The Gospel of Matthew was addressed to
an early Church community of primarily Jewish converts with an increasing
Gentile composition, aiming to establish the messiahship of Jesus in
fulfillment of the promise made by God. To this end, there are frequent
citations from the Old Testament. A popular outline of the Gospel is to divide
it into five parts, each consisting of a narrative and a discourse of Jesus.
The five parts are preceded by a prologue of Jesus’ Davidic birth and infancy,
and closed by an epilogue relating to his passion, death and resurrection. Part
One of the Gospel is Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the discourse of which
is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, inclusive of the Eight Beatitudes and the Lord’s
Prayer, which are among the most popular Biblical passages in the Christian
heritage.
The narrative of Part One includes the
ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, his temptation in the wilderness
and the beginning of Galilean ministry. It begins with portraying John the
Baptist as the one to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah in Isa 40:3, “A voice cries
out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert
a highway for our God”. John the Baptist was calling for repentance of the
people from their sins, thus preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah in
fulfillment of Old Testament. Many came to him for baptism, among them was
Jesus. All the three Synoptic Gospels covers the baptism of Jesus but the
narrative in Matthew differs from that in Mark and Matthew in a couple of ways.
In the narrative in Matthew, there is a unique dialogue between John the
Baptist and Jesus. No doubt, John the Baptist recognized that Jesus was greater
than him (as in the other two Gospels) but it is Jesus who had also taken a
more active stance in confirming his messianic position. Jesus said, “Let it be
so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness” (Mt
3:15). Jesus’ accepted the baptism by John the Baptist and explained that it
was a fulfillment of God’s salvific plan in preparation for the impending coming
of the “kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33). Secondly, the words in
the Father’s voice from heaven are also slightly different. In Matthew, it is:
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with
whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17), while the other two Gospels read “You are my Son, the Beloved …” According
to Matthew, God the Father not only recognized Jesus as His beloved Son, but
only publicly proclaimed His affirmation to the people. The messianic message
is thus particularly strong in Matthew.
Matthew’s narrative of the temptation of
Jesus is partly taken from “Q” source. The forty days of fasting of Jesus recalls
the testing of the Israelites in the wilderness where they began to worship the
golden calf after waiting Moses for forty days and nights (c.f. Ex 34:28).
Their infidelity reflects human weaknesses. On the contrary, Jesus’ temptation
in the wilderness shows that God is our rock and our fortress. All the
responses made by Jesus to Satan are taken from the Old Testament: Deut 8:3 on
man living not by bread alone but by God’s words; Ps 91:11-12 on the angels
protecting him to avoid dashing his foot against a stone; Deut 6:16 on not
putting the Lord your God to the test; and Deut 6:13 on serving the Lord your
God alone. The narrative sent out a clear message that man should seek for the
true riches coming out from the mouth of God and not the material riches of the
world. Indeed, it was hunger for the word of God that drew the crowds first to
John the Baptist and then to Jesus.
The narrative of Part One ends with
Jesus going to Galilee to begin his ministry. Again, a fulfillment citation from
the prophet Isaiah (Isa 9:1-2) is made. Galilee is highlighted in Matthew as
“Galilee of the Gentiles”, which is
parallel to “Galilee of the nations”
in Isaiah as the place had once been repopulated by Gentiles upon the fall of
Samaria to the Assyrians, although in Jesus’ days it was predominately Jewish.
The highlight in Matthew can thus serve a dual purpose of addressing the
audience who was primarily Jewish converts with a growing population of
Gentiles. Moreover, there is a special mention that Jesus’ fame spread throughout
all Syria which is not found in the other Gospels, which may be due to the
possibility that Matthew was written in Syria or targeted at the early church
community in Syria.
The discourse of Part One begins with
the Eight Beatitudes, which is not found in Mark and was taken from the “Q”
source. In Matthew, Jesus made the Sermon on the “Mount” as opposed to a level
place (i.e. a plain) in Luke. It recalls the figure of Moses who gave the Ten
Commandments received from God to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. There are
eight beatitudes in Matthew (some say nine with the last divided into two)
while there are only four beatitudes in Luke, followed by four woes which
provide a point-to-point antithesis to the earlier four blessings. The four
beatitudes in Luke, which correspond generally to first, fourth, second and
eighth beatitudes of Matthew, are more focused on the issues of this material
world. It is plausibly that Matthew added some spiritual components in these
four beatitudes (e.g., “poor” became “poor in spirit”; hungry” became “hunger
and thirst for righteous”) and also included four additional beatitudes which
are not found in Luke (for the “meek”, “merciful”, “pure in heart” and
“peacemakers”) that are closely related to Christian values and ethics. The
Eight Beatitudes of Matthew emphasize on God’s blessings to be given to the
believers in the new age which has already begun with the coming of Jesus. They
become part of the core teaching in the Church and in catechism.
The Eight Beatitudes is followed by the
ethics of Jesus as the new lawgiver, in which there is a famous saying of Jesus
not found in the other Gospels, “Do you think that I have come to abolish the
law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil” (Mt 5:17). To
Matthew, the teaching of Jesus is essentially a fulfillment of the Old
Testament and not a supersession of it. On the other hand, in the discourse, Jesus
shed light on the “new commandment” which has put heavy emphasis on “love your
neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). Jesus is exemplary in this regard to the
extent of giving up his own life for the salvation of our sins. Specifically, he
“re-invented” six specific instances in the Law of Moses to demonstrate that he
is more authoritative than Moses and concluded with another famous saying in
Matthew to invite us to imitate God the Father, “Be perfect, therefore as your
heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:49). It is also significant to notice that
the Father has become not only the Father of the “Son of God”, but also “our
Father in heaven” through the adoptive Father-Son relationship with Jesus as
the mediator.
Another major component of the discourse
of Part One is the Lord’s Prayer, which was taken from the “Q” source. Matthew includes
the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:9-13) in the Sermon rather than after it (as in Luke)
and it was Jesus who proactively taught his disciples to say the Prayer instead
of being asked by them to do so. These further enhance the significance of the
Prayer in Matthew. No doubt the Lord’s Prayer was an original invention of
Jesus for the benefit of his disciples, there are nevertheless many Old
Testament references that make up its various themes. “Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name”: a reference is found in the book of Ezekiel on the
Lord’s saying to Israel on sanctification of His name, “I will sanctify my
great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have
profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezek
36:23). By appealing to his disciples to sanctify the holy name of God, Jesus
is in effect also asking them to spread the good news to the rest of the world.
“Your kingdom come”: a reference is found in Mic 4:1-8 on the ideal age when
“many nations shall come and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord … they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks … The lame I will make the remnant and those who were cast off, a
strong nation”. The Lord said, “the former dominion (kingdom) shall come, the
sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem”. Jesus is inviting us to pray for the
arrival of the ideal Kingdom of God to earth, i.e. yearning for eschatological
salvation by complying with God’s will, “Your will be done, on earth as it is
in heaven”.
On our daily necessity, Jesus teaches us
to say, “Give us this day our daily bread”: a reference is found in Proverbs,
“give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need” (Prov
30:8). God will take care of our daily needs and we should not ask for more than
what we actually need. “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our
debtors”: a reference can be found in the Sabbath Year in Deut 15:1-18, which
is the year for granting a remission of debts. “Debts” can be extended
spiritually to sins, where Jesus is asking us to imitate God the Father who is
always merciful on His forgiveness of people who has sinned against Him. In
fact, we are all sinners and Jesus tells us that he would welcome all sinners
to repent, “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mt 9:13).
“And do not bring us to the time of trial”. It refers to a desire to escape
from the “fearful day of the Lord”, symbolizing great distress and pain.
Allusions can be found in Jer 30:7, Isa 13:6 and Joel 2. “But rescues us from the
evil one”: a reference is found in Psalms, “The Lord loves those who hate evil;
he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the
wicked” (Ps 97:10). When it is read in conjunction with the previous phrase,
Jesus is asking us to pray for resistance to the temptation of Satan so as to
escape from the dreadful punishment of the Lord. He did it by example during
his own trial at Gethsemane before he was handed over to be crucified. In some
manuscripts of Matthew, there is an additional doxology to conclude the Lord’s
Prayer, “For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours, forever. Amen”,
which was possibly an addition based on 1 Chr 29:11. While this concluding
phrase is not found in the Vulgate and thus not considered canonical by the
Roman Catholic Church, the ascription has nevertheless been included in the
liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass. The different themes of the Lord’s Prayer come
perfectly together as an ideal prayer to God the Father.
The last part of the discourse of Part
One is on further instructions on the behavior for the Kingdom, which was also
drawn from “Q”. It aims to remind the believers that they should devote
themselves to God and the heavenly things that are eternal. Included in this
part is the famous “Golden Rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have
them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Mt 7:12). Again Matthew
mentioned “the law and the prophets” (not found in Luke) to stress on the
continuation from the Old to the New Testament, so as to address the needs of
the intended audience. The discourse ends with a standard formula of “When
Jesus had finished saying these things …” and also a judgment on the scribes that
Jesus’ teaching is unlike theirs.
Bibliography
Brown, Raymond Edward. An
Introduction to the New Testament. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2007. Print.
Brown, Raymond Edward., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E.
Murphy. The New Jerome
Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Print.
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