Episode 14 - Introduction to Matthew

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Introduction

What’s up, guys!

This is Josh with Shepherd’s Cast and I want to welcome you to the podcast where I talk to you about the things that I find important. My content is meant to inform, educate, puzzle, or be funny. If it does something other than what I’ve just said, then Soli Deo Gloria, we will just call it providence. All of what I say is read from blog posts that I have written and can be found on my website with the link in the show notes.

So, anyway, yeah, here we go…

Episode

I’ve avoided diving into a plan or series where I would break down an entire book of the bible for a podcast seemingly because I felt it could be a never ending series. But the problem I really needed to address was how I wasn’t avoiding it because I wasn’t interested or because it would be too long, really, I was just being lazy. It would mean I would have to dive into the genealogies and take a chance of publicly mispronouncing a name, and coming to the transfiguration and giving a well-studied interpretation that may, or may not be fully correct. But it has been made apparent that I should not shy away from possible hard texts and more study but welcome it into my life, thanks to John Piper. In his book “Brothers, we are not Professionals,” he basically makes the case that we should ponder over and chew on hard texts - that it will keep our minds focused on the things of God, saturating our hearts and souls with the word in such a way that would further sanctify us.

So, in honor of this newfound motivation and drive to break into hard texts, the first book I want to approach is the first book of the New Testament. I do plan on keeping these short, somewhat easy to digest, and manageable. This one I hope to be more of an introduction to the book with some textual issues that we may come to, as well as date of writing, source material, etc. No, I am not doing this to avoid getting directly into the genealogies, no I don’t have to prove anything to you, so let’s dive into the introduction.

Title and Genre

I first want to begin with an explanation of the genre and the name. Many bibles may simply say “Matthew” while others clearly dictate “The Gospel ACCORDING to Matthew.” In speaking with a friend, he really had no preference as to why or how someone named the book as they did, in regard to whether or not one expresses that it is merely according to rather than Matthew’s gospel. I, however, do prefer to mention that it is the Gospel according to Matthew. My reasoning, of course, is most likely flawed, however, I would like to explain my point.

The Greek word for Gospel is εὐαγγέλιον (euangélion) and it means good news. So, Gospel, in a sense, would simply mean good news. So to suggest that this is Matthew’s good news, in my opinion, would be to, in some way, take away from the glory of God. This isn’t actually true, of course, it’s just my own personal opinion and has no real stake. Thusly, as my friend concluded, say it as you wish.

But, calling it the “Gospel according to Matthew,” let’s take a second to look at what a gospel is, in genre, as well as the author, and why we say that it was Matthew.

The typical reason for a genre allocation is to determine the method of interpretation. For instance, a poem would be taken less literal, a biographical account would be taken more historically, as well as a slew of other things. The gospel accounts, for instance, contain elements of poetry, historical narrative, mentions of miracles, and theological truths. Some have attempted to coin the phrase “theological biographies” in reference to the genre of the gospels, however, it must go deeper than that. To begin with, the phrase “Gospel Message” began to be known as the good news of the Christian message; to add to this, German Theologian Martin Hengel insists that Mark himself may have applied the name of “Gospel” to his document. With this being the case, and credible argumentation exists to suggest that other accounts used the Gospel According to Mark to write their own gospel, a good case can be made that Mark started the trend.

Throughout the years, however, many people have attempted to apply other genres to the canonical gospels in order to change their interpretation. For instance, if you apply a simply historical interpretation there are many theological principles that could be missed. Likewise, if you applied a mere poetic-style interpretation, much of the historical narrative would be missed. Improperly adopting a specific genre to the gospel accounts can lead to phrases that I’m sure we’ve all heard; such as “Jesus was just a great teacher,” and even “It was metaphorical that He died for our sins.” It is for this reason that we must take things like textual criticism, and the appropriation of specific genres very seriously.

After a thorough discourse interacting with different schools of interpretation and genre, author of “Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey,” Craig Blomberg states:

“In any event, what is important to conclude at the end of this two-chapter survey of modern methods of Gospel study is that there is a legitimate place for historical, theological, and literary study of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Despite attempts of various scholars to pit one method against the other two, all three actually go hand in hand. Indeed, unless we approach the Gospels expecting to find historically reliable information, theologically motivated emphases, and delightful literary artistry, we shall overlook important dimensions of the texts and run the risk of misinterpreting them as well.”

Now, why do we state that Matthew was the writer of this gospel? We must remember that he was one of the minor apostles in the group.

In his introduction to the Gospel According to Matthew, R.C. Sproul comments on how our English title has ancient precedent. He says “By the middle of the second century, the ancient church referred to Matthew and the other three canonical accounts of Jesus’ life as ‘the gospel according to [various authors],’ following the lead of the second gospel.” He goes on to say “... Eusebius tells us that the early church father Papias spoke of Matthew as having arranged the ‘oracles’ about Jesus. Subsequent tradition is unanimous that the disciple of Matthew, also called Levi (9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17), was the author of this gospel, and not until the eighteenth century was this tradition doubted.”

Brian Chilton, with Cross Examined, provides readers with internal evidence from the book of Matthew which I will sum up, here, briefly. The author of Matthew is highly entrenched in Judaism, quoting the Old Testament, quite often. In doing this, the author often placed the life of Jesus alongside the great prophets, showing how He (Jesus) fulfilled Old Testament Prophecy. The author also focused on Jesus’ work with the Jews, aiming his gospel account toward a more Jewish audience. And, lastly, financial information that is detailed in the gospel account points to someone who had knowledge of temple tax. These proofs point to Matthew as best fitting the authorship of the First Gospel.

The reason I chose to explain the evidence for authorship before pointing back to the title is based merely on logic. If the title is “The Gospel According to Matthew” one merely needs to define and defend the author to determine the name.

Date and Audience

The writing of the gospel accounts have been debated quite frequently, and there are a couple of different views. I will lightly touch on each one to give you an idea of what each says and you can look more into the debate if you are interested.

The main line of debate is in determining which came first, namely, Matthew or Mark. One view insists that Mark came first, being written at an earlier date than Matthew, with Matthew using Mark as an outline while filling in other details. Another view suggests that Matthew, being a meticulous tax-collecting note-keeper, kept great notes and wrote his account first. And, even another view, suggests that another text was used by both of the writers called the Q text, which no longer exists.

All of these views have further debates around them in regard to the dating of Matthew, but those arguments are often less compelling. To explain, one of the main arguments used for a late date, namely, after AD70, is to suggest that Matthew needed the knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem in order to incorporate it into his texts. In my opinion, however, this argument makes light of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and isn’t convincing. Other arguments put the writing of Matthew in the 50’s due to the fact that some scholars can date Luke/Acts to AD64 and Matthew was written before that.

If I had to put my flag in either of these arguments I like the idea of Matthew writing his text based upon his own notes at an earlier date - predating the destruction of the temple by Rome in AD70. I’m not a scholar, nor have I put a ton of time into researching these topics, specifically; I primarily wanted to provide you, my listener and fellow saint, with a backstory on some of the existing textual criticisms and debates among scholars today. I am a firm believer in that this is tied into 1 Peter 3:15, “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…” and I believe it is important to know why you believe what you believe. We call this epistemology - knowing the justification for your beliefs from mere opinion, and it is important in Christianity.

In reference to the intended audience, as I mentioned when talking about internal evidence for the authorship of the gospel account, Matthew quotes Old Testament prophets (Matthew 1:21-23), Messianic fulfilments (Matthew 2:6), and theocratic law (Matthew 26:57-68). This evidence points toward a primarily Jewish audience. In like fashion, Matthew makes sure to include Gentiles in the genealogy in order to point out to his Jewish audience how their (Gentile) inclusion into the covenant had always been possible and applicable. One could conclude from Matthew’s explanations that he was stating a cause to his brethren of Gentile inclusion since the beginning - this being done in order to defend against racial exclusion by Jewish Christians. We see evidence of this racial exclusion in the Judaizing heresy that Paul often wrote about.

Final Thoughts

Some final thoughts before I finish up, I’ve often heard the three Synoptic Gospels described theologically as from the perspective of earth looking toward heaven whereas the Gospel According to John is from the perspective of Heaven looking down. It is a complementary view that assists in explaining how the gospel accounts work together, rather than against one another.

As we go further into this series I hope that I can explain the texts, historically and theologically, in such a way that will give you a greater foundation, a deeper understanding, and, Lord willing, a greater love for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In conclusion of this short introduction I want to include the final paragraph of R.C. Sproul’s introduction to the Gospel According to Mark in his Reformation Study Bible:

“The Gospels do not simply present a schedule of Jesus’ activities. Nor are they modern, technical biographies. The Synoptic Gospels are individual and complementary works; they are not three incomplete attempts to do the same task. They are, as Mark’s opening sentence shows, ‘good news,’ namely, proclamations of God’s climactic redemptive act in history in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, written to call people into covenant with their creator by His grace. Together with the gospel of John, they present Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, to all generations.”

Final Word of the Day

I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. It is always a pleasure to bring the word of God to those who are seeking to know more about Him.

The final word of the day comes to us from Misspelled Calvanist. He felt the need to confess something to us a few weeks ago.

*Listen to my podcast for this!*

A special thanks to Jesus Wannabeez for allowing me to use their track, Ephesians 6, in my intro and outro music. You can find a link to their Spotify in the show notes.

And, as always, may the light of the holy God shine upon you.

Amen.