Unjumbling the Gospels—Matthew

Matthew: “What’s a Jewish follower of Jesus to do?”

Matthew’s congregation is struggling with two major issues. How do we as Jews understand our religion as followers of Jesus? And what is our relationship with Gentiles? Additionally, they are being persecuted by the local synagogue as heretics and need their faith emboldened.

Matthew is able to keep his congregation within the fold of Judaism by showing how the Law of Moses can be kept by following Jesus’ reinterpretation of it. He tackles the Gentile question by showing how the mission of Israel has always been to incorporate "the nations" into God’s people. We will trace the details of how he accomplishes this by closely following these themes through the Gospel. Along the way, many surprising and valuable lessons will be learned for us Gentiles of today.

So much of learning is unlearning previously held beliefs that obscure an accurate picture of what is on the Gospel page. Principle among the assumed "truths" is that Jesus came to start a new religion, Christianity. He didn't. Most critical biblical scholars believe that Jesus' mission was to reform the Judaism of his day. In fact, Jesus and Paul (as well as most of the early followers of Jesus) lived and died as Jews. What is assumed to be first-century Christianity was actually a Jewish sect. Christianity didn't emerge as separate from Judaism until well after the New Testament period. We will see how this understanding emerges in our study of this Gospel.

AVAILABLE January 4, 2023