Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

General preface

Introduction
Matthew among the Gospels
Some characteristics of Matthew’s Gospel
The origin of the Gospel
Central theological emphases of Matthew
The structure of Matthew’s Gospel

Analysis
Commentary

GENERAL PREFACE

The original Tyndale Commentaries aimed at providing help for the general reader of the Bible. They concentrated on the meaning of the text without going into scholarly technicalities. They sought to avoid ‘the extremes of being unduly technical or unhelpfully brief ’. Most who have used the books agree that there has been a fair measure of success in reaching that aim.

Times, however, change. A series that has served so well for so long is perhaps not quite as relevant as it was when it was first launched. New knowledge has come to light. The discussion of critical questions has moved on. Bible-reading habits have changed. When the original series was commenced it could be presumed that most readers used the Authorized Version and comments were made accordingly, but this situation no longer obtains.

The decision to revise and update the whole series was not reached lightly, but in the end it was thought that this is what is required in the present situation. There are new needs, and they will be better served by new books or by a thorough updating of the old books. The aims of the original series remain. The new commentaries are neither minuscule nor unduly long. They are exegetical rather than homiletic. They do not discuss all the critical questions, but none is written without an awareness of the problems that engage the attention of New Testament scholars. Where it is felt that formal consideration should be given to such questions, they are discussed in the Introduction and sometimes in Additional notes.

But the main thrust of these commentaries in not critical. These books are written to help the non-technical reader understand his Bible better. They do not presume a knowledge of Greek, and all Greek words discussed are transliterated; but the authors have the Greek text before them and their comments are made on the basis of the originals. The authors are free to choose their own modern translation, but are asked to bear in mind the variety of translations in current use.

The new series of Tyndale Commentaries goes forth, as the former series did, in the hope that God will graciously use these books to help the general reader to understand as fully and clearly as possible the meaning of the New Testament.

Leon Morris
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Extracts from the INTRODUCTION

1. Matthew among the Gospels

Modern readers of the Christian Gospels usually have their favourite. Some are drawn to John for its explicit presentation in simple language of profound truths about Jesus; some prefer the vivid, action-packed narrative of Mark; others relate most easily to the human interests and sympathies of Luke. But how many feel most at home in Matthew? It begins with a forbidding list of unknown names, and it deals at length with matters of law and tradition, of the fulfilment of the Jewish Scriptures and of Jesus’ confrontations with the Jewish leaders of his day. It seems somehow remote both from modern culture and from modern literary tastes. It is, in one modern commentator’s words, ‘a grim book’. Many, perhaps, are surprised to find it placed at the beginning of the New Testament, thus causing the unsuspecting new reader to plunge straight into a series of apparently irrelevant ‘begettings’!

Why then did the early Christians place Matthew first? For it is a remarkable fact that, among the variations in the order in which the Gospels appear in early lists and texts, the one constant factor is that Matthew always comes first.

Probably the main reason was the belief that it was the first Gospel to be written, a belief which only a minority of scholars would support today.We shall have more to say on this shortly. But it may also be worth remembering that the early Christians were conscious, in a way few Christians are today, that their faith had its roots in Judaism. The issue of the relation between the Christian church and the Jews remained a vital one both for the Christians’ self-understanding and for their presentation of Christ to the non-Christian world. And it is Matthew’s Gospel which more fully than the others provides a Christian perspective on this issue. In its constant reference to the Old Testament, its strong Jewish flavouring, its explicit discussions of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, it forms a fitting ‘bridge’ between Old and New Testaments, a constant reminder to Christians of the ‘rock from which they are hewn’.

Whatever the reason, Matthew’s Gospel was in fact more quoted in Christian writings of the second Christian century than any other. Its careful structure made it particularly suitable for use in the growing churches, both for the instruction of converts and for the training of church leaders, and its wide-ranging collection of Jesus’ teaching on the ethical demands of Christian discipleship (most obviously, but not only, in the Sermon on the Mount) ensured it a ‘bestseller’ rating among the earliest Christian writings.

But despite the preference given to Matthew, from quite early in the second century Christians agreed almost unanimously? that ‘the gospel’ had been given to the church in four authoritative versions, not just in one. Even Mark’s Gospel, however little it may have been used compared to the fuller Gospel of Matthew, was accepted alongside it. Many other ‘gospels’ were written in the second century and beyond, but none of them achieved acceptance alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Each of the four has a distinctive contribution to make to our knowledge and understanding of Jesus. It will be the main aim of this introduction, and a major concern of the commentary which follows, to draw out Matthew’s special place in the total witness to Jesus, both in his selection of material and in the way he has presented it. Prolonged study of Matthew constantly reinforces the impression that he was a skilful and imaginative writer, who both had clear convictions to convey to his readers and also was adept at communicating them through the medium of a written document. In studying Matthew’s Gospel, therefore, while our aim will always be, as Matthew would wish it to be, to learn about Jesus through the record of his life and teaching, we should not forget that it is Matthew’s version of the record which we are reading, and that it will therefore not be the same as that of Mark, Luke or John. In accepting that God intended his church to have four Gospels, not just one, Christians have also recognized that each has something different to say about Jesus. It is only after we have listened to each in its individuality that we can hope to gain the full richness which comes from the ‘stereoscopic’ vision of Jesus as seen through four different pairs of eyes!

2. Some characteristics of Matthew’s Gospel

A. A Jewish Christian Gospel
We shall consider in a later section the main theological interests of Matthew. All of them are those one would expect of a Jewish Christian: Jesus as the fulfilment of Old Testament hopes, the application of Old Testament texts to various aspects of his ministry, his attitude to the Old Testament law, and to the traditions of Jewish scribal teaching, his controversies with the official representatives of the Jewish religion and nation, the nature of the Christian church vis à-vis Judaism. These are the issues which must have been uppermost in the minds of those Jews who had recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and who now needed both to work out their own self-understanding in relation to their Jewish roots and to learn to present and defend the gospel among non-Christian Jews. ...

B. A Gospel for all nations
The same Gospel which records an initial limitation of the Christian mission to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ finishes with Jesus triumphantly sending the eleven out to make disciples of all nations, and many hints of this ultimate aim of his mission have occurred in the course of the Gospel. Thus the ministry of Jesus, for all its clearly Jewish roots, and its comprehensive fulfilment of the hopes and destiny of Israel, has broken out of the confines of Judaism and in so doing has brought to an end the exclusive privilege of the Jews as the people of God.

We shall discuss this theme of the church and Israel more fully below. ...

C. A Gospel for the church
Matthew’s Gospel is sometimes described as ‘the ecclesiastical Gospel’. This arises in part from the fact that this Gospel is the only one to include the term ekklesia (16:18; 18:17). The use of this term is taken to indicate that the author was writing in and for a formal Christian organization (and therefore probably towards the end of the first century, when ‘the church’ was becoming a more institutionalized body).

By itself this argument is very weak. ...

D. A carefully constructed Gospel
We shall consider the structure of the Gospel at the end of this introduction, and I shall then propose a detailed analysis. At this point we need only note that, whatever disagreements there may be about which is the dominant structural pattern, all who have studied Matthew’s Gospel in detail have been impressed by the care and literary artistry involved in its composition. We shall see that both in the overall structure of the Gospel, with its dramatic development and its clearly marked sections and repeated formulae, and also in the grouping of material in such a way that one episode throws light on another, Matthew has set about his task with skill. Symmetrical groups of teaching sections make for easy memorization, and sometimes a striking dramatic effect is achieved by the balancing of contrasting sections. We shall note such features in the commentary from time to time. To approach Matthew’s Gospel as a haphazard collection of unconnected stories and sayings is to miss much of what Matthew wants to communicate. ...

E. A scripturally based Gospel

All the Gospels contain frequent quotations of and allusions to the Old Testament, but in Matthew this feature is more pronounced. We shall consider below some of the more prominent features of Matthew’s appeal to the Old Testament, particularly his famous ‘formula-quotations’, and we shall consider them in the context of his overriding theological concern to present Jesus as the fulfilment of all the hopes and patterns of Old Testament Israel. No-one can doubt the importance of this theme for Matthew, nor can any attentive reader fail to notice his delight in drawing attention, either
openly or by more subtle allusion, to what may sometimes seem to us rather obscure links between Jesus and the Old Testament. ...