Week 6 - Chapter 6 - The Gospel According to Matthew

As everyone knows, Matthew’s Gospel is the first in placement in any New Testament – reflecting the prominence given to the Gospel in antiquity and also perhaps reflecting ancient thoughts on the order of composition (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John last of all).

Whereas Mark’s Gospel contains the bare essentials of the story of Jesus, along with parables and sayings, in a rather basic and concise format, Matthew’s Gospel reflects the expanded and mature development of the Gospel. According to de Silva, again, Matthew’s Gospel is directed particularly at early congregations – that is, communities of believers in Jesus – rather than being intended as essentially a vehicle for proselytizing. Authorship of Matthew’s Gospel is not certain, though its ascription to Matthew the disciple of Jesus (the tax collector) was part of early Church tradition. De Silva does a good job of summarizing current scholarly opinion that Matthew authored a compilation of Jesus’ sayings which was retained by communities founded by Matthew, and that somewhat later, that collection of sayings was combined with elements of the Gospel of Mark and other sayings and traditions to create the fully-developed Gospel that we see today. While Mark is generally believed to have been composed by a follower of Peter’s in Rome, de Silva notes that Matthew’s was probably composed in a Jewish-Christian community, in a geographical area where relations with non-Christian Jews were also significant, most likely in Syrian Antioch. The issues dealt with by Matthew would have been important to these communities, and, as de Silva also notes, Matthew refers to Jewish customs without elaboration, assuming the reader is familiar with them.

De Silva notes that Matthew does away with Mark’s careful structure and substitutes his own – in particular, the creation of five lengthy discourses, which it has been suggested by Bacon, were designed to create a “new Pentateuch.” Also, de Silva notes an alternate structural device, in which the Gospel is broken down into three parts, the first dealing with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and the last two consisting of Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God, followed by works confirming the coming of the Kingdom and teachings for the conduct of the Church.

The strength of the Jewish heritage in Matthew is noted by all commentators, but as de Silva indicates there is no agreement on whether the community in which and for which the Gospel was created was attempting to retain close relations with the synagogues and non-Christian Jews or not. What is certain is that there is material in Matthew that is severely condemnatory of the “traditional” strain of Judaism. It’s like Matthew is saying, “Look here, we are the true heirs of the Jewish traditions, the Prophets and the Covenant. Our forefathers often strayed into error, failing to heed the warnings of the prophets of former times, and now our fellow Hebrews are again failing to recognize God’s ultimate bringer of salvation, Our Lord and Messiah.” So, Matthew is on the one hand challenging the traditional Judaism which became embodied in Rabbinic Judaism, and which rejected Jesus, and also the non-Christian Gentile community – attempting to give recognition to the unique nature of the Christian-Jewish community which also included Gentile members as followers of Jesus.

Also noteworthy is the fact that whereas the disciples are presented as rather ignorant and lacking in perspicacity in Mark’s Gospel, Matthew portrays them, through some of the same narratives as Mark, as much more understanding and intelligent, comprehending the lessons of Jesus, despite the fact that they do abandon him at the time of the passion, as they also are depicted in Mark. Thinking of the fact that Mark’s Gospel was likely written by a follower of Peter’s, and Matthew’s was likely created in a community founded by Matthew the tax collector, I can imagine Matthew saying something like, “Speak for yourself, Peter.” Given their disparate backgrounds – Matthew was probably rather well educated in comparison to the poor fisherman Peter, it is not too surprising that Matthew’s Gospel, like Luke’s, seems to reflect the thoughts and experiences of a learned man. That is not to rule out the importance of divine inspiration – but it is apparent from the Gospels that the divine was able to make use of men and women from all backgrounds, if they repented and believed. It is this sort of understanding that can make the message of the Gospels alive and vibrant for our own day, in our own lives.