Teaching and Preaching in Matthew’s Gospel
2001-08-31
The Scope of Matthew’s Gospel
The Gospel of Matthew ought to have a great appeal to Jewish people. Starting with Jesus’ ancestry through Abraham with the emphasis that He is the Son of David, the Gospel begins with a Jewish motif that is traced throughout the book. With this theme in mind, Matthew wants to stress that Jesus is the expected Messiah, using the Scriptures to reinforce this fact.
Secondly, Matthew shows the Messiah as One who not only fulfills the Scriptures, but also was bringing the kingdom of heaven in a way that people did not expect. Kingdom living was to begin with Jesus’ preaching and to continue to the time when He would return (when he would establish the literal kingdom). Matthew throughout his Gospel juxtaposes Jesus’ teaching and the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. As in the ancient times when the Israelites chased after the Baals, the religious leaders of the day turned to a new heresy of self-righteousness that is as equally sordid to God.
With these themes in mind, preaching and teaching from Matthew could benefit all people, but probably would be a good place to start with new Jewish believers and Jewish people who are responding to the Gospel of Jesus. In addition, all believers can see the battle between true kingdom living and the heresy of mundane ceremonial religions clearly. There is no better way to get to know Jesus and His teachings than from His words, which greatly expound the spiritual level of the law that had been often forgotten by the Jewish people. These lessons lead people to realize their need of Jesus as savior and a new revitalized life that comes out of living for Him in His kingdom.
The Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount shows there is more to the law than its ceremonies, but a heart that lives for God. There is more to adultery than just the act. There is more to divorce. Our motivations need to be examined when we pray, fast, and do charitable deeds in public. In preaching and teaching, many studies and applications emerge from Matthew’s gospel to really show people what is going on in their hearts. God has given the carefully preserved words of Jesus to us that we might pray and meditate on them, and that the Spirit of God might truly convict our hearts to change.
The juxtaposition of the Jesus-focused life with other lifestyles is brought out as well. Jesus speaks about the ‘strait gate’ in 7:13-14, and about knowing false prophets by their fruit in 7:15-20. People that live the Kingdom way, which is the will of God, will enter the kingdom of heaven (v. 21). Those who lay the foundations of their lives on the Rock will be left to stand. Surely there is more to being Christian than to be a pew-sitter on Sunday, and these sayings of Jesus are central to preaching and teaching from all of the New Testament epistles.
Miracles
Miracles in Matthew mark the chapters thereafter, showing Jesus’ authority as King even over natural phenomena such as the sea, sickness (as with Peter’s mother-in-law, Matthew 8:14-15), spiritual phenomena (such as the men with many demons in the country of the Gergesenes, 8:28-32), paralysis, hemophilia, blindness, dumbness and even death. He also gave such authority to the disciples when he sent them out. These things are characteristics of the kingdom of heaven and show the power of its King. When He sends the disciples, they are to preach likewise that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The teaching here is not only about the power of Jesus, but that His message needs to be communicated by those who are His.
The confrontation of Jesus and the religious leaders comes to show how, despite Jesus doing great things, people in their own pride do not want to submit to Him. Jesus had formerly said that the religious leaders do everything they do to receive the reverence of the masses and to have power. They blaspheme the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31) because they know God’s power was at work, yet they refuse to recognize the power as God’s. Because they were a stiff-necked people like their ancestors before them, they refused to believe it. In teaching God’s people, we must remind ourselves that we are the same way. Despite how many times we see God working in our lives, we easily get lost in the world and begin to live by the world’s kingdom instead.
Parables
After this confrontation, there is more exhortation of two kinds of living. There is the seed that produces the fruit and the three that do not. From here the focus moves from miracles to parables because of the rejection of Jesus. By parable Jesus taught people about the kingdom of God that He might separate those who are truly interested in Him and His message and not just what He can do for them by miracles. As for us, we should be motivated by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus. Our hearts should be right with God. Are there other motivations we have for following Jesus? Is it because of habit, or some other non-Christian motivation? We see in Matthew people that get puzzled by His parables and just walk away. The life and parables of Jesus in the book of Matthew show that compromise of the Gospel is not a part of God’s program. Countless parables of Jesus portray this, and it is imperative to teach that Jesus needs to be everything in our lives from the passages of Matthew.
Matthew emphasizes the necessity of kingdom living that Jesus taught. He also shows a foreshadowing of the coming kingdom with the Transfiguration and the triumphal entry. The former is found in all the Synoptic Gospels; the latter is in all four Gospels. These show the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Spreading the Good News
There probably has never been any missions conference these days that skips over the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. Just as Jesus preaches about the kingdom during His earthly ministry, we are to teach others that the kingdom is irrupting into the world through the preaching of the Gospel, though it is not completely here in its fullness. We know that all authority belongs to Jesus. We know that people from all nations need to hear about the great things He has done, and that they need to observe His command to trust in Him. Regardless of persecution that might come (5:10-11, 20:22-23), He will be with us to the very end.
With these things in mind, we can show the Jewish nation that Jesus is who He claims to be: the Messiah of Israel. Two things really stand out when teaching or preaching from Matthew. First, we need to live like citizens of Jesus’ kingdom. Then we need to be telling others about the kingdom (to be fully revealed in the Millennium), showing the Jewish nation that He is the One to be expected to come at the end of the age. The kingdom extends to all people regardless of who they are and where they have been in their lives. This is where the thrust for teaching from Matthew lies.