Most people think that the primary reason Jesus came was to die for our sins. It wasn’t. The primary reason He came was to establish the Kingdom of God. In order to conquer enemy territory, He had to defeat the most feared enemy of mankind—death. He did this through His death, burial, and resurrection. This was not the end, but the beginning, for through that He sent His Holy Spirit and established His New Covenant church, which would grow to spread His kingdom throughout the entire world. Kingdom theology permeates the entire Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
We in the West are blinded to this when we read the Scriptures because of our hyper-individualism. This hyper-individualism started, in essence, with the philosophy of John Locke, formed the basis of the Enlightenment, and remains with us today. We tend to look at the Scriptures from a micro perspective—what’s in it for me—but we neglect the macro perspective: the transformation of culture—medicine, academia, politics, the arts, literature, philosophy, architecture, and the rest. This is the Kingdom of God in a nutshell: the transformation of nations to conform to the Gospel.
Modern Gnosticism
We face a form of Gnosticism in modern Christianity in the West that values the soul but not the body or the material things of this world. “My salvation” seems most important. Indeed, salvation from sin and death is the most important aspect of our existence, for without it, we would be doomed. Yet, this is just the beginning. Our redemption does not only save our souls. It also includes our bodies as we look forward to the completion of our salvation at the resurrection of our bodies.
In regards to our existence here on earth, like ripples in a pond, the redemptive power of Christ through the Holy Spirit should permeate all of culture, transforming institutions and even nations. If we don’t have this holistic view of salvation, then we are living as Gnostics. Ancient Gnosticism viewed the spiritual realm as good and the material, including the body, as evil. There was a bifurcation of the person. When we take the view that “I am saved, but to Hell with the world,” then we are living as modern Gnostics.
I aim to show, in our study of the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus came to bring in the Kingdom of God and that the two reasons for this not happening are ignorance and unbelief. The first is excusable and is remedied by educating yourself on the true facts of the matter. The second is not excusable and is a grave sin, likened to the story of the ten spies in Numbers 13-14. Because they did not believe they could take the land, they were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they perished. I would contend that evil has proliferated in the world and we live in a spiritual wilderness in large part because of the ignorance or unbelief of Christians. The first I aim to remedy with this exposition of Matthew. The second is entirely up to you.
The Gospel of the Kingdom
What does the word “gospel” mean? The word itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “godspel,” which means “good news.” This is a translation of the Greek word euangélion, which, in turn, is a translation of the Old Testament Hebrew word bsorah.
What is interesting is that we can’t entirely understand the impact of this word in the New Testament unless we understand its Old Testament background. This brings up another important point and even a slight digression. To understand any text of the Bible, we must have a sound knowledge of three things: the author, the intended audience, and the purpose for writing. In the age of “Sola Scriptura,” which means that the “Bible alone” is all that people need, they completely neglect or, at best, lightly touch upon background studies crucial to truly understanding a text.
As far as the primary intended audience goes, it is not us. We are the secondary intended audience. The authors wrote all the books of the New Testament with a specific audience in mind, who had particular knowledge, needs, life situations, cultural settings, and difficulties. Unless we understand these things, we can never truly grasp the texts we are reading. The default for the modern reader becomes looking at these ancient texts through the lens of a modern cultural perspective. This leads to either a superficial understanding of the texts or, more often, an erroneous interpretation.
One of the unintended consequences of the Reformation is that Protestants treat almost everything written before 1517 as somehow anathema. As such, they deprive themselves of valuable resources—teachings by the early church fathers and church historians—that could shed light on knowledge that would greatly aid the interpretation of Scripture. This has dire consequences for our understanding of the Kingdom of God and our posture toward the world.
People often blame God for the evil in the world, but the responsibility for evil rests entirely with humans on two accounts. One is that there are evil people in the world who, by their free will, do evil things. The other is the fact that Christians are either ignorant of the tools they have to conquer evil or, like the ten spies in the Old Testament, simply don’t believe they can overcome the evil in the world and transform culture.
Matthew’s Intended Audience
This is where church tradition enters. Early church historians like Eusebius and church fathers like Tertullian include this. They were much closer to the original writings and the cultural milieus in which these texts were written. They understood these things much better than we do and, in many cases, shared the same culture. The bottom line is that we need to understand these early texts in the way their audience would have understood them, considering the cultural and biblical knowledge (or lack thereof, in the case of Gentile audiences) that they would have had.
This is why I cannot even begin to unpack the meaning of “gospel” or “good news” without first discussing the intended audience to whom Matthew was writing. Since many have jettisoned church tradition—either because they think it is unimportant or because they believe it somehow violates Sola Scriptura—I think it is a good idea to start with these things.
First of all, as I stated above, we are not the intended audience that Matthew had in mind, except for the fact that we are Christian. We can get an idea of the intended audience by looking at the information that Matthew provides and the information that he does not provide. What is the information that Matthew assumes we know, and what does he assume we don’t know? If we look especially at what Matthew does not tell us, we find that he assumes his audience already knows certain things.
Matthew was writing to an audience of Palestinian, Jewish, and Syrian Christians. They knew the Old Testament well. This is why he often includes Old Testament references. Sometimes, he includes partial references without explaining them. He assumed his audience already knew this information. If you read the Gospel of Mark, you’ll see a difference. Mark explains Jewish customs and stories in more detail. This is because he was writing to a Gentile audience.
The Author
The common title of this gospel is “The Gospel According to Matthew.” Interestingly, this title is not in the original text. Early church fathers attributed authorship to Matthew. Based on Sola Scriptura alone, we cannot be certain who wrote this gospel. The original text does not specify. This highlights why church tradition is an indispensable part of biblical studies.
Not much is known about the author from the texts, except that he was a tax collector before becoming an Apostle, was known as “Levi,” and that his father’s name was Alphaeus. He was probably good with numbers and genealogy, skills in which tax collectors particularly excelled. Of course, these skills came in handy when writing his gospel. Church tradition states that he was martyred in Ethiopia.
Purpose of Writing
Each book of the Bible intended an audience familiar with the content. The New Testament, like all books of the Bible, meant believers to read or hear it in community settings. This ties back to the issue of hyperindividualism. Today, most Christians believe they should read the Bible individually in a personal devotional setting. While personal reading isn’t wrong, the Bible intends for people to read and hear it in a community, not in a lecture format.
The Bible’s books were meant to be read, not only in a gathering but also in a liturgical gathering. The reading of Scripture was key to early church practices. It evolved over time as the church matured. When they gathered, one person, often a bishop, would read the Scriptures. Then, there would be prayer and singing. The main focus was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist. This was the primary reason for gathering. The reading of Scripture prepared them for the Eucharist. Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, inaugurating the New Covenant.
Matthew wrote to show that Jesus was the Davidic King. Israel had been waiting for the Messiah. Jesus descended from the line of David, as the Old Testament prophesied. As such, He was going to inaugurate God’s Kingdom on earth, not just for Israel but for the entire world. When Matthew’s audience heard “Messiah,” they thought of a real earthly kingdom, and they were correct, as we shall see.
Composition and Canonicity of Matthew
According to Eusebius, the 4th-century bishop of Caesarea, who was quoting Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis (c. 100–110), Matthew wrote his gospel in the dialect of the Jews of Palestine. “Everyone translated it as they could.” This language was not Hebrew, as Hebrew fell into disuse after the 6th-century B.C. Babylonian Exile. Instead, the Jews in Palestine used Aramaic. It was their dominant language, and Jesus spoke it. In fact, Matthew’s Gospel was the only New Testament text written in Aramaic. If someone had written it in Hebrew or Greek, most of his audience would not have understood it.
Matthew assumes his audience is familiar with Jewish customs and the Old Testament. It was written in Aramaic. Church tradition holds that the gospel was intended for a Palestinian Jewish-Christian audience.
There are no extant copies of the original Aramaic text. However, the Greek translation was accepted by the Church early on. There are allusions to it in the Didache (80–100), the First Letter of Clement of Rome (92–101), the Letter of Barnabas (80–100), and the Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred c. 108)., and the writings of St. Polycarp (martyred 156).
The Gospel records Jesus’ prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D. It does not reference the event as having already occurred. Scholars therefore date it from 50–70 A.D. The Church accepted the Greek text of Matthew early on. Every early canonical list includes it, and early Christians always identified its authorship with Matthew. Matthew wrote the earliest of the four Gospels. Scholars have debunked the early Mark theory, which 19th-century German Higher Criticism made popular and dominant.
Structure of Matthew
Matthew constructs a framework around the five discourses of Jesus. For Matthew, Jesus was the New Israel and the New Moses. So, it would only be appropriate to model his gospel after the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament written by Moses. Matthew constructed his Gospel as the New Pentateuch, and it is as follows:
Prologue: Then Genealogy of Jesu and the Infancy Narratives (1-2)
- John the Baptist, Early Ministry, Sermon on the Mount (3-7)
- Miracles and the Commisioning of the Twelve (8-10)
- Controvery and the Kingdom Discourse (11-13)
- Instruction to His Disciples (14-18)
- The Journey to Jerusalem and Olivet Discourse (19-25)
Conclusion: Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus (26-28)
Conclusion
I hope this is a good introduction to the study of Matthew. It also shows how to approach New Testament studies. Understanding the audience and cultural background is key. I will flesh it out as we go along—the Gospel of Matthew will come alive in new, fresh ways. In future posts, I’ll explore the Kingdom of God and its meaning for first-century hearers—and for us today.
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Deo Gratias!
Bibliography:
The Gospel of Matthew, RSV
I love Caravaggio, one of my favorites!
Indeed!
Saw Caravaggio in Rome recently. Mind blowing!