Smoodock's Blog

As we’ve already come to understand, the Gospel records are ancient biographies of Jesus, mostly narrating the final three-and-one-half years of his life. Matthew begins with what can be called: Abraham’s genealogy up to the birth of Jesus, the Christ or Messiah (Matthew 1:1-16). Thus, Matthew seeks to show his readers that through Jesus, God would perform his promise to Abraham, saying: “…And through you, I will bless all nations” (Genesis 12:3), vis-à-vis Jesus had come, not only as the Messiah for the Jews, the children of Abraham, but he had come to bless all nations!

The earliest traditions of the Church have Matthew, the Apostle and former tax-collector, whom Jesus called to be one of his disciples, as the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover, contrary to popular scholarly thought, I take the position that Matthew was written very early, in the 30s AD, and the first Gospel narrative to be written. It makes absolutely no sense to me, if the Apostles intended to reach the world, but remained in Jerusalem as long as was possible,[1] that they wouldn’t have written down an account of Jesus’ life and teachings for those pilgrims who came to Jerusalem from all over the Roman and Parthian Empires and returned to their respective homes. If they were to make disciples of them, selected leaders would have taken a copy of Matthew back to their local synagogues. This makes sense, but an oral tradition of an unwritten Gospel of Matthew that was penned only after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple does not make any sense, especially if the Apostles were to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples.

Matthew designed his narrative of Jesus’ public life, not bound by literal chronology, but according to certain themes, which he used to prove Jesus was the Jews’ long-awaited Messiah, and he does this by describing Jesus’s life as a parallel or fulfillment of the whole of Jewish history. He begins by showing that Jesus arose from the Davidic royal line, and is, therefore, the Messiah (Matthew 1:1-17). Not only so, but he shows that Jesus is also the Prophet, whom Moses predicted would come, the Prophet who would be like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). Finally, Matthew culminates his narrative by showing that Jesus, the Messiah, is Emmanuel, which is a Hebrew term for “God with us!” (Matthew 1:23; 28:9-10, 18-20).

Matthew’s Gospel is a brilliant literary work, having an introduction and a climax, which bookends five specific sections that narrate Jesus’ mighty works and teachings. We could describe the first three chapters of Matthew as an introduction, containing the genealogy, the birth narrative and Jesus’ baptism. Matthew presents his testimony by showing how Jesus fulfilled the scriptures, paralleling Jewish history. For example, Moses came out of Egypt, so Jesus came out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15). Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea to bring Israel into the Promised Land, and Jesus parted the heavens (Matthew 3:16; cp. Luke 3:21 and Genesis 1:6-8) after his baptism to bring mankind back to the Father. Moses led Israel in the wilderness for forty years, and Jesus was in the wilderness of people (Ezekiel 20:35) for forty days (Matthew 4:1-2). Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Law for the people, and Jesus went up on a mount or hill and taught the people, and this is recorded in what we know as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

Finally, Moses wrote what is called the five books of the Law or Torah, and Matthew divides his narrative of Jesus’ public life into five sections, like books, that describe what Jesus said and did throughout his three-and-one-half-years of public life. So, just as Moses became Israel’s covenant teacher, Jesus fulfilled Moses’ teaching history through Matthew’s five divisions of Jesus’ public life. Thus, Jesus became the teacher of the New Covenant (cp. Jeremiah 31:31-34).

The problem with the scholars’ understanding of the time, when the Gospel of Matthew was written, is that their version is too late for Matthew’s Gospel to make any sense. By the time the scholars **say** Matthew was written, more and more gentiles, who had little or no knowledge of Jewish history, were coming to the faith. Why would Matthew go to such great lengths to prove **to Jews** that Jesus was the Messiah, using parallels to their history, if, for all intents and purposes, all the Jews who were going to receive Christ as their Messiah, during the first century AD, had already done so? By the time the scholars conclude Matthew was written, the times of the gentiles receiving Jesus as their Savior was beginning in earnest? The scholarly interpretation of these things makes no sense at all to me, because the Gospel of Matthew is too Jewish for them to be correct!

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[1] Jerusalem was a unique evangelical tool for Jesus’ Apostles. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims journeyed to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Jewish Holy Day seasons (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles) and to commemorate national holidays (Hanukkah and Purim). Missionary work, traveling around the world, would have been less productive.