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Matthew 1:1-17

Thursday Nights

September 15, 2022

Welcome to our first study in the book of Matthew. I’m going to be playing with the format over the next couple of weeks, so each week we might add one or two things to the look of the study.

We will be taking time to worship each week, not because I’m trying to stall for you all to start watching, and not because I think that music “warms up” the audience. I believe that God is awesome and we ought to worship Him. I’m going to be experimenting with the worship and I’ll be teaching you small, short, simple choruses. I’m going to try this without the words on the screen because I want to force you to learn these simple choruses and be able to close your eyes, focus on Jesus, and learn to worship without getting distracted by a screen. I’m not against having the words on the screen, I just want to stretch your ability to worship.

We will also be opening up the studio starting next week for a few of you to join me on site. There will be a limited amount of seats (I’m thinking 5-10 people), so here’s what I propose – if you want to be in the studio, 1) speak to me personally on Sunday morning and let me know, first come first served, and 2) you must be here by 7:00pm on Thursday. I want you to be here for worship because worship is important. In a few weeks I might allow one or two of you to bring your guitars and play with me. And I want you to be singing with me – not on camera necessarily, and not on a mic, but worshipping God along with me. Got it?

Introduction to Matthew

East vs. West

I’ve been learning that I’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to understanding the Bible.

I’ve come to realize that there is quite a difference between what we might call an “eastern” mindset and a “western” mindset.

One of my sources learning is a fellow named Ray Vander Laan. He’s got a website called thattheworldmayknow.com. He’s an evangelical Christian who did the extra work of getting educated in Jewish Rabbinical schools.

When Alexander the Great conquered the known world around 300BC, he sought to impress the Greek way of thinking on all the nations he conquered.

The Romans continued the Greek ways of thinking, which then spread into Europe, and yes, to America.

Most of us in the United States have been raised to think like “westerners”, or perhaps more specifically as “Greeks”.

I’m not going to be able to do perfect justice to this topic in a few minutes (we’ll keep working on it each week), but let me summarize Eastern and Western ways of thinking like this:

In the west, the Greeks were “abstract” thinkers.

We tend to break things down into organization and formulas.

For example, if I were to ask you to describe God with one word, what might you say?

Some of you might say “almighty”. Others might use words like “love”, “wise”, maybe even using words like “omnipresent”.

Those are all true, but they are abstract ideas. Can you close you eyes and picture in your head the word “wise” or “omnipresent”. No. Because these are abstract ideas.

Abstract ideas don’t carry much of an emotional connection.

In the east, people will think more in “pictures” or “stories”.

If I were to ask a class of Jewish students to describe God with a word, they might say

“God is a shepherd” because He always looks out for me and guides me.

“God is water” because He keeps satisfies my deepest thirst.

“God is bread” because He feeds my soul with what I need to stay alive.

In fact, if I were to do this justice, I’d say (using real pictures),

“God is a shepherd” because He always looks out for me and guides me.

“God is water” because He keeps satisfies my deepest thirst.

“God is bread” because He feeds my soul with what I need to stay alive.

Those are all pictures that can conjure up passion and commitment … much more than just saying “God is wise”. Does that make sense?

Don’t worry if it doesn’t. I’m still working on it too.

One example is how we might view the story of David and Goliath (1Samuel 17) and how we view some of the elements of the story. (again, from Ray Vander Laan)

In the story of David and Goliath, we are told that Goliath’s height was six cubits and a span.

For the western mind, we see numbers and think about value and calculations.

For many of us, we want to convert his height into something we can understand. We might go, “Wow, he’s nine feet six inches tall”. But in doing that “calculation”, we’ve missed a bit of the actual picture. Six cubits.

But to the eastern mind, numbers are first of all symbols (more in a minute).

The text of some of our Bibles says that his armor weighed 5,000 shekels, but there is a better version of the text says it was 6,000 shekels.

Us westerners want to know how much 6,000 shekels weigh.

Goliath’s spearhead weighed 600 shekels.

I remember teaching this once and brought out a bowling ball, to say that his spear’s head weighed about 16 pounds.

As a western thinker, I’m turning all these numbers into feet, inches, and pounds.

There’s nothing wrong with this. This is a real historical story with accurate numbers.

Now I’m going to skip a few steps here, but the old Hebrew way of writing out numbers is with words that equate a value, not with actual numbers.

The story of Goliath is basically saying that he was a man all about the “sixes”.

To the eastern thinker, all they can see are the numbers 6 … 6 … 6

Don’t get too sidetracked with the thousands and hundreds.

Goliath was a man from the devil.

Again, for the Jewish mind, they learned way back in third grade that God had made a promise to the devil…

(Genesis 3:15 NKJV) And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

We western Christians look at the verse in Genesis and automatically skip straight to Jesus and His victory (which is ok), but to the eastern mind, for the Jewish thinker, they might also put David into that picture as well.

Where did David’s stone hit Goliath? In the head.

We will keep visiting this issue of western vs. eastern thought each week as we work through Matthew.

The book of Matthew as a “gospel”

The first four books of the New Testament are called “the gospels”

The word “gospel” simply means “good news”, and these books are about the good news that God’s Kingdom has come to earth through the person and work of Jesus.

The work that Jesus came to accomplish involved His death as a payment for our sins.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said,

(John 1:29 NKJV) …“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The first three gospels are called the “synoptic” gospels.

The word “synoptic” means that these books give us a similar view of the life of Jesus.

In contrast, John wrote his gospel much later than the other writers, and his goal was to fill in the blanks of what the other gospels did not cover. That’s why John’s gospel contains so much content not found in the other gospels.

This is why John’s gospel is not considered a “synoptic” gospel. It’s just different from the others. Same Jesus, different material.

On the other hand, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all contain much overlapping material, but each is seen through different sets of eyes.

Mark was written by Peter’s nephew, and we are pretty sure that most of its material came directly from Peter himself. We think Mark was probably the first one to write out his material.

Luke is the longest gospel (by total content, not by chapters). Luke was a Gentile doctor, and his book was crafted carefully by collecting many documents from various sources, including Jesus’ mother Mary and maybe even the gospel of Mark.

Of the three synoptic gospels, Matthew is the only one written by a direct eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry.

Even though all four gospels are quite heavily Jewish in their background, Matthew has always seemed to me just a bit more Jewish, if that makes sense. Matthew is clearly writing to a Jewish audience.

His book is filled with Old Testament quotations. There are about 50 direct quotes from the Old Testament, and an additional 75 “allusions” to Old Testament events.

Matthew as a person

Compared to Simon Peter, we don’t know too much about Matthew.

The name “Matthew” means “gift of Yahweh”.

We know his father’s name was “Alphaeus” (which means “changing”).

He is mentioned by the name “Matthew” five times in the New Testament.

(Mat. 9:9; 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13)

He is also called “Levi” four times in the New Testament, and he is called that before he meets Jesus.

(Mark 2:14,15; Luke 5:27,29)

But both Mark and Luke start calling him “Matthew” after he starts following Jesus.

The one thing we know for sure about Matthew was that before following Jesus, he was a “tax-collector”.

That meant that he, as a Jewish man, was working for the occupying Roman government to collect taxes from his fellow Jews.

The tax collectors were given specific amounts they were to collect from each person, but they were not limited to collecting the minimum from people.

They were given the authority to collect as much as they wanted, and they could keep whatever was over and above the Roman minimum.

Illustration

The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet: The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people had tried over time (professional wrestlers, longshoremen, etc.), but nobody could do it. One day this scrawny little man came in, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny, squeaky voice, “I’d like to try the bet.” After the laughter had died down, the bartender agreed, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then he handed the dried, wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man. But the crowd’s laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and SIX drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little man, “What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight lifter, or what?” The man replied, “I work for the IRS.”

We might think of tax-collectors in terms of our modern IRS agents.

Tax collectors were hated by their fellow Jews and considered as traitors.

The word “tax collector” itself is often found paired with the word “sinners”.

Even Jesus, when using the word for “tax collector”, used it in a derogatory way.

(Matthew 5:46 NKJV) For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And yet Jesus chose to hang out with “tax collectors”.

Matthew records what happened after Jesus called Matthew to follow Him. Jesus had dinner at Matthew’s house.

For those of you who are fans with me of the TV series “The Chosen”, take a peek later in the week to rewatch Season 1, episode 8, and you can see the following Scripture unfold…

(Matthew 9:10–13 NKJV) —10 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Remember, this is Matthew writing about his own experience of Jesus eating dinner at his house.

Lesson

Jesus loves sinners

I imagine it’s possible that one or two of you watching this might struggle with the idea that Jesus might love you.

You’ve done things that you are ashamed of.

You might think that if you were to meet Jesus on the street, He’d probably cross to the other side to avoid you.

You think you’re the last person God would let into heaven.

I’ve got news for you.

You are just the person Jesus came for.

(John 3:16 NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That includes you friend.

Jesus is a friend of sinners.

He came to save you. He came to forgive you. He came to get you back on the right path.

Open your heart to Jesus.

Lesson

Strange Bedfellows

One last thing to think about with Matthew. Jesus not only called a Jew who was considered a political traitor, He also called Simon the Zealot, who was a radical, almost terrorist, who believed in doing everything to overthrow the Romans, including killing all traitors.

Can you imagine what that looked like around the campfire once they all began to get to know each other?

We have yet to see the TV series explore this. Perhaps in season 3.

It makes me think of the scene in the Fellowship of the Rings where the group is all called together before they start their journey and Elrond calls them “Nine companions, so be it, and you shall be called the fellowship of the ring!”

And what a strange group they were – two humans, an elf, a wizard, and four hobbits.

Jesus calls all kinds of people to follow Him, and we as fellow believers need to recognize that not all believers look and think like we do when the meet Jesus.

But when we have Jesus, we have all we need to learn to connect with each other.

Paul wrote,

(Colossians 3:12–14 NLT) —12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

1:1-17 Genealogy of Jesus

To a Jewish mind, genealogies are important because they connect us with our past, our heritage.

When you come across genealogies in the Bible, don’t skip them. Learn to speak the names out loud. See how many of them you can remember and identify.

Matthew is going to connect Jesus to David and to Abraham.

Abraham is the father of the nation, the father of “faith”. God promised Abraham…

(Genesis 22:18 NKJV) In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

This blessing was a promise of the Messiah, a blessing for all nations.

David was the beginning of a kingdom dynasty. God promised David…

(1 Chronicles 17:11 NKJV) And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled, when you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up your seed after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom.

Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of David’s promise.

Note: This genealogy is the line of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father.

This is the “legal” connection between Jesus and King David. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, but he was the legal father of Jesus.

Matthew is careful to include the complete line of kings from David to Jesus, showing Jesus’ legal claim to the throne of David.

There is another genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 – and it’s a bit different. We believe the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary, not Joseph and so shows the actual biological line of Jesus all the way back to Adam. Luke’s genealogy shows Jesus’ connection to all mankind.

The Luke genealogy shows that Jesus is not only the legal heir of the throne of David, but the biological heir as well.

We might think of genealogies as being exact records of one descendant to the next, but that’s not Matthew’s priority, and that’s not how all Jewish genealogies work.

Matthew’s going to skip a few folks here and there, but don’t worry about that. He’s got reasons (you’ll get it at the end of tonight).

:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

:1 the genealogy of Jesus Christ

The genealogy divides into three parts.

Abraham to David

David to the captivity

The captivity to Jesus

:2 Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.

:3 Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram.

:4 Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon.

:5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse,

:6 and Jesse begot David the king.

:2 Abraham begot Isaac

We will have some names of awesome men of faith, like Abraham.

We will have some names of men who were not so awesome.

:3 Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar

The story of Tamar and Judah is quite the story of intrigue, betrayal, lust, and even faith. Curious? Read Genesis 38.

I’ll give you a hint, Judah comes out looking like a jerk, and Tamar comes out looking like the hero.

Tamar was the woman of faith who acted to make sure the line of Judah would continue on to the Messiah.

:5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab

We usually look at Boaz as a hero in the book of Ruth, but Boaz had an ancestor that might have raised a few eyebrows.

His mom’s name was Rahab. She is called a “harlot” in Joshua 2:1.

But just to balance things, the author of Hebrews (11:31) reminds us that Rahab was also a woman of faith, who turned from her gods and followed the God of Israel.

:5 Boaz begot Obed by Ruth

You can read about Boaz and Ruth’s heroic love story in the book of Ruth, but know this – even though we rightly look at Ruth as a woman of faith for following her mother-in-law Naomi back to the Promised Land and the town of Bethlehem, she had her own genealogy problem.

Ruth was from Moab.

Because the people of Moab had hired Balaam to curse Israel when they were coming into the Promised Land, God said…

(Deuteronomy 23:3 NKJV) “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever,

:6 David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.

:7 Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa.

:8 Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah.

:9 Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah.

:10 Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah.

:11 Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

:6 by her who had been the wife of Uriah

Matthew doesn’t mention Bathsheba by name, but he does one better, he mentions her by David’s sin.

David committed adultery with Bathsheba. David had Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, a friend of David’s, put to death to cover up the affair.

And a son named Solomon was eventually born from this.

:11 Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers

Matthew doesn’t list all the men who were king after Josiah, but just Jeconiah because he’s the one who would continue the lineage.

:10 Hezekiah begot Manasseh

There are a lot of kings mentioned in this lineage, some good kings, some bad kings.

Hezekiah was one of the best kings (and the name of my latest grandson, ask me if you want to see a picture!).

Manasseh was the worst of the bad kings. He’s the one upon whom the blame falls for the eventual destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Lesson

God uses flawed people

Did you notice how many “skeletons” were buried in Jesus’ genealogy?

We might think that we should hide some of those skeletons…

Illustration

The Joneses were proud of their family tradition. Their ancestors had come to America on the Mayflower. They had included Senators and Wall Street wizards. They decided to compile a family history, a legacy for their children and grandchildren. They hired a fine author. Only one problem arose—how to handle that great-uncle George, who was executed in the electric chair. The author said he could handle the story tactfully. The book was published. It said “Great-uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution, was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a great shock.”

Matthew doesn’t hide the skeletons in Jesus’ closet.

Some would point out that the women mentioned in the genealogy were women with questionable backgrounds, but when you dig into their stories, you find that they were all women of faith, women who turned from their past to follow the God of Abraham.

Now …

We have this strange idea buried deep inside of us that thinks that good things only happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people.

When we encounter difficulty in life, we ask ourselves, “What did I do to deserve this?”

When something good happens, we might pat ourselves on the back and think, “I deserved this!” (or, we might say, “What did I do to deserve this???”)

If this notion were true, Jesus wouldn’t have any skeletons in His closet.

But He did.

When the prophet Job encountered his own difficulties, losing his family, his possessions, and his health, we read some forty chapters of his friends trying to find out what sort of sin he committed to deserve the bad things.

Yet we are told in the very beginning of the book of Job that God considered Job a “blameless” man.

God didn’t allow difficulty in Job’s life as a penalty – God was showing the heavens what a righteous man will do when he’s facing difficulty. A righteous man will still trust God (and Job did).

You may be feeling that you’ve done something that has disqualified you from God ever using you.

I’m here to tell you that the God who used this extremely flawed line of people to produce the Messiah, can redeem you from your background.

Paul wrote to the Philippians,

(Philippians 1:6 NKJV) being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

:12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel.

:13 Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor.

:14 Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud.

:15 Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob.

:16 And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

:12 after they were brought to Babylon

In 586 BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the kingdom of Judah and leveled the city of Jerusalem.

This was done because of the constant rebellion of the nation. It was God’s way of giving them a giant “time out” and get their priorities straight.

The majority of the Jews were carried off to Babylon, including the line of Jesus.

In a few weeks we will talk about the importance of the various stages of Jews returning from Babylon and how it affected the area of Galilee that Jesus grew up in.

:16 Joseph the husband of Mary

So the genealogy ends with Joseph, who is sort of a “step-dad” to Jesus.

We’ll see a little more about Joseph next week.

:16 of whom was born Jesus

The phrase “of whom” is in the feminine, referring to Mary.

Jesus was not the physical descendant of Joseph, but He was the physical descendant of Mary.

Because Joseph and Mary were married, Jesus is still the legal heir to the throne of David.

:16 who is called Christ

Anointing was usually done with oil.

Kings were also “anointed”.

(1 Samuel 16:13 NKJV)

:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

:17 fourteen generations

If you were to compare Matthew’s genealogy with others in the Bible, you will notice that he’s left out some names here and there. But it’s almost like he’s done it on purpose in order to come to this division into three groups of fourteen.

This is a Jewish thing. An eastern mindset thing.

But wait, there’s more! (again, this is from Ray Vander Laan)

The number of words in Jesus’ genealogy is evenly divisible by 7, a very clear “God number”. Keep in mind, we’re talking about ALL words in the genealogy, not just the names. This is based on the Greek, not the English…

The number of words that begin with a vowel is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of words beginning with a consonant is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of letters is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of vowels is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of consonants is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of words that occur more than once is evenly divisible by 7

The number of words that occur only once is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of nouns is evenly divisible by 7.

The number of non-nouns evenly divisible by 7.

The number of proper names evenly divisible by 7 male names and female names (keep in mind some generations have more than one name listed)

The number of words beginning with each letter of the alphabet is evenly divisible by 7.

If you add up the numeric value of all the letters because they don't have numbers it's evenly divisible by 7.

Lesson

Jesus is from God

Do you see what this genealogy has done for the Jewish reader?

I think the point Matthew has just made with this genealogy is that Jesus is from God.

Now maybe Matthew was some kind of genius, but I’d say it’s more likely that this was all inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Could you write a paragraph that covers real historical facts, but also would come up with these kinds of results?

Jesus is from God and this book we are about to study is pretty special.

richcathers.com

Welcome to our first study in the book of Matthew. I’m going to be playing with the format over the next couple of weeks, so each week we might add one or two things to the look of the study.

Introduction to Matthew

Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid to die? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church loved? Target 3300 words Video = 75 wpm

East vs. West

I’ve been learning that I’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to understanding the Bible.

I’ve come to realize that there is quite a difference between what we might call an “eastern” mindset and a “western” mindset.

One of my sources learning is a fellow named Ray Vander Laan. He’s got a website called thattheworldmayknow.com. He’s an evangelical Christian who did the extra work of getting educated in Jewish Rabbinical schools.

When Alexander the Great conquered the known world around 300BC, he sought to impress the Greek way of thinking on all the nations he conquered.

The Romans continued the Greek ways of thinking, which then spread into Europe, and yes, to America.

Most of us in the United States have been raised to think like “westerners”, or perhaps more specifically as “Greeks”.

I’m not going to be able to do perfect justice to this topic in a few minutes (we’ll keep working on it each week), but let me summarize Eastern and Western ways of thinking like this:

In the west, the Greeks were “abstract” thinkers.

We tend to break things down into organization and formulas.

For example, if I were to ask you to describe God with one word, what might you say?

In the east, people will think more in “pictures” or “stories”.

If I were to ask a class of Jewish students to describe God with a word, they might say

In fact, if I were to do this justice, I’d say (using real pictures),

One example is how we might view the story of David and Goliath (1Samuel 17) and how we view some of the elements of the story. (again, from Ray Vander Laan)

In the story of David and Goliath, we are told that Goliath’s height was six cubits and a span.

The text of some of our Bibles says that his armor weighed 5,000 shekels, but there is a better version of the text says it was 6,000 shekels.

Goliath’s spearhead weighed 600 shekels.

We will keep visiting this issue of western vs. eastern thought each week as we work through Matthew.

The book of Matthew as a “gospel”

The first four books of the New Testament are called “the gospels”

The word “gospel” simply means “good news”, and these books are about the good news that God’s Kingdom has come to earth through the person and work of Jesus.

The work that Jesus came to accomplish involved His death as a payment for our sins.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said,

(John 1:29 NKJV) …“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The first three gospels are called the “synoptic” gospels.

The word “synoptic” means that these books give us a similar view of the life of Jesus.

In contrast, John wrote his gospel much later than the other writers, and his goal was to fill in the blanks of what the other gospels did not cover. That’s why John’s gospel contains so much content not found in the other gospels.

This is why John’s gospel is not considered a “synoptic” gospel. It’s just different from the others. Same Jesus, different material.

On the other hand, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all contain much overlapping material, but each is seen through different sets of eyes.

Mark was written by Peter’s nephew, and we are pretty sure that most of its material came directly from Peter himself. We think Mark was probably the first one to write out his material.

Luke is the longest gospel (by total content, not by chapters). Luke was a Gentile doctor, and his book was crafted carefully by collecting many documents from various sources, including Jesus’ mother Mary and maybe even the gospel of Mark.

Of the three synoptic gospels, Matthew is the only one written by a direct eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry.

Even though all four gospels are quite heavily Jewish in their background, Matthew has always seemed to me just a bit more Jewish, if that makes sense. Matthew is clearly writing to a Jewish audience.

His book is filled with Old Testament quotations. There are about 50 direct quotes from the Old Testament, and an additional 75 “allusions” to Old Testament events.

Matthew as a person

Compared to Simon Peter, we don’t know too much about Matthew.

The name “Matthew” means “gift of Yahweh”.

We know his father’s name was “Alphaeus” (which means “changing”).

He is mentioned by the name “Matthew” five times in the New Testament.

(Mat. 9:9; 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13)

He is also called “Levi” four times in the New Testament, and he is called that before he meets Jesus.

(Mark 2:14,15; Luke 5:27,29)

But both Mark and Luke start calling him “Matthew” after he starts following Jesus.

The one thing we know for sure about Matthew was that before following Jesus, he was a “tax-collector”.

That meant that he, as a Jewish man, was working for the occupying Roman government to collect taxes from his fellow Jews.

The tax collectors were given specific amounts they were to collect from each person, but they were not limited to collecting the minimum from people.

They were given the authority to collect as much as they wanted, and they could keep whatever was over and above the Roman minimum.

Illustration

We might think of tax-collectors in terms of our modern IRS agents.

Tax collectors were hated by their fellow Jews and considered as traitors.

The word “tax collector” itself is often found paired with the word “sinners”.

Even Jesus, when using the word for “tax collector”, used it in a derogatory way.

(Matthew 5:46 NKJV) For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And yet Jesus chose to hang out with “tax collectors”.

Matthew records what happened after Jesus called Matthew to follow Him. Jesus had dinner at Matthew’s house.

For those of you who are fans with me of the TV series “The Chosen”, take a peek later in the week to rewatch Season 1, episode 8, and you can see the following Scripture unfold…

Lesson

Jesus loves sinners

I imagine it’s possible that one or two of you watching this might struggle with the idea that Jesus might love you.

You’ve done things that you are ashamed of.

You might think that if you were to meet Jesus on the street, He’d probably cross to the other side to avoid you.

You think you’re the last person God would let into heaven.

I’ve got news for you.

You are just the person Jesus came for.

(John 3:16 NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That includes you friend.

Jesus is a friend of sinners.

He came to save you. He came to forgive you. He came to get you back on the right path.

Open your heart to Jesus.

Lesson

Strange Bedfellows

One last thing to think about with Matthew. Jesus not only called a Jew who was considered a political traitor, He also called Simon the Zealot, who was a radical, almost terrorist, who believed in doing everything to overthrow the Romans, including killing all traitors.

Can you imagine what that looked like around the campfire once they all began to get to know each other?

We have yet to see the TV series explore this. Perhaps in season 3.

It makes me think of the scene in the Fellowship of the Rings where the group is all called together before they start their journey and Elrond calls them “Nine companions, so be it, and you shall be called the fellowship of the ring!”