#3 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW OVERVIEW

welcome to video lecture number three the gospel of Matthew we're going to look at some details in the gospel that are unique to it and help us to understand how it connects with the other gospels we'll look at more details in a deeper way when we look at the things like the narratives and the discourses in future lectures but we're going to look at the specific overview of Matthew Matthew is one of the favorite gospels of the early church writers as they quoted it they saw it as a bridge from the Old Testament until the

New Testament and even though it's not the earliest gospel we think Ma Matthew copied Mark and so mark would be the earliest gospel uh there's evidence for that we're going to look at when we discuss the synoptic problem in a future lecture uh it would mean that Matthew wasn't the first but but still it's a favorite among the early Christians Matthew was written by the person by that name he was a tax collector he calls himself Matthew in Matthew uh 9:9 but he's referred to as Levi by Luke and by Mark and so why two

different names one's probably like his family name and one is probably his personal name and there may be some difference in terms of who the audience is why different authors use a different name to refer to him out of Sympathy for the audience that's paying attention to the book when Matthew is talking about the temple tax himself uh he uses a specific Aramaic term the nisma that is simply written down as daer in Luke and in Mark which indicates that that the writer of this book is more familiar with things like Temple taxes or taxes

in general or money and that makes sense because he was a tax collector turned disciple when he writes these things down he's very specific very precise in the field that he's interested we think that the gospel of Matthew was probably written down around the 80s ad uh It Was Written after the destruction of the temple and there's reasons for that cuz he talks about the destruction of the temple and you wouldn't talk about something that had not existed had you not known about it and yet at the same time he has references to paying the

temple tax which would indicate that maybe the temple is still in existence this is easily explained when one looks at the fact that he probably compiled the latest portions of the Gospel after the temple was destroyed was able to edit it and add that part to it at the end uh even though he had sayings and collections of thoughts that existed prior to that papus thought that there was an original version of Matthew that was written down in Aramaic he was one of the early church fathers and if that's true it could be that there

was a a version of the sayings that that Matthew captured and collected that he would then later use as uh the foundation of the Gospel we know that he used Mark's writings he probably used his own eyewitness accounts as a disciple of Christ and then he has these collected sayings uh that are in Aramaic that become a bulk of the discourses that we see in the gospel and as a result there may be portions of it that are Aramaic and portions of it that were Greek until the final version was written down in Greek and

and I think this makes a lot of sense uh as I begin to view it um there seems to be a clear split forming by the time that Matthew is written down as a gospel that you don't quite find in Mark and this would indicate that the Council of Jamia had already taken place and that takes place in the 80s so that Judaism and Christianity are starting to split apart and that helps me to think that it's not written right after the temple was destroyed but the final version of Matthew was written in the 80s

and so because at this point now there's a clear distinction between Jews and Christians uh the people that Matthew wrote to is probably uh the city of Antioch to be honest with you and there an Aramaic speaking people who have a strong Greek influence there are arama isms all throughout the book that he doesn't explain remember when we saw the video from Mark that Mark has to explain these Aramaic Expressions Matthew doesn't explain them because he doesn't need to because his audience would understand what they mean uh and had a large Jewish influence a large

Jewish population but it also had a strong Gentile population and Matthew kind of straddles Both Worlds he has things that are geared toward Jews and he has things that are geared toward Gentiles as well Antioch had a lot of a missionary activity and this makes sense when you look at the gospel of Matthew being a missionary book he has the Great Commission in Matthew 28: 19-2 that would resonate with a community that's focused on missions IGN Aus of Antioch was the first person to quote Matthew he was the bishop in Antioch and so if he's

quoting him it's probably because that was a source that he was familiar with and would make sense that it was written for that City Matthew uses a term uh for a coin the Stater is the name of the term that is the coin only used in Two Cities Antioch and Damascus uh which would again indicate that the people he's writing to would understand it therefore it must be he's writing to people in one of those two cities and the one that makes the most sense is Antioch so I think Peter excuse me I think Matthew

was specifically writing this gospel for an audience that was living in the city of Antioch uh backgrounds were Jewish and Gentile they were Christians obviously uh the Antioch Church was one of the strongest churches early on it was a missions focused church and so he's helping them to have the gospel so as they carry the gospel out to the Nations to have a clear understanding of who Jesus is and uh and how his mission is going to change the the world uh the purpose of the Gospel of Matthew uh is concerned specifically with establishing Jesus's

identity he stresses the four aspects of Jesus's identity number one Jesus is the Messiah he's the long awaited king of of God's people of Israel number two Jesus is the new Abraham he's the Fulfillment of Israel as a people in the person of the Messiah he's a founder of a new spiritual people of God the church uh whereas the Old Testament focuses on Israel as the people of God after the gospel of Matthew and the functions that's the people of God in that perform it's going to be a new people that is the church uh

the third thing that we see is that Jesus is the new Moses so in a similar way he's the new Abraham he's the new Moses he's the deliverer of the people of God and he's The Giver of the law in this case is a new law uh for God's people and then the fourth thing that we see as an important identity of Christ in the gospel of Matthew is Jesus is the Emmanuel or God With Us he's the Virgin born son of God in this Matthew functions uh as a theological biography of Jesus in which

he explains Jesus's teachings he records his actions he offers him as an example for us and he explains who Jesus is for his audience and so he's trying to help his readers understand identity of who Christ is interpreting some Old Testament themes in new ways and understanding how that affects the church let's look at the type of literature that Matthew comprises Matthew's gospel has five major discourses that present the essence of Jesus's teachings whereas Mark was more interested in moving in action and stories that had narrative and plot Matthew stops regularly to have these long

discourses where Jesus just teaches he teaches on a hillside he teaches near the temple uh we see this in Matthew 5-7 again in chapter 10 in Chapter 13 in chapter 18 and then chapters 23- 2 and each of these discourses uh have a theme they're built around and then there's these actions that take place in between the discourses now we're going to look at the discourses in a future lecture in more detail but I do want to talk about them a little bit here particularly from Matthew's perspective because they're giving us an understanding of how

Matthew sees the world that he lives in and how he wants this readers to understand it uh let's look at each of those five that I just talked about we call these the five discourses and that's going to be intriguing as we look at Jesus compared to the new Moses later on the first of these is the sermon on the mountain that's chapters 5 through 7 and the theme of that is Jesus's vision for establishing the kingdom of God this is how we're supposed to live when you go through the Sermon on the Mount it

explains what a true Christian a true disciple of Jesus would live like and act like in community with other Christians the second discourse is the uh instruction of the 12 in chapter 10 where the disciples are told how to spread the gospel and they're also warned of coming persecution that they're going to experience so Jesus is preparing them for what he's expecting to prepare the third discourse that we see is in Chapter 13 and it's The Parables of the Kingdom where he he's talking about the kingdom of God and so he's got these Parables that

teach what the kingdom of God is going to look like he explains the rejection of the Gospel by some and presence of evil in the world he talks about growth and Ministry of the kingdom of God in the face of persecution and in the face of opposition the fourth discourse he gets to is in chapter 18 and this is The Parables of the Kingdom as well but in this case he explains how disciples are to relate to Jesus and how they're to relate to each other in light of the New Kingdom the last discourse we

see are in chapters 24 and 25 we call it the olette discourse and there more Kingdom Parables but in this he speaks about the Prophecies of Destruction and of the temple and of the events that are preceding the second coming of the Messiah now that we've just briefly talked about the discourses again we're going to have an entire lecture on these later on if you find this intriguing let's move to theology that we find in the gospel of Matthew the most important them that we see in the gospel of Matthew in terms of theology is

that Jesus is the Fulfillment of the old testament old testament prophecies predictions uh for the way that the Old Testament was supposed to be lived out Jesus fulfills what the people of God could not do uh there's these Messianic predictions that starts this off one of the most significant things in the gospel of Matthew is that Jesus is the Messiah presented as the Messiah who's predicted in the Old Testament scriptures this this fulfillment uh highlighted the Fulfillment in quotations in chapters 1- 4 each significant event in the life of Jesus is that is recorded in

the gospel of Matthew is shown to be a fulfillment of Hebrew scripture prophecies you'll often see that it it says it is said and then he shows the example of how he fulfilled what it was what was said or what was written this is all part of a new kingdom of God uh I said a moment ago he's going to be like a new Moses it's an important theme Jesus functions for Matthew in a real sense as a new Moses let's look at the parallels between the two starting from their birth narrative when Moses was

born the babies were being executed and it was under duress because the Egyptians did not want uh this one to be born and raised that's going to bring freedom to the people under the Pharaohs in an uncanny similar sense when Jesus is born there's death because Herod is afraid there's going to be a new king that's going to replace him and so he starts to kill the babies in a way very similar to what happened during the time of Moses so the killing of children matches between Moses and Jesus uh we have this idea of

a flight of the baby in the case of Moses the flight was from his homeland in the land of the Hebrews uh in Goan he was taken to the princess where he was taken care of and be delivered and raised up under the protection of the kings of Egypt in a similar way when Jesus was a baby his parents escaped from herod's Reign in his reign of terror and they went to Egypt of all places and that's where they lived out while he was a baby until it was safe to return back to Palestine there's

this idea of the return uh those who were sought the child's life it says in in Exodus 4: 19 uh he it says Those Who sought his life are dead uh when Moses had killed the Egyptian he went off into Exile and then when those who s his life are dead he's able to come back in a similar way uh when Joseph and Mary goes off to Egypt they are told that those who sought Jesus as life are dead it's almost the same verbage between what we hear from Moses and what we hear from Jesus

I don't think it's an accident Matthew is trying to help us understand Jesus as the new Moses and so those who were going to kill Jesus are gone therefore they can return back to the promised land Mary and Joseph instead of going to Jerusalem they go to Nazareth uh as Jesus as Moses went up the Mount Si to get the law to deliver to his people in a similar way Jesus went up the Mount of Olives and offered a new law in Matthew 5-7 these aren't coincidental uh things they are the Matthew's way of showing

how Jesus is a new Matthew so just as Moses gets the law from God on a mountain Jesus gets the law of God to the people on the mountain instead of Mount Si it's the mount where Jesus is speaking to the people in The Sermon on the Mount Moses writes down five books of the law Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy and Matthew interesting has interestingly has these five books if you will or these five discourse sections that are throughout the gospel of Matthew as five discourses that I think are meant to replicate the five

books of Moses and so he's clearly presenting to a Jewish audience that Jesus is the fulf fillment of this new Moses this new idea uh whenever Moses was delivering the children of God from Egypt they went through the Red Sea and the waters parted on both sides and they walked on dry land to be able to be rescued in a similar way Jesus demonstrates power over water but instead of separating the waters he walks on the water again I think Matthew is using a theme to show the power of Jesus as the new Moses and

these are things that happen but the way that Matthew records them helps us to understand their significance uh just as in the desert Moses fed the people with Mana that God provided when Jesus was preaching to crowds and there wasn't enough food to eat Jesus provided them bread to eat when there was just a few Loaves and Fishes and he multiplied and was able to feed the thousands of people all of these are ways that Matthew is showing his Jewish audience that Jesus is a new and if you will better Moses uh and so this

is an important theme that we see in the gospel of Matthew Matthew's presentation of Jesus as a new Moses fulfilled important theological purposes number one it identifies Jesus as the savior of his people as Moses was a deliverer of the people of Israel so now Jesus is a deliverer of the people that follow him his new people the church number two it identifies Jesus as the Redeemer of his people he's not just delivering them he's going to redeem them he's going to pay for them he's going to provide for them he's going to create Redemption

so they can be in a right relationship with the father number three it identifies Jesus as the deliverer of his people so he's the Savior he's the Redeemer and he's the deliverer of the people and it identifies Jesus as the creator of his people there was no Jewish Nation prior to Moses uh there was no HEB there was a Hebrew people they were the descendants of Israel and when Moses comes on the scene he creates them as a nation Jesus does the same there's no Christians before Jesus those who follow the way after the Book

of Matthew now can be identified as the people of God the church and so all of these are ways that it identifies uh Jesus as the new Moses and helps to create the identity of Jesus now in a similar way as he is presented as the new Moses Jesus is also presented as the new David or the davidic king Matthew Associates Jesus very closely with David he starts the book off in with a genealogy that has David at the center of the genealogy David's name appears five times in that genealogy when most people only appear

one time he includes a direct claim of Jesus as the son of David and of course Jesus is not the biological son of David why would he isolate David out and call him the son of David because he's associating with David as the new David in addition David's name is used twice in the first two partitions of the genealogy you would see it says so and so has so and so has so and so this man begat this man begat this man and it has their names but David is listed twice in the genealogy and

if you look closely enough he sort of takes up two spaces in the genealogy there's these segments of 14s there's 14 14 and 14 Generations that make up the the ancestors of Jesus and that ends up being 42 Generations from the beginning until Jesus of the genealogy David occupies two of those and that's curious um there's something that happens with Hebrew coding and Hebrew numbers that is called the GATRA and in that there's this understanding that if you can associate a name with a number that has as weight to that Association and in the GATRA

of David the numbering of David is 14 and this idea of these 14 generations and David is the dividing of two of those generations of 14 is it identifies Jesus in a Hebrew sense with David he's telling his audience for those who understand what he's doing is that David is now represented in the person of Jesus Jesus is the new David and so why would it be that he has this new David and knew Moses well David and Moses played two of the three critical roles in the Old Testament Moses represents the priest of the

people to God he's the one that went to God on behalf of the the people David is the one that represents the king of the people for God and so the Old Testament themes of priest and King are found in these two individuals Matthew is taking those identities and wrapping them around Jesus Jesus is simultaneously both the new priest and the new king very interesting word uh play with words that Matthew's doing in a way that if you look close enough you see and appreciate what he's doing his early Jewish audience would have reveled at

reading it this way Matthew states that Jesus's family moved to Nazareth to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets he says this in this way that Jesus would be a Nazarene if you look at the Old Testament there's not actually a direct quote that's being quoted when it says that Jesus was going to be a Nazarene what it might actually allude to is this idea of a branch uh the word branch in Hebrew is nesser and so a a person who would be considered a Branch would be what we would refer to as a nin

and the idea there is that David is the branch of Jesse and that the branch of Jesse would live forever uh that there would always be one that God would bless and be on the throne of God God would always have as his King and so Jesus is that branch of David he is the king in fulfillment and he is the lawgiver of Moses and so all of this imagery is powerful in the gospel of Matthew and it's fun to read about Jesus is also Al presented in the gospel of Matthew as the son of

man now if you watch the lecture in Mark you'll see that this is not something new uh Jesus was the son of man in Mark and he probably borrowed some of that from the gospel of Mark but it certainly plays a role in The Gospel of Matthew Jesus uses the phrase son of man in Matthew in the context of either teaching about the imminent suffering of the coming Messiah or the second coming he has the two together well he he uses the phrase for the coming the suffering Messiah or the second coming when he refers

to the idea of the son of man and so he's using it a very specific way to help us identify that Jesus is human but he's going to be the Messiah who suffers uh another important theme that we see in the gospel of Matthew is the idea of Jesus's atoning death it's not just that Jesus is going to suffer we saw that in the gospel of Mark but that that suffering comes at there's a there's something that it does it accomplishes and it's an atoning death and there's some specific language that Matthew uses you don't

find in the other gospels to help us to understand this Matthew affirms the sacrificial system in the temple he talks about it regularly he has demonstrations of the temple sacrifices and Temple taxes that take place but he refers to the sacrifices in a unique way we see the concept of sacrifices all throughout the Bible Matthew refers to the word sacrifice as gift rather than the word sacrifice uh both terms are found in the Old Testament but sacrifice is much more frequent and is associated when you take it to the temple itself as a sacrifice this

draws attention to Matthew's usage of this idea of a gift there are passages where Matthew uh quotes or alludes to the Old Testament in which the Old Testament term is specifically sacrificed that he changes and uses the word gift for example when Matthew writes about the healing of the lepers in U Matthew 8:4 the uh writer he writes that Jesus commanded the leper to offer his gift that Moses prescribed which Alters what Mark writes in Mark 1:44 what Moses prescribed for your cleansing as a testimony to them Mark's account suggests that the healing is a

result of the sacrifice but Matthew separates the healing from the sacrifice and instead he turns the gift into more of an act of gratitude he does this a lot in his Gospel Matthew was evidently um uh beginning to cause his readers to rethink the concept of sacrifice um he was setting the stage for the understanding of the work of Christ as a Redemptive gift as a payment for something a new form of sacrifice his quote in Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17 shows that he saw Jesus as the Fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 53 the one whose

sacrificial death was the means of atonement for sins he quotes the chapter of Isaiah 53 more frequently than he quotes any other book of the entire Old Testament that one chapter alone he quotes more frequently than any other book in the Old Testament Matthew was teaching that Jesus was the one true an effective sacrifice that would make a payment it would be a gift and that all other sacrifices therefore Were Somehow less significant he's preparing the reader for the understanding that Jesus is going to pay the ultimate price for the sins of people G uh

the gospel of Matthew also talks about the Great Commission and also the inclusion of Gentiles in ways that you would not necessarily suspect if you think Matthew's only dealing with the Fulfillment of the Old Testament Matthew wrote wrote as an announcement that Jesus was the hope of Salvation to all people not just to the Jewish people though likely written for Jewish Christians it is a very inclusive letter for all who read it from all backgrounds for examples there are four Gentile women who are included in Matthew's genealogy people like Rahab and Tamar and Ruth these

are Gentile women that are included in the genealogy of Jesus not something that a Jewish person would typically do but it's indicating that the gospel is for all uh foreign wise men come to visit baby Jesus uh and provide gifts for him not Jewish leaders and even not later leaders of the Jewish Nation they don't recognize who Jesus is but foreigners do from the East somewhere they recognize that Jesus is the Messiah Matthew 3:6 warns that if Abraham's children reject Jesus God will raise up new children that are not part of Abraham again shocking stuff

or someone who's quoting Old Testament literature in Matthew 8:15 through 13 Jesus offered to enter the house of a Roman Centurion this would have been Unthinkable in his day for a rabbi to do uh but he he was doing this taboo thing because he was uh claiming that the Gentiles Faith exceeded the faith that he had counted in Israel he's saying that God's got faith outside of his people in Matthew 12: 15- 21 he identifies Jesus as the Fulfillment of Isaiah 42 1-3 a prophecy that climaxes with this promise that the Nations will put their

hope in his name Jesus is not just the hope of the Jewish people he's the hope of the Gentile Nations well we're glad of that because most of us aren't probably of Jewish descent and finally in Matthew 27:54 similar to what we see in the gospel of Mark Matthew has the Roman Centurion as the one who claims that this man is God's son it's a Roman Centurion that recognizes at the cross that Jesus is the son of God to conclude this lecture let's look at a few more themes that kind of help us to understand

the gospel of Matthew number one Matthew's influence on Christian worship and ethics uh let's emphasize how Matthew's teachings have shaped Christian worship particularly through the Lord's Prayer uh most Christian Traditions around the world throughout all of history have said the Lord's Prayer as part of their worship tradition we see that Matthew 69-13 and then also the Beatitudes in Matthew 51 13-12 are a significant portion of the practices of the Christian church and worship in the Christian church these passages are Central to Christian literature liturgy and ethics they influence not only uh personal piety but communal

worship and moral teaching as well another thing that is good for us to look at is how Matthew emphasizes discipleship uh let's highlight Matthew's ongoing significance his strong significance on discipleship the gospel repeatedly calls for a life of following Jesus as seen in passages like the Great Commission uh Matthew 28 19-20 and Jesus's teachings on the cost of discipleship in Matthew 16:2 24-26 Jesus presents discipleship as a holistic commitment that involves Faith ethical living and Mission you can't just say you follow Jesus you have to live out your faith let's look at the role of

the church Matthew's unique focus on the church as the Ecclesia or the Gathering of God's people particularly in passages like Matthew 161 18-19 and Matthew 18:1 15-20 uh are where these passages reflect an early understanding of what the church would look like and what the church's role is for the Christian Community of Believers dealing with issues of authority discipline and Community Life the other gospels don't deal with the concept of the church and this could be because Matthew is written a little bit later and so the church is now developed into a more of an

organism by this time but certainly his teachings on what the church looks like become foundational for the understanding of the church as well another important them to recognize in the gospel of Matthew is that the eschatological vision Matthew sees the second coming of the Messiah as critical for the early church uh Matthew's eschatological perspective is one that ends with end times and the return of Christ these are significant themes in Matthew the olette discourse in Matthew 24-25 not only provides a word for the future but also serves as a call to Readiness for the faithful

to live life in the present this eschatological Vision underscores the urgency of the Gospel message to impact Christians in the here and in life to come and finally let's look at Matthew's gospel as a unifying document Matthew's gospel serves as a unifying document for Jews and Christians that are Gentile bridging cultural and Theological divides this is evident in Matthew's genealogy the inclusiveness of his message to different PE of different peoples and the way that he carefully interprets Jesus's life and teachings to resonate with diverse audiences Jes Matthew is trying to portray Jesus as the Messiah

for the Jews and the Gentiles these points reinforce the theological depth practical significance and enduring influence of the Gospel of Matthew and the life of the church and of individual Believers now there are other things that we could look at in the gospel of Matthew uh I think it would be helpful just to kind of touch base with a couple of these uh before we close key themes in the gospel of Matthew if we took a little bit of a closer look are the ideas of the Kingdom of Heaven uh that is unique to Matthew

he refers to the kingdom of heaven where Mark talks about the kingdom of God uh this phrase Kingdom of Heaven occurs 30 different times in the gospel of Matthew uh emphasizing that the present and future reality of God's rule on on Earth so when he talks about Kingdom of Heaven it's this idea of the kingdom of the atmosphere that which is around us so God is around us but now he's in control over us um in the second one we would look at the Fulfillment of Old Testament scripture uh this theme is extremely important because

as I said a moment ago Matthew is known by his demonstration of the Messiah Jesus as the Fulfillment of Old Testament scripture he fulfills the Prophecies of the Old Testament he lives out the pattern of the Old Testament he is the new Moses he is the new Abraham he is the new David uh Jesus is the Fulfillment of the Old Testament Jesus functions as a teacher in Matthew greater than the other gospels specifically Mark and Luke uh he is a rabbi he's referred to as Rabbi which means teacher Matthew himself emphasizes him as a rabbi

or a teacher presenting him as the new Moses while bringing in a new law uh on the sermon uh on the mount there's also this concept of conflict and rejection that Jesus experiences when he's the Messiah he's the Messiah that's coming for the people and one would expect would be well received but instead he's rejected by the people uh an important theme finally is discipleship and Community Jesus makes it known that if you're going to follow him you have to lay everything else aside and be a true follower of his and that being part of

the community of the Faithful is a critical component to being in the body of Christ Matthew is a great book it's one of the longer books in the New Testament it's got the story of Jesus in it it helps us we can understand so much of the Gospel just with the gospel of Matthew alone it's a powerful book it's an inclusive book it's a book that shows Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Old Testament and it sets the foundation for the church and the actions of Christians in the New Testament and Beyond we are blessed

to have this book May God bless you all