New Testament Outline - Matthew

Chapter Three - Matthew

I. Contents
-Disagreements over the structure of this gospel arise because there are so many overlapping and competing structural pointers that it appears impossible to establish a consensus on their relative importance.

Three theories to explain and to organize break down the book of Matthew:
1.Some have detected a geographic framework that is related to Mark's gospel.
-This analysis reflects the broad chronological development of Jesus' ministry and preserves some geographic distinction, but it is based on a selection of thematic considerations and does not reflect the literary markers that Matthew has left us.

Weakness:
-Because of the ease of recreating this with the other gospels it does not provide an adequate means for seeing the distinct characteristics of the Matthew gospel.

2.Three large sections, tightly tied to Christological development.
A."The Person of Jesus Messiah" (1:1-4:16)
B."The Proclamation of Jesus Messiah" (4:17-16:20)
C."The Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Messiah" (16:21-28:20)
-After the two breaks come the decisive words "from that time on" signaling a progress in the plot.
-The Last two of the three sections each contain three summary passages (4:23-25; 9:35; 11:1; and 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19)

Weakness:
-The "from that time on" is not necessarily redactionally important for Matthew that his entire structure hinges on it. It is used in Matthew 26:16 with no break in the flow of the narrative.
-One could possibly argue that there are four passion summaries in the third section, not three (By adding 26:2)
-At both structural transitions he could have been more influenced by following the writings of Mark than by other considerations.
-The outline breaks up the important Peter passage in Matthew 16 in an unacceptable way.
-The christological development is not as clear as alleged: the person of Jesus (section 1) is still a focal point in sections 2 and 3 (e.g. 16:13-16; 22:41-46); the proclamation of Jesus can scarcely be restricted to section 2, for two of the discourses (chapters 18, 24-25) and several important exchanges (chapters 21-23) are reserved for the third section.

3.The most frequently proposed structures turn on the observations that Matthew presents five discourses, each beginning in a specific context and ends with a formula found nowhere else.
1.Discipleship (narrative, chaps.3-4; discourse, chaps.5-7)
2.Apostleship (narrative, 8-9; discourse, 10)
3.The Hiding of the Revelation (narrative, 11-12; discourse, 13)
4.Church Administration (narrative, 14-17; discourse, 18)
5.Judgment (narrative, 19-22; discourse, 23-25)
-With Matthew 1-2 acts as a preamble and 26-28 as an epilogue.

-The weakness of this outline is that it is presupposed that the five part outline was supposed to be a

A Seven Part Outline:

1.The prologue (1:1-2:23)
2.The Gospel of the Kingdom (3:1-7:29)
3.The Kingdom Extended under Jesus’ authority (8:1-11:1)
4.Teaching and Preaching the gospel of the kingdom: rising opposition (11:2-13:53)
5.The glory and the shadow: progressive polarization (13:54-19:2)
6.Opposition and eschatology: the triumph of grace (19:3-26:5)
7.The passion and resurrection of Jesus (26:6-28:20)

II. The Author

-Although the author of the gospel is not named within the text like the Pauline letters, a strong tradition holds that the apostle Matthew is the author.
-There is no evidence that any of the canonical gospels ever circulated without an appropriate designation.
-Until recently most scholars assumed that the four gospels circulated anonymously and that the present tiles were not attached until around A.D.125. This had simply been an educated guess based upon the presupposition that the gospels themselves were entirely anonymous and on the fact that by about 140 (or earlier) the traditional attributions were widely known without signification variations.

-Martin Hengel has examined the practice of book distribution in the ancient worlds and titles were necessary to identify a work to which any reference was made.
-Tertullian's criticism was because of Marcion for publishing his own gospel (which was a highly truncated version of Luke) without the author's name.
-As soon as two or more of the gospels were read in a church setting than it would have been necessary to distinguish between them by the use of a title.
-It is inconceivable that the gospels could have circulated anonymously for up to sixty years, and then in the second century suddenly display a unanimous attribution to certain authors.

Several issues in the modern contemporary debate over the author:
1. Only this gospel refers to “Matthew the tax collector” (10:3). This can be viewed as a sort of self deprecation to the work of which he was apart of before he followed Jesus.
2. In Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 the man whom Jesus calls from his role as a tax collector is identified as Levi. The most economical explanation is that “Matthew” and “Levi” are alternative Semitic names for one person.
3.The assumption that Matthew was a tax collector and was author of the gospel helps to make sense of some details (depiction of financial transactions and a fluency of Aramaic and Greek.)

III. Provenance
-Regardless of the stance of whether one holds that Matthew was written by an individual or a group within a school of thought they must hazard a guess as to its geographical origin.
-Because the church fathers held the work to be written first in Aramaic they presumed it to have been written in Palestine.
-Modern scholars mostly hold to Syria being the place of origin because of Palestine being mostly destroyed by about 70AD.
-It is impossible to be certain of the exact geographical provenance of the gospel but nothing of important textual wise hangs upon this.

IV. Date
-There is much debate and argument over the dating of the gospel but a balanced look at the evidence suggests that Matthew was written shortly before 70AD.

V. Destination
Possible intended audiences:
1.Believers in his own area or flock.
2.Because of the predominate exposition of Jewish themes it is possible he had a certain audience in mind rather than a particular location.
3.There also exists the possibility it was intended to be read by all Christians in all locations.

VI. Purpose
-Because the theme of Matthew is not directly stated in the gospel all attempts at delineating are merely conjectures drawn from the themes and how certain topics are treated.

Major Presented Themes:
1. Jesus is the promised Messiah, Son of David, Son of God, the Son of Man, Immanuel and the one to whom the Old Testament points to.
2. Many Jews, especially the leaders, failed to recognize Jesus as such during his ministry.
3. That the promised ‘Kingdom of God’ has already dawned and has been brought about by the life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.
4. This Kingdom is both compromised of and continued by both believing Jews and Gentiles that have submitted to the authority of Jesus. The wholehearted embracing of Jesus’ teaching of demonstrating love is the witness to the world of this kingdom.
5. This messianic reign is not only the fulfillment of Old Testament hope but the foretaste of the kingdom that will dawn when Jesus the Messiah personally returns.


VII. Text
-The major textual difficulty with Matthew is the same variation issues that contribute to the synoptic problem. (12:47, 16:2-3, 18:10-11)

VIII. Adoption into the Canon
-The Gospel of Matthew was universally received as soon as it was published and continued to be the most frequently cited gospel for centuries.
-As far as known the book never caused division between the Eastern and Western churches such as the letters to the Hebrews did.

IX. Matthew in Recent Studies
-Until recently the Gospel of Matthew was largely ignored by most commentators.
-The most recent and reliable studies attempt to temper traditional historical criticism with a greater literary sensitivity to result in a more holistic reading of Matthew.

X. The Contribution of Matthew
-Because of the close relation that the Synoptic gospels share any contribution made by one gospel must be evaluated in the light of the others.

Six unique contributions of Matthew are:
1. Preserves large blocks of Jesus’ teaching.
-The Sermon on the Mount
-Numerous parables
-The eschatological discourse
2. Complements the other gospels.
-Joseph’s account of the virginal conception of Jesus that contrasts with Luke’s gospel which gives Mary’s perspective.
-Elaborates on the birth narrative in ways the other gospels do not by including the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt.
3. A complex and rich use of the Old Testament
-The number of Old Testament quotations (fourteen) used to show the link between the old and new covenants which results in a very strong Christological reading of the Old Testament.
4. Treatment of the Old Testament law
-Shows that Jesus came to fulfill the law (5:17)
5. Holds the foundation of what the early church became.
-The debate of the relation between Israel and the church.
6. Percuilar shadings of Jesus character by the use of titles and names
-Associates the title of “Son of David” with Jesus’ healing ministry.
-In referring to Jesus Immanuel, “God is with us” (1:23)

Such strange smiles.

...yeah...mixed metaphors...

Quote of the Day:

"The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."
-Salvador Dalí