Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Matthew. The Book of Matthew has six parts: 1. the Sermon on the Mount (4:17-7:29) 2. Jesus the Healer (8:1-9:35) 3. The Mission Discourse (9:36-11:1) 4. Mounting Hostility to Jesus (11:2-12:50) 5. The Parable Discourse (13:1-53) 6. The Kingdom and the Disciples (13:54-16:12)………………………………. The first discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, is centered around Matthew’s conviction that Jesus is the Messiah and therefore the authoritative teacher of God’s will. The Sermon does not have a neat progressive structure; rather, the sayings of Jesus are clustered around basic motifs. The conviction that the end of the world will be a triumph for God’s grace–a conviction based on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus–runs through the Sermon and gives it special force. Matthew begins his Gospel with a narrative prologue and a genealogy, in which he asserts that Jesus is in the line of King David, thereby elevating him to royal status. There are several other items that make this Gospel unique. Matthew’s emphasis on good deeds is clearly expressed when Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (7:21). Jesus instructs his disciples to love their enemies; strive for complete honesty; avoid retaliation for injury; not violate another through lust or manipulation (5:27-30)…………………………………….. Matthew is the first gospel because the book is highly esteemed for the way it presents the story of Jesus, how it presents the demands of Christian discipleship, and the breaking in of the new and final age through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Matthew is unique in that it is both the most Jewish of the Gospels and most hostile to Judaism. Jesus calls the Pharisees ‘hypocrites’ and ‘a brood of vipers.’ Jesus loathes the Jewish leadership. Matthew blames the Jews, rather than Pilate for Jesus’ death. The Jews cry: “His blood will be on us and our children.” This was the most fateful thing ever said. One of Matthew’s central concerns in to claim that his community of Christian Jews is faithful to the traditions of Israel. He writes in continuity with Judaism, in continuity with Jewish traditions. He quotes the Old Testament /Hebrew Bible more than any other gospel writer. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus restricted his mission to the Jews and ordered his disciples to do the same. In a saying found only in Matthew Jesus affirms the validity of the Law and the Prophets, considered sacred by 1st Century Jews. Matthew styled Jesus’ birth like Moses’ birth. They were both threatened by death after they were born. Herod Antipas is like Pharaoh, and Jesus’ birth is an exodus from bondage to sin and darkness. To continue the Moses typology, Jesus climbs a mount to give the Sermon like Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to receive the Laws………………………………………….. The gospel is also structured around 5 discourses: 1.The Sermon on the Mount 2. The Missionary Discourse 3. The Parable Discourse 4. The Church Order Discourse 5. The Eschatological Discourse (eschatological is an adjective meaning relating to death, judgment and final destiny of the soul and of humankind). The information in this blog is taken from the CSB.