Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we are starting into the 27 books of the New Testament, beginning with the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew’s Gospel appears first in the New Testament, not because it was written first, but rather because it was the most popular Gospel in the Early Church.
In fact, the earliest book of the New Testament is not a Gospel at all. The earliest book is Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.
At first, all the stories about Jesus circulated orally. It wasn’t until the first eyewitnesses began to die off that the Early Church thought about writing down more detailed accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, his death, and resurrection.
Another thing to keep in mind is that none of the Gospels originally had titles. The titles came later. So, you might reasonably ask, where did the titles come from, these titles that suggest Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the authors of the four Gospels we have in our Bibles?
Eusebius was in many ways the first church historian. He lived in the fourth century and wrote about the history of the church up to that date. One of the important people Eusebius tells us about is one of the Early Church Fathers who lived in the first and second centuries. His name is Papias and Papias is the one who recounts different stories about how the Gospels came to be written.
Author
Papias is the one who tells us that Jesus’ disciple, Matthew, wrote a Gospel in Hebrew. That would be very helpful information, especially since it comes from someone living relatively close to the time of the first disciples. But none of the Gospels we have are written in Hebrew. They are all written in Greek. Furthermore, Matthew’s Gospel does not even read like a document first written in Hebrew and then copied into Greek.
So, how are we to figure out who wrote this Gospel attributed to Matthew? The main thing we have to go on is internal evidence. Now, there is no internal claim to authorship in this Gospel. The author does not begin by telling us who he is the way Paul does in his letters. But there are other important clues.
Perhaps the most important clue is that the author of Matthew’s Gospel copies 94% of the content of Mark’s Gospel and uses it in his own work. It’s not simply a matter of Matthew telling the same stories in a different way, from a unique angle. The author of Matthew actually uses many, though not all, the same words as in the Gospel of Mark. Matthew does this to such an extent that most modern scholars are virtually certain that the author of Matthew had a copy of Mark’s Gospel in front of him as he wrote. Add to that the fact that Mark’s Gospel is shorter than all the other Gospels (7000 words shorter than Matthew) and this makes it seem almost certain to me that Mark’s Gospel was the first. It does not seem likely to me that it worked the other way around, that Mark copied Matthew, because if that was the case, then why would he leave out as much as 7,000 words about the life and teaching of Jesus? That just doesn’t seem likely to me. It seems far more likely that the later Gospel writers added to the story rather than subtracting.
Now, this tells us something very important about the author or compiler of Matthew’s Gospel. It tells us that the person who put this Gospel together was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ life. An eyewitness would not need to copy from someone else’s work. An eyewitness would be more likely to simply tell what they had experienced of Jesus in their own words.
So, Matthew uses Mark as a source. Another thing we can determine from internal evidence is that the author of Matthew had a second source. The author of Luke is another Gospel writer who copies Mark. And Matthew and Luke have a source in common which they use to relate to us the teaching of Jesus. Scholars refer to this source as “Q” which is the first letter of the German word “Quelle” which means “source”.
So, Matthew uses Mark, and he uses Q. But then he also has a third source of material unique to him. We call this source “M” for “Matthew”.
We also know from internal evidence that the author of Matthew’s Gospel must have been a Jew. This is the most Jewish of all four Gospels and yet, at the same time, this Jewish author, at times, expresses hostility toward his fellow Jews. This fact has led modern scholars to surmise that Matthew’s Gospel was written by a Jew living in the time after the Church and the Synagogue separated. This happened after one of the greatest cataclysms of the first century—the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in AD 70. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each contain Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, but Mark’s Gospel speaks of it in a somewhat vague manner that suggests Mark’s Gospel was written before the event. Matthew and Luke are much more specific about how the destruction happened and so these two Gospels were probably written after the event.
Date
Internal evidence from the Gospel of Matthew thus leads most modern scholars to date the writing of this Gospel after AD 70. Another Early Church Father, Ignatius of Antioch, quoted from Matthew’s Gospel in about AD 110. These facts lead most scholars to date Matthew’s Gospel to the last quarter of the first century. Some scholars suggest that Matthew was an anonymous Jew living in Syrian Antioch, Ignatius’ hometown, and that he was among the second generation of followers of Jesus. For lack of any other name, I shall hereafter refer to the author of this Gospel as Matthew.
Themes
As I have already pointed out, Matthew’s Gospel is the most Jewish. Matthew does more to bridge from the Hebrew Scriptures to Jesus than any of the other Gospels. He does this in a number of ways. For example, Matthew pictures Jesus as fulfilling Hebrew prophecy. Over and again, Matthew tells us, “this took place to fulfill” and then he quotes some Hebrew Scripture. Matthew quotes the Old Testament more than any other New Testament author.
Another distinctive of the Gospel of Matthew is his infancy narrative. Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels which tell us anything about Jesus’ early life. They are also the only books in the New Testament which talk about the virgin birth. Matthew presents Jesus as “The Man Born to Be King”, to use the title of one of Dorothy Sayers’ books. In fact, the major theme of the Gospel of Matthew is the King and his Kingdom.
In many ways, Matthew also presents Jesus as a second Moses. In fact, Matthew’s entire Gospel is structured around five great blocks of Jesus’ teaching…
Structure
The manner in which Matthew arranges his material reveals that he was, in a sense, a great artist. One might even claim that the author was obsessive-compulsive. Matthew is the type of person who, upon entering his own living room and noticing a picture hanging crooked on the wall would adjust it. If the candles on the mantlepiece were not arranged in a precisely symmetrical manner, Matthew would make sure that they were so arranged.
Thus, Matthew’s Gospel also has a perfect symmetry to it…
- First discourse: The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
- Second discourse: The Teaching & Commissioning of the 12 apostles (Matthew 10)
- Third discourse: Parables of the Kingdom (Matthew 13)
- Fourth discourse: Life in the Kingdom (Matthew 18)
- Fifth discourse: The Olivet Discourse concerning the End of the Age (Matthew 24-25)
As I said earlier, these five discourses present Jesus as a new Moses. Just as Moses wrote five books of the Law, so Jesus presents five great blocks of teaching in this Gospel. In fact, Matthew’s Gospel, in a way, is a new Torah. There is more to find here than teaching, but everything else in this Gospel is arranged “just so” around these five great discourses. The narrative sections lead up to the discourses and each discourse concludes with “When Jesus had finished saying these things” or similar words. (See 7:28; 11:1; 1353; 19:1; 26:1.) The Gospel also has a very fitting prologue (chapters 1 and 2) and a challenging epilogue (28:16-20).
Key Concept—The Man Born to be King
For the rest of our time together, I would like to focus on a part of Matthew’s Gospel that many people skip over when reading it. I would like to focus on Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. What can we learn from the King’s family tree? I believe that Jesus’ family tree teaches us at least five things about our faith.
First of all, it teaches us that we have a faith rooted in history. Myron Augsburger tells the following story:
During a preaching mission in India in 1969, I learned of a young Hindu man who came to Christ by reading the first chapter of Matthew. When asked what there was about the genealogy which led to his conversion, he stated that for the first time he had found a religion which is actually rooted in history in contrast to the mythology of Hinduism and Buddhism. Matthew roots his Gospel in history, beginning with the lineage of the King.
A second thing we can learn about our faith from Matthew’s genealogy is that we have a faith which rejoices in the King. Matthew’s genealogy begins: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Christ means “anointed one”. And there were three types of people who were anointed with oil in the Old Testament before assuming their respective offices: prophets, priests and kings. Jesus fulfills all of these offices. That is why he is called the Christ, or the Messiah. He can rightly be called: King Jesus.
The main point of Matthew’s Gospel is to prove that Jesus is the son of David and the rightful heir to the throne. It is interesting to note that in numerology the number 14 is the equivalent of the name David. Matthew is telling us in the structure of this genealogy, with its three segments of 14 generations each, that Jesus is another David, the Messiah par excellence—Jesus is the King of kings. Or another way of looking at this genealogy is to say that there are six segments of seven generations each and Jesus is at the beginning of the seventh segment of seven generations. The number seven in numerology is a number representing God and God’s holiness and perfection. So, the person occupying the place of the seventh seven in a family tree is a very special person indeed.
A third thing we can learn from this genealogy is that we have a faith which recognizes divine providence. The three stages of this genealogy form, as it were, a slanted N, moving upward to Jesus. First you have the upward movement from Abraham to David. You have the great time of the patriarchs moving to the golden age of David’s kingship in Israel. But then you have a downward trend, following David’s sin with Bathsheba, and Solomon’s apostasy, which leads to many wicked kings who follow in Solomon’s footsteps, until those footsteps lead all the way into exile. But then the Lord shows his faithfulness to his people by bringing them out of exile and back into the Promised Land in time for the Messiah to be born in just the right place according to the prophecies of the Old Testament.
Some people question Matthew’s mathematical accuracy at this point. But it is important to recognize that Matthew purposely does not record every generation in Jesus’ family tree. Matthew arranges things in such a way as to fulfill his own didactic and mnemonic purpose. Matthew is trying to provide a genealogy that can be remembered by those to whom he is writing, people who wouldn’t have copies of his gospel to carry around with them. They must carry the message in their heads and in their hearts. So, Matthew is also writing to make a theological point—namely that God can bring good out of evil; God can bring the Messiah out of the wicked kings of the past and thus bring his people out of exile.
Fourth, we see in this genealogy that we have a faith which revels in God’s power.Matthew’s genealogy begins with a supernatural birth—Isaac born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. And Matthew’s genealogy ends with another supernatural birth—Jesus born to the virgin Mary. Notice that Matthew says, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” In strong contrast to the rest of the genealogy, Matthew never says that Joseph begat Jesus. Why? Because he didn’t.
Finally, we see in this genealogy that we have a faith which relies on God’s grace. It is highly unusual to find women’s names in an ancient Jewish genealogy. And yet we find the mention of 5 women here: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary.
All of these women, except for Mary, were Gentiles, alien to the people of God. Judah got a wife for his son Er, presumably from among the Canaanite people, and her name was Tamar. Rahab was a Canaanite. Ruth was a Moabite, a descendant of the incestuous Lot, the nephew of Abraham. There was a curse on the Moabite people. Bathsheba had been married to Uriah who was a Hittite. This shows us that our God is no narrow nationalist or racist. If even Gentiles could be included in the family tree of the Messiah, then all types of people can be included in God’s family.
4 out of 5 of these women were suspected of, or actually committed adultery. Judah and Tamar committed adultery with one another, resulting in the births of Perez and Zerah. Rahab had been a prostitute in Jericho before Joshua and his men took the city. Bathsheba and David committed adultery with one another. Ruth was not an adulteress. But then there was Mary who was suspected of adultery. I think that Matthew is trying to tell us that God works in some mysterious ways and through some surprising people.
Jesus’ genealogy also includes some of the evilest kings of the Old Testament: Joram, Ahaz, Amon. What are we to make of this? We may conclude that God did not stoop into our sordid human story at Christmas only; he was stooping all the way through the Old Testament.
When I was in high school, I acted in a play by Oliver Goldsmith entitled: She Stoops to Conquer. It’s a great title. In fact, “He Stoops to Conquer” could be the title of the Bible if you think of it as one long narrative. Stooping to conquer is exactly what our Lord did throughout the entire Old Testament, and that is supremely what he did in his incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas. In order to conquer sin, God stooped down to become a human being. He became part of sinful humanity. The reason why he stooped in this way was in order to conquer sin, by paying sin’s penalty for people like you and me. He had to be fully human to pay that price, but he also had to be fully divine, and sinless, in order to pay for the sins of humanity. Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus reveals to us a God who stoops in love to conquer sin.
What application is there for us in all of this? First: Be patient in waiting for God’s answers. God always keeps his word. God promised in the Old Testament times that he would send a Messiah, a king, to save his people from their sins, and he did. God will keep his promises to you as well.
Second: Matthew’s genealogy helps us to recognize that all Scripture has value, even the seemingly boring genealogies have value. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful . . .” When we lived in Ireland, I taught a Bible study in the home of Doug and Merrie Gresham. The first book we studied was Matthew’s Gospel and we started with the genealogy of Jesus. That night, a woman who was visiting the group gave her life to Jesus Christ. God used the genealogy of Jesus to touch that woman’s life with his grace. I wonder: Have you come to the God of grace who stoops to conquer sin? Have you come to the one who reveals himself as king through this wonderful genealogy? You may feel like an outcast today, but God wants to include you in his family through Christ if you will just receive his love and forgiveness.
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