Matthew - The Record of Jesus the Messiah

If you read my previous post you are aware that I have been thinking a lot about the Bible lately. I have realized that it's been too long since I have really dug into the Bible and studied it in depth. Furthermore, through recent discussions I have also came to the conclusion that I need to touch up on my knowledge of Jesus and the gospels. So that is what I'm going to do. I started studying the book of Matthew, verse by verse, a couple of days ago. It has already proven to be a huge refreshment for my soul. If any of you are feeling the same way I am then I invite you to join me as I look in depth at the "record of Jesus the Messiah." I will be posting my thoughts on the gospel weekly and I welcome any comments or insights that I may have missed. Below is my reading plan.



I wanted to get some some context for Matthew so I did a little bit of research first. One of my favorite commentary series for personal Bible reading is "The New Daily Bible Series" by William Barclay. His commentary is both pastoral and scholarly, yet he writes in a way that anyone can understand. If you are interested in any of these just search his name at www.amazon.com and you can find his commentary for every book of the New Testament.

The book of Matthew along with Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels, which simply means "seen together." They get this title because they are very similar in their content and structure
while each of them have some unique additions and omissions. Even though they are similar they each have a different audience. For Matthew, his audience is the Jewish community. Barclay says, "It is Matthew’s primary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfillment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesus’ life was foreshadowed in the prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah."

Throughout Matthew's gospel the Old Testament Law is held in high esteem. This would be huge for a Jew because the Law was everything to them. Jesus says that he did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it (Mat. 5:17-20).

Matthew is also very interested in the Church. It is the only Synoptic gospel that even uses the word Church at all! Only Matthew says that disputes are to be settled by the Church (18:17). By the time Matthew was written, the Church would have been a very important part of the life of a Christian.

Barclay says that Matthew's dominating idea is that Jesus is King. We see that from the very beginning of the gospel that he demonstrates the royalty of Jesus. In fact the genealogy is simply to prove that Jesus is the Son of David. You have probably heard that title of Jesus before and Matthew uses that name for Jesus more than any other gospel. Matthew's picture of Jesus is of the man born to be King!