Fully Devoted: JesusSample

The Gospel According to Matthew

The New Testament opens with the Gospel according to Matthew. Today, we’re going to take some time to answer a few basic but essential questions to help us navigate Matthew’s Gospel with wisdom. 

Who is Matthew? Who was he writing to? What was he trying to accomplish? 

Question 1: Who is Matthew? 

When we’re first introduced to Matthew, he’s working as a tax collector for the Roman government. This is significant, because for him to work as a tax collector was to collaborate in the oppression and abuse of his own people. So Matthew very likely felt like an outsider with no real place to call home or people to call his own. He was too Roman to be Jewish and too Jewish to be Roman. 

Until one day, a rabbi approaches Matthew’s tax collector booth and does something unthinkable. He calls Matthew to be His disciple. This is not what rabbis do. They don’t call sinful tax collectors who have sided with Rome. They call the best and brightest students. Matthew’s chance was long gone. He had resigned himself to the reality that he was no longer welcome in the Jewish community and he likely never would be. 

But Jesus shattered that expectation in all the best ways. Jesus didn’t look at Matthew and see a list of problems. Jesus looked at Matthew and saw his potential. He didn’t get hung up on his past or his sins. Jesus saw him as he really was: a human being with value, dignity, and purpose, made in the image of God. So Jesus called him. And Matthew’s life would never be the same. 

He was so overwhelmed by the radical grace of Jesus that he threw a party to celebrate, and he invited all of his friends to it … a whole bunch of other sinners and tax collectors. And at that party, Matthew would hear these words that would shape his understanding of Jesus, of himself, and of God’s mission in ways he would never forget:

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:12-13 NIV

Question 2: Who was he writing to? 

Matthew wrote his account of Jesus’ life to a first-century Jewish audience. Here’s why this matters: Most of us aren’t Jewish and none of us are living under the rule of the Roman Empire. Because of that, it’s really easy for us to miss so many of the ways that Matthew is calling back to the Jewish Scriptures and the story of Israel in this Gospel account. 

For example, Matthew presents Jesus as a new Moses by grouping His teachings into five main chunks intended to parallel the five books of Moses. In addition to that, Matthew begins his Gospel by calling it the “genealogy of Jesus.” Why is that significant? Because the word “genealogy” comes from the same root word as “Genesis.” It’s almost like Matthew is trying to show his Jewish audience in the first sentence that Jesus is the One the entire biblical story has been pointing to! In his account, Matthew references the Jewish Scriptures close to 100 times.  

Question 3: What was he trying to accomplish? 

 Matthew was trying to help his Jewish readers see Jesus as the promised Messiah—the anointed King through whom God was liberating His people from the bondage of sin and death and reconciling the world to Himself. Matthew wanted his audience to know that God had not abandoned them, and that His promises to the nation of Israel were being fulfilled through Jesus. 

Matthew also wanted his readers to see that outcasts like him were being welcomed into the family of God—through Jesus. Furthermore, God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham was being fulfilled. The time had come for God’s family to be opened up and for non-Jewish people to be adopted in. Because through Jesus, the Kingdom of God is coming on earth as it is in heaven, and everyone everywhere has been invited in. Even sinful, rejected tax collectors like Matthew. 

Journaling Questions

• What verse or passage from today’s reading stood out to you the most? Write it down in your journal. Why did that stand out to you? 
• How do you think Matthew’s personal story influenced the way he wrote his Gospel? 
• Have you ever felt like an outcast? What was that like? Who do you know who may feel like an outsider? How can you welcome them and help them feel invited in?