truth in both those theories. The early Christians were interested in Jesus. They thought his life was important. They wanted to preserve their memories of him, so that others could know about him too. Jesus is the main focus of the whole gospel story and of Christian faith. But the four Gospels do have different selections of material and different emphases. They are portraits, not engineers’ drawings. To some extent they each reflect their own author’s perspectives on Jesus and the questions and concerns of four different groups of early Christians.
Why read four Gospels?
So I take a positive approach to the Gospels. I value the material they contain, and I believe they give a true picture of Jesus. But none of them gives the whole truth. All of the Gospel writers had to choose what to include and how to present it. Let me mention four reasons why it is helpful to have several Gospels.Selection: Some material in other Gospels is not in Matthew. For example, Matthew only shows Jesus making one journey to Jeru-salem, at the end of his ministry. Jesus goes with grim foreboding, expecting to suffer. His enemies there act quickly and harshly against him, very soon after he arrives. That sequence of events is easier to understand if we connect it to John’s Gospel, which shows Jesus making several visits to Jerusalem. By the time of the last Passover visit he was known in the city and was a marked man. Both he and his enemies were ready for trouble. The accounts in two different Gospels mesh together, to give a fuller and clearer picture of Jesus’ career.
Order: Some material in Matthew is in a different order in other Gospels. For example, much of the teaching in Matthew 5—7 (the Sermon on the Mount) is scattered through Luke. Matthew seems to have a tendency to collect material on a similar theme and include it in one place in his Gospel. There is something similar in Matthew
8 and 9, which shows a series of miracles in quick succession, whereas in Mark the same material is spread more widely, across Mark 1—5.
Detail: Some material in Matthew is briefer than in other Gospels. Mark reports action at length. Matthew cuts to the main point. Compare Mark 5:21–43 with Matthew 9:18–26, for example. Mark shows each scene very closely and clearly; Matthew makes an impact by moving swiftly from one incident to the next.
Angle: Some material in Matthew is told a bit differently in other Gospels. Look at the comment on Matthew 26:26–30, for example. Jesus’ words at the Last Supper vary a little as we move from one Gospel to another. The main lines of the incident are very clear, but each Gospel has its own emphasis and angle.
So for many reasons it is helpful to have four different Gospels. But in some vitally important ways they are closely similar, both in broad outline and even in some fine details. Why is this? Why in particular are Matthew, Mark and Luke so very like each other at so many points?
Identify your sources
Most people who study the Gospels think that Matthew knew Mark’s Gospel, or something very like it. The two Gospels have a great deal of material in common. Most of that material—indeed all of it after Matthew 13—is in the same order, and much of it has very similar wording. So the thought that Matthew knew and used Mark, and adapted Mark’s material into his own Gospel, has become widespread in modern study of the Gospels.However, a lot of Matthew’s material is missing from Mark. About half of that extra material, almost all of it sayings of Jesus, is very like parts of Luke’s Gospel. This raises the suspicion that Matthew and Luke both had the same source for this stuff. This source has been named ‘Q’, which is the first letter of the German word for ‘source’, and a suitably mysterious title for a shadowy body of material about which we really know very little indeed.
Everything in the two paragraphs above is sensible guesswork; we cannot be certain. Matthew, like many a modern journalist, does not identify his sources. Even so, something like the above may very well explain Matthew as we now have it. But as we read Matthew, it is important to hear the way he tells the story of Jesus, to listen for his own emphases, and trace his own plan.
Matthew’s plan
Have you ever been in an old building that was converted from one use to another during its lifetime? Both the original design and the later modifications contribute to the ground plan and the shape of the rooms. Some people think that has happened to Matthew. At any rate there seem to be two plans, dovetailed into each other.The ‘Jesus began’ plan: The first three or four chapters of Matthew are a sort of preface to the main action. Jesus is born; later on he is baptized and tempted. Then he is ready to start his ministry, and at 4:17 it says, ‘From then on Jesus began to preach.’ The Gospel then shows Jesus making God’s kingdom known, in word and action, in and around Galilee.
Gradually we see a very mixed response arising, and there is a hint that serious difficulties may be emerging, when we read in 11:20, ‘Then he began to speak against the places which had not heeded his word.’
Opposition now starts to sharpen, and at 16:21 we realize where this will lead: ‘From then on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer and die.’
By using the word ‘began’ as a milestone, we have found the route the Gospel takes. By that plan, Matthew’s Gospel has twelve chapters about the mission of Jesus in Galilee (4—16), and twelve chapters leading to the Passion of Jesus in Jerusalem (16—27). Once we pass chapter 16, the story is drawn to the cross like a moth to a lamp. Opposition steadily advances, the moment of destruction is inevit-able, and there is a deepening mood of sorrow and fear. Only at the very end does hope return, with Easter and resurrection and a completely new beginning.
The ‘Jesus finished’ plan: The first plan has picked out the action of the Gospel—what Jesus did. The second plan picks out what Jesus said. The words ‘When Jesus had finished these sayings’ come five times in Matthew (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). Each one ends a major block of teaching, the five great sermons of Matthew’s Gospel. Each of the blocks has a main theme running right through:
So the teaching and action are interspersed, like a giant multi-decker sandwich. Each section of teaching connects with the action around it, and carries the story forward.
Why two plans? Many people answer something like this. Mark used the first plan: half of his Gospel is about Jesus’ mission in Galilee, and half is about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and his suffering and death there. Matthew adopted Mark’s plan. But Matthew also knew a good deal of Jesus’ teaching, most of which Mark had missed (including the so-called ‘Q’ material), and wanted to highlight this. So the second plan, overlaid on the first, draws attention to Jesus as teacher. The Church remembers and trusts the Lord who lived, died and rose again. The Church also values and follows what he taught. Both aspects are important to Matthew.
Who was Matthew?
Jesus had a follower called Matthew, a former tax collector, whom he had called and who belonged to the circle of twelve disciples. We meet this man at Matthew 9:9, and there is an ancient tradition that his personal reminiscences of Jesus have come into this Gospel. But did he actually write it? Many people think it would be odd if Matthew, who was one of the Twelve, copied from Mark, who was not.Matthew’s Gospel also shows a close acquaintance with Jewish religious lore and custom, and tax collectors were not very religious Jews. Some of the style in the Gospel seems to be much more like that of a Jewish religious teacher. So could Matthew the tax collector be the source for some of the information, but someone else be the writer? And is there a trace of that writer—rather like a film director appearing for a moment in the film—in Jesus’ saying about the ‘scribe trained for the kingdom’ (13:52)? None of the other Gospels has this saying, but the writer of Matthew feels it describes his own calling, and is glad to include it.
If we take that approach, whom shall we mean when we say ‘Matthew’: the tax collector, or the writer of the Gospel? I shall use the name ‘Matthew’ to refer to the person who wrote the Gospel, and to the way he tells the story of Jesus.
Matthew and Judaism
In many ways, Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels. It shows a strong acquaintance with Jewish customs and laws (for example, 5:23; 17:24; 23:5). It stresses how the ancient law of the Old Testament is fulfilled in the teaching of Jesus (5:17), and how the prophecies come to fulfilment in his life and work (1:23; 12:17). In some sections it presents Jesus as a new Moses (see comment on 2:13–23, pp. 28–29).Yet Matthew also includes some very sharp criticism of Jewish leaders. This is clearest in chapter 23. We also read that ‘the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ (21:43). Some of Israel’s ancient privileges are being taken over by the community that Jesus is founding. So Matthew’s Gospel is very Jewish in its background and atmosphere, but it also tells of Judaism being split by the coming of Jesus.
At the start of Matthew’s Gospel, we see Jesus’ mission focused on Israel. But Israel divides: there is a core of opposition among the nation’s leaders, yet many of the ordinary people are warm and receptive. Although Matthew does not directly mention this, the Christian gospel made great strides among the Jewish people in the years after the resurrection, as the Church began to grow. But it was never accepted by the nation’s official leadership.
Matthew’s Church
The strong Jewish flavour to Matthew’s writing suggests that he was writing for a Jewish audience, probably for a group of Jewish people who had accepted and believed in Jesus. He believed that their faith was a true fulfilment of their ancient Jewish heritage. Prophecy and law found their focus and completion in Jesus. Jesus was their Messiah, and God’s ancient purpose was being carried forward through him.Yet Matthew’s first readers may have had very awkward relations with some of their neighbours, who did not share their beliefs. Jews who had accepted Jesus would have been suspect, seen as a fringe group within Israel. That may be the reason Matthew included so much controversial material, involving disputes and criticism be-tween Jesus and his opponents. All the Gospels show some of this, but it is clearest in Matthew, and it may have been especially relevant to his readers’ own situation. (The comments at the start of chapter 23 discuss this point further.)
But Matthew did not expect Christianity to get stuck within a Jewish horizon. He was convinced that the Church’s mission should include Gentiles too. Jesus sometimes met Gentile people during his mission in Galilee. When he saw their faith, he recognized and welcomed it. Those contacts were a hint of what was ahead. Once Jesus is risen, the horizon is the world. After the resurrection the Christian message spreads out to all the nations.
Matthew and Christian living
Three major emphases stand out when we compare Matthew with other Gospels.So Matthew’s Christianity is church-centred: we belong to one another. It is practical: we aim to express our faith in love and action. And it is serious: we trust God’s mercy, but we must not be careless in how we serve him.
Text and translation
Have you ever noticed a footnote in your Bible saying, ‘Some manuscripts have…’ or ‘Other ancient authorities read…’? We do not have the original manuscript of any book of the Bible. Thank God, the early Christians copied out the biblical books, by hand. But some of the first copies got lost, or decayed, or were destroyed in persecutions. So when we want to find out what Matthew wrote, we use the earliest copies we have. But these manuscripts come from several generations after Matthew’s own time.These manuscripts do not agree with each other precisely. That can always happen with copying by hand. Where we meet disagreements in wording, we have to work out as well as we can which version is original—what Matthew actually wrote. Very rarely those differences affect a whole verse—included in some manuscripts, missing from others. Examples of this are 6:13; 16:2–3; 17:21; 18:11; and we now doubt whether those five verses were actually written by Matthew. Yet much, much more often we have no serious disagreements in the manuscripts: what we read in our 21st-century English Bibles is based on a very solid knowledge of what Matthew wrote in the first century.
Matthew did not write in English. He used Greek, though not exactly the language spoken in Greece today. In some places it has been hard to translate the Greek into English, and English Bibles show different meanings. One example is in 28:17: the last few words could mean ‘but they doubted’ or ‘but some of them doubted’. Were all the disciples hesitant, or just a few of them? We do not know. That sort of problem is occasionally to be expected when we use a very old piece of writing. It is hard to know fully and exactly what the ancient language meant. But most of the time we can be confident in our modern translations. In our day, as for the last two thousand years, Christians are happy to use the four Gospels because they were written close to the time and place where Jesus lived, and give us the best information we have about his life and work.
Matthew’s good news
So Christians read Matthew as an introduction to Jesus. That was Matthew’s main motive, to present Jesus clearly and helpfully, so that his readers would understand and trust Jesus. The word gospel means ‘good news’, about Jesus and about the life he invites people to live.So listen to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew, take it seriously, and try to apply it in your own life. Value your Christian relationships with the brothers and sisters who help you to follow this way. And treasure above all your relationship with Jesus who is ‘with you always, to the end’ (Matthew 28:20).
The Bible quotations included in the commentary are usually taken from the New Revised Standard Version; occasionally I have used a translation or paraphrase of my own.
Some further reading on Matthew
A lot has been written about Matthew’s Gospel in recent years, and I have learned much from these books. This list aims to give credit for that. It also suggests books that might help you to explore Matthew further.Shorter commentaries on Matthew
W. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, The Daily Study Bible (2 volumes), St Andrew Press, revised edition 1975. A commentary written to support and encourage daily Bible reading. Accessible to lay people, beautifully clear, now dating a little.
M. Davies, Matthew: Readings, Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Looks at the Gospel as a piece of literature, and at how Matthew presents his material.
R.T. France, Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentary. IVP, 1985. Explains the meaning of the text. Very clear, careful and well-informed.
E.M.B. Green, The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Matthew, IVP, 2000. A clear, practical commentary.
I.H. Jones, The Gospel of Matthew, Epworth Commentary, Epworth Press, 1994. Written by a very able Matthew scholar, in a series designed for Methodist preachers.
J.P. Meier, The New Testament Message: Matthew, Veritas, 1980. By a leading Roman Catholic Gospels scholar.
D. Senior, The Gospel of Matthew, Abingdon New Testament Commentary, Abingdon Press, 1997. Written by an experienced Roman Catholic scholar, intended to help interested lay people.
Longer commentaries on Matthew
D.A. Carson, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8, edited by F.E. Gaebelein, Zondervan, 1984. Lots of explanation of difficult points, but concerned also to present Matthew’s message clearly and directly.
W.D. Davies and D.C. Allison, The Gospel According to St Matthew, International Critical Commentary (on the Greek text; 3 volumes), T&T Clark, 1988, 1991 and 1997. The biggest and most detailed commentary in English. Magnificent—learned, detailed, lucid and reverent. But difficult to get full value unless you know some Greek.
R.H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution, Eerdmans, revised edition 1994. A very careful examination of the differences between Matthew and Mark, linked to ideas about Matthew’s situation.
D.A. Hagner, Matthew, Word Biblical Commentary (2 volumes), Word Books, 1993 and 1995. Very thoroughly researched and clearly written.
Other books on Matthew
R.T. France, Matthew—Evangelist & Teacher, Paternoster, 1989.
W. Harrington, Matthew: Sage Theologian, Columba Press, 1998.
U. Luz, The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
J.K. Riches, Matthew, New Testament Guide, Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.
D. Senior, What Are They Saying About Matthew? Paulist Press, 1996.
Any of the above would be a good introduction to Matthew’s Gospel. The books by Harrington, Riches and Senior are particularly accessible for non-specialists. France and Luz are a little fuller.
G.N. Stanton (ed.), The Interpretation of Matthew, SPCK, 2nd edition 1995. This is a selection of important academic articles on Matthew from across the 20th century, with an introduction by the editor, who is himself a leading Matthew scholar.
I have been greatly helped in dealing with the divorce passage in Matthew 19 by D. Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, Eerdmans, 2001; also by G. Theissen, The Gospels in Context, T&T Clark, 1992, on Matthew 11.
Where credit is due
Finally I acknowledge my personal debt to some major German commentaries, by H. Frankemölle, U. Luz, A. Sand and W. Wiefel.
The Commentary on Matthew
Matthew 1:1–17
Lines of Introduction
The scenery on a stage helps you to enjoy the play. Action makes more sense, a story carries more impact, if you can see where the events are set. The scenery can sharpen your hearing and tune your mind to the author’s intentions and concerns. These opening verses of Matthew’s Gospel lay out the scenery. Matthew presents Jesus against the background of the Old Testament. There were clues, longings, promises, running through the Old Testament, that had come to life in Jesus. The very first verse of the Gospel names some of them: ‘Jesus the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham’.Son of Abraham
Abraham was the great forefather of the Jewish people. Jesus was born a Jew, spent most of his life among Jewish people, and rarely travelled outside Jewish territory. He thought, taught, argued and prayed in a Jewish way. We understand Jesus properly only if we understand him as a Jew.Yet God had called Abraham for a wider purpose: ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ (Genesis 12:3). Abraham is an international figure. The promise to Abraham is that Israel’s God will do great things for the whole world. From this small people, a blessing will flow outward to the nations. To call Jesus ‘son of Abraham’ means that he is heir to this promise. He has blessing to share with the world.
Messiah, son of David
Jesus is also called ‘son of David’. David was remembered as Israel’s most successful king, who made the nation peaceful and prosperous. But that had been long ago. The Jews had grown hungry for a new David, a leader to make them great again and give them fresh hope. So the title ‘son of David’ is not just about ancestry. It is a job description. Through Jesus the kingly power of God will be made knownin Israel. That is why he was called ‘Messiah’. The word means ‘anointed’, a person marked out by God for a special task. In Greek—the language Matthew wrote—the word for ‘anointed’ is our word ‘Christ’. Jesus Christ was God’s anointed leader, a new David, the shepherd king who would show the loving rule of God.
Undulating path
The long genealogy (vv. 2–16) is divided into three sections of fourteen names each (v. 17). At the very start is Abraham (vv. 2, 17). The next marker in the sequence, ending the first main section, is the name of ‘David the king’ (vv. 6, 17). Then the second major landmark is the ‘deportation to Babylon’ (vv. 11, 12, 17), when many thousands of Jews were led across the desert to exile.This is a roll of honour. It reflects the whole Old Testament story of Israel’s long journey of faith and the patient goodness of God. Yet it is no whitewash. David and the exile are the milestones on the road, marking triumph and tragedy, fortune and failure. Jesus came to a nation with a patchy record. He stepped into real human history, the mixture of grief and glory that the world still experiences today.
Mothers with a message
The genealogy is mainly a list of fathers. Only five mothers are mentioned. Four have unusual stories to tell. Tamar (v. 3) acted the part of a prostitute to claim the protection of the family into which she had married (Genesis 38). Rahab (v. 5) was a prostitute in Jericho who helped two Jewish spies (Joshua 2). Ruth (v. 5) was a foreigner who came into Israel’s line through a complex story of bereavement and famine. ‘The wife of Uriah’ (v. 6) was Bathsheba, whose husband David murdered to conceal his adultery with her (2 Samuel 11); yet she later became the mother of King Solomon. These are not ideal Jewish mothers. Possibly all were Gentiles. Their circumstances and their conduct were unusual, and even irregular. Yet they underline the element of grace, that God can take human life as it is—often untidy, sometimes perverse and odd—and fill it with the rich promise of his love. They hint too that the fifth mother, Mary (v. 16), will also give birth amid unexpected circumstances. So Jesus comes out of Israel, for the world. He is born to be king, yet from a turbulent and tangled heritage. He is Mary’s son and God’s Messiah, a figure of perplexity, and a child of promise.Prayer
We praise you, God of Israel and our God, for the long reach and far horizon of your purpose, and for the breadth and generosity of your love. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Matthew 1:18–25
Child of God
The long line of ancestry has run from Abraham down to Joseph. Yet the genealogy ends with a novel and intriguing turn of phrase: instead of the repeated ‘was father of’, the last link in the chain is that Joseph was ‘husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born’ (1:16). We discover the reason for that wording in this next passage, in verses 18–25.Joseph was not the father of Jesus, at least not biologically. No human father was involved in Jesus’ conception: he was ‘born of the Virgin Mary’. The life in him came directly from God. Matthew—and indeed Joseph himself—knew perfectly well that this is not the normal order of things; that’s why Joseph wanted to break the engagement when he first heard of Mary’s pregnancy (vv. 18–19).
Father-in-law
Matthew tells this section of the Gospel from Joseph’s point of view. He is said to be ‘a righteous man’ (v. 19), anxious to avoid a marriage that seemed compromised from the start, yet unwilling to make more trouble than necessary about calling the plans off. A dream helped to settle his fears (v. 20), so that he, a ‘son of David’, married Mary and gave his name and his family line to her child (vv. 24–25). Legally he became the father of Jesus. He protected mother and child through the hazards ahead (2:13–25). He taught Jesus his own trade (13:55; compare Mark 6:3). He seems to have died before Jesus launched into public ministry, but, so far as we can tell, his work was lovingly and faithfully done.In a name
The child’s name, Jesus, is a loaded word (v. 21). In Hebrew it is written Joshua, and means ‘God to the rescue’. There had been an earlier Joshua who led the people of Israel, centuries before, into the land God had promised them. So Jesus too would make hopes become real. He would be God to the rescue. He would offer the Jewish people a new era, filled with freedom and forgiveness.As the prophets foretold
A quotation from Isaiah helps to explain the virgin birth (vv. 22–23, from Isaiah 7:14); it had been predicted this way, we hear, seven centuries earlier. Yet no one—so far as we can tell—had taken the Isaiah text in quite that way until Jesus came. Isaiah seemed to be speaking of a young woman, perhaps a girl on the threshold of marriage, who would soon be pregnant with her first child. Then Matthew heard a fuller meaning in those ancient words, as a description of the birth of Jesus. He found fresh life in an old prophecy; but he also took up the hopes that had always been seen in it.For this text from Isaiah 7 is about a prince, a royal leader for Israel. To connect these words to Jesus is to mark him out as a kingly figure, a new David. But he was more than a king. Isaiah’s prophecy spoke of Emmanuel, which is Hebrew for ‘God is with us’. In Jesus the creative power and love of God took human flesh, personally and directly. Through Jesus, in a unique and immediate way, God comes to be with his people.
Worth taking seriously
For many people, even some church people, the whole idea of Jesus’ virgin birth seems a fantasy. But the evidence should not be sneezed at. Two positive points may be made.Firstly, the Jewish people read Isaiah for centuries without expecting a virgin birth. Matthew turned to Isaiah, not primarily because he spotted ideas in the text that others had missed, but because it fitted the facts he had to tell. The scripture did not teach him his story; it resonated with what he already knew.
Secondly, Matthew and Luke tell the Christmas story in very different ways in their two Gospels. Yet at the heart of it all they match, and confirm one another’s material, as two very different witnesses to the same event: that Jesus was ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’.
So Jesus, son of the Jewish people, carried in his humanity the life and presence of Israel’s God. The hopes of the prophetic scriptures took flesh in him. Joseph and Mary’s love nurtured the Son of God.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you that you lived the life of God in our human flesh, truly one of us, yet not merely one of us.
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