Matthew- An Introduction

 Matthew is the first account of the New testament, although it was written later than Mark; 90% of the material in Mark can be found in Matthew. It is as if Matthew is a "second edition" of Mark. The authorship is anonymous and may have been mistakenly identified to be from Mark the tax collector as the church leader Papias mentioned in his writings that "the tax collector was collecting and gathering sayings of Jesus." We know that Matthew was a devout  and educated Jewish- Christian and knew Jewish heritage and scripture better than the authors of the other Gospels. Theologians believe the text was written in Antioch probably in the late 70s to early 80s  or even in the 90s AD. There are several passages about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (which occurred in 70 AD). The idea of Antioch comes from the fact that many of the "Matthew only" stories involve Peter who lived most of his life in Antioch.

Matthew's Gospel is often called the teacher's Gospel as it focuses primarily on the teaching ministry of Jesus. There is a heavy emphasis on understanding Scripture and then teaching it to others. Others call Matthew's Gospel the accountant's Gospel, because Matthew pay very close attention to details. In Matthew, numbers seems to be important. Many of his stories are repeated twice (or have the number two in them)- possibly to represent the duality nature of Christ; many stories have three parts or three characters- possibly for the trinity; Matthew has seven parables of the the kingdom of heave (seven is a sacred number);; he tells of twelve prophecies that were fulfilled (twelve disciples). There are a few others- let's watch for them!

Jesus exhibits less human frailty in Matthew than in Mark or Luke. The disciples show more potential for growth in Matthew while in contrast, the religious leaders of Israel come off looking worse in Matthew than the other Gospels. Matthew makes many references to the Hebrew prophets and the words "to fulfill the prophecies written by the prophets" is used often. The thought that Matthew is placed first in the Gospel sequence along with the number of Hebrew prophecies is to "convince" Jews to convert to Christianity. If you are going to read a new anthology of stories- start with the first one (Matthew).

There are several interesting points made in Matthew and we will discuss them as they come up.

I hope you enjoy this account of Jesus' life.