Chapter 7: The Messiah’s Vocation
Readings:
Matthew 8:1 – 9:38 Leviticus 14:3-10 Isaiah 53:4 Hosea 6:6 Micah 6:6-8
Summary:
We are no strangers to the influences that shape our vocational choices. Some people have jobs that are perfectly suited to their interests, training and abilities. Others are less fortunate, and know the frustration of being driven into particular jobs for which they are not suited, often by such forces as the expectations of others. Certainly, many people in the first century expected the Messiah to fulfill the work of a king, exhibiting a power and dominion that would not only mirror but also surpass those of David and even of Caesar. But Jesus is a different kind of Messiah, who pursues a different vocational path. If the people who heard Jesus preach and teach were amazed by his authority, they were astounded by his miraculous power. After showing that Jesus’ authority as a teacher comes from God and is greater than that of Moses, Matthew shows further that the power of God is manifested in Jesus’ work. Jesus not only has power to heal the sick, cure the lame, and cast out demons, but he also has power over life, death, and all of creation. Jesus the Messiah is the Lord! In this narrative portion of his Gospel, Matthew presents a collection of carefully selected miracle stories that rival the miracles of Moses prior to the Exodus. These miracles not only reveal God’s divine power at work in Jesus, but also show that God is present in Jesus to heal and redeem his people. Amazingly, as these revelations of Jesus’ power show, not everyone desires to be saved. People respond to Jesus with either trusting obedience or rejection. Jesus, on his part, approaches everyone as a compassionate healer who gives new life to anyone who will receive it.
Audio:
Chapter 6: Character Formation of the Messiah’s People
Readings:
Matthew 5:21 – 7:29 Deuteronomy 14:28-29, 24:1-4, 24:19-22 Numbers 6:2-21 Isaiah 58:6-8 Luke 11:9-13
Summary:
Who has affected the shape of your character? Surely our families and friends have played important roles in our character development – for good and for bad. And we have been influenced by teachers and coaches and a variety of personal heroes and strangers. People impact the character of our lives in many ways and differing degrees. Up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has impressed his listeners with a description of a radically different kind of community, in which the lowly are esteemed; and he has issued a mission statement that fits squarely within the purposes of God. He has also upheld the priority of the Law for accomplishing God’s will. Now, as we will see in this section, Jesus exposes the purpose of both the Law and the Prophets. He gives extensive guidance for his followers, but even more, aims to shape their character as the new Israel of God – a people who will trust God completely in all things and who will exhibit a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
Audio: (at the 39.50 minute point, we are reading a handout, Transforming Mission, see below)
Transforming Mission, by David Bosch
Indeed, this sermon expresses, like no other New Testament passage, the essence of the ethics of Jesus. Throughout the ages, however, Christians have usually found ways around the clear meaning of the Sermon on the Mount …
Today … There is no getting around the fact that, in Matthew’s view, Jesus actually expected all of his followers to live according to these norms always and under all circumstances. If we recognize this we also, however, have to concede that, down through the centuries, precious few followers of Jesus have actually lived up to these expectations. There is a discrepancy between what Jesus taught and what actually happened to his teaching. This is particularly true of his injunction to love our enemies, which, more than any other command, reflects the true nature of Jesus’ boundary-breaking ministry. It forms the culmination of Jesus’ ethic of the reign of God. Yet at this point “the eschatological prophet of Nazareth represents a stumbling block both for his Jewish contemporaries and the church of all times”; as a matter of fact, the history of the church may very well be written “as a history of those who have shut themselves off from this command.”
The failure of Christans to live according to the standards of the Sermon on the Mount does not, however, absolve them from the challenge to do so. Particularly in our contemporary world of violence and counter-violence, of oppression from the right and the left, of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, it is imperative for the church-in-mission to include the “superior justice” of the Sermon on the Mount in its missionary agenda. Its mission cannot concern itself exclusively with the personal, inward, spiritual, and “vertical” aspects of people’s lives. Such an approach suggests a dichotomy totally foreign to the Jesus tradition as interpreted by Matthew.
The Sermon on the Mount, in particular, is eminently political since it challenges almost every traditional societal structure. His politics was, however, one of peacemaking, of reconciliation, of justice, of refusing vengeance and, above all, of love of enemy.
Chapter 5: A New Community Emerges
Readings:
Matthew 4:17 – 5:20 Genesis 12:1-3 Leviticus 2:13 Isaiah 65:17 – 25 Ezekiel 47:7 – 10
Summary:
In this portion of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry and begins giving his followers extensive guidance for discipleship. As soon as Jesus announces the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, he calls persons into it and reveals the higher righteousness that will characterize their lives together, in what is called the Sermon on the Mount. In the first part of the Sermon, Jesus describes the kingdom’s unusual character, states his community’s mission for the present time, and proves the new community’s continuity with God’s covenant with Israel. In the next part of the Sermon on the Mount, which we will consider in the next session, Jesus reveals the higher righteousness that will characterize his listeners’ lives together as well as the means by which faithfulness comes. For Matthew and his community, Jesus is the Great Teacher who is forming a new Israel of God that will exhibit both complete trust in God and the higher righteousness that God desires.
Audio:
Chapter 4: Dawn of the Messianic Age
Readings:
Matthew 3:1 – 4:16 Isaiah 40:1-5 Ezekiel 36:25-27
Summary:
If Jesus is the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, and the long-awaited Christ, then where is the Messianic Age? The question was every bit as relevant in Matthew’s day as it is in ours. In this portion of his Gospel (3:1 – 4:16), Matthew moves swiftly from the “genesis” of the Messiah to the “genesis” of the Messianic Age – the dawn of the Kingdom of God on earth – and gives further evidence of Jesus’ Messianic identity and mission as well as interpretive keys for understanding the heart of Jesus’ message. In the person of Jesus, a new world order is emerging in which sin is being rejected and the meaning of righteousness is being revealed.
As with all the Gospel writers, Matthew turns to the prophetic ministry of John (3:1-12) before he describes the ministry of Jesus. Clearly, an encounter with John and his message is necessary for receiving the gospel. Matthew then describes the baptism of Jesus by John and the purpose for it (3:13-17), which is followed by accounts of the testing of Jesus’ commitment to God in the wilderness (4:1-11) and the fulfillment of prophecy with Jesus’ arrival in Galilee (4:12-16). The long-awaited light of the Messianic Age is dawning in Jesus’ preparation for ministry.
Audio:
Chapter 3: The Genesis of Jesus
Readings:
Matthew 1:1-2:23 Genesis 12:1-3 Numbers 24:17 2 Samuel 7:8-16 Isaiah 2:1-5 and 7:14-15
Jeremiah 23:5-6 Ezekiel 37:21-24 Micah 5:2
Summary:
In what appears to be poor literary style, Matthew begins his Gospel account of Jesus with a genealogy that spans over 40 generations. The “hook” that should capture a reader’s or a listener’s attention is for many today an obstacle. For Matthew and his community, however, this was a captivating and persuasive opening for announcing that Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham, and the long-awaited Christ. Together with selected stories about Jesus’ beginnings, these accounts form a fitting introduction to Jesus’ identity and mission in the world. In this session, we will consider Jesus’ family lineage and birth, the early responses to Jesus’ arrival from both Gentiles and Jews, and how it happened that Jesus came to live in Nazareth in the region of Galilee where his ministry began.
Audio Part I
Audio Part II
Chapter 2: Matthew and the Gospel
Readings:
Matthew 3:15, 5:17, 7:24-27, 7:29, 8:4, 9:9, 10:3, 11:15, 16:18, 18:17, 18:20, 21:28-43, 28:16-20
Isaiah 9:2-7 Acts 10:34-43 Luke 1:1-4 John 20:30-31 I Corinthians 1:12-13, 1:23, 2:2
Summary:
Matthew begins the New Testament for good reason. More than any other gospel, Matthew links the essential promises of God in the Old Testament to their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is the “good news” proclaimed by the New Testament. Drawing heavily from the Old Testament law and prophets as well as from oral and written stories about Jesus, the writer of this gospel proclaims powerfully that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah who fulfills the purpose of the Law, forms the new Israel of God, and empowers his followers to exhibit the higher righteousness that God desires. Even more, Jesus is the Messiah who will establish righteousness among the nations. So who was this early Christian writer and what do we know about this writer’s community of faith? Why did he write a “gospel”? Clues in the text reveal a great deal about Matthew’s background, his community, and his view of Jesus as “good news”.
Audio Part I
Audio Part II
Chapter 1: Matthew’s Worlds and Ours
Readings:
I Maccabees 1:1-64 Isaiah 11:1-9 Acts 7:1-53 Acts 17:16-21
Summary:
Have you ever traveled abroad or lived in a foreign country? If so, you know firsthand how different life can be from one culture to another. Matthew and the people he describes in his Gospel lived in a different culture and time from ours. Even more, he lived simultaneously in two disparate yet related worlds – Jewish and Hellenistic – and the text he wrote has traveled across the globe for some 2000 years to meet us where we are. Just as people today can benefit from learning in advance something about the foreign culture through which they will travel, readers of Matthew’s Gospel will understand far more of its distinctive message – while they are traveling through it and when they return home – if they will consider first some important aspects of the cultures and time-period from which it came.
Audio (8/31)
Audio (9/6) – Part I
At this point in the class, we are completing the following worksheet:
Matthew’s Jewish World
1st Century Jewish Group – Group Size – Status/Role in Jewish Community – Status/Role in Hellenistic Community – Core Religious Beliefs
Pharisees
Sadduccees
Essenes
Priests
Scribes
Herodians
Audio (9/6) – Part II
Due to operator error, the recording was not started as soon as the class discussion resumed – our apology to listeners. Omitted from the recording was discussion about the first three groups with the following information:
- Pharisees – were a large middle class of lay people, who were popular in the Jewish community and enforced the law. They were not popular in the Hellenistic community, in fact, only the Herodians were. Their monotheistic religious beliefs were guided by Jewish law and the Prophets.
- Sadducees – were a smaller elite group of priests who were popular and had significant wealth, with power in the Jewish courts. Their monotheistic religious beliefs were guided only the Jewish law (the Torah).
- Essenes – were a small group who practiced strict asceticism and adherence to holiness codes (613 laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). It is thought that both John the Baptist and Jesus were members.
Class discussion about the remaining groups is now resumed in the recording.