The Gospel according to Matthew is the opening book of the New Testament of the Bible, and the first of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four Gospels are followed by the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of Paul beginning with Romans, the catholic or universal letters beginning with James, and the Book of Revelation.
The Gospel of St. Matthew is one of the most quoted books of the Bible. Noted especially for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5-7, Matthew is the source of the Beatitudes (5:3-10) and the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father (6:9-13). Jesus states the Golden Rule in the Sermon on the Mount (7:12). Christ reaffirms the Law of Moses (5:17) and the Commandments of God (19:17-19). Known as the Great Commission, the Gospel closes with Jesus calling the Apostles, "to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded to you" (28:19-20).
The Gospel of Matthew is especially important for it is one of the two Gospels originally written by an Apostle (the other being the Gospel of John). The Gospel of Matthew was possibly written in Antioch, Syria, an early home of Christianity. Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles (11:26) recorded that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch.
Matthew's Gospel is directed to an audience steeped in Hebrew tradition. The Gospel of Matthew stressed that Jesus is the Christ (1:16, 16:16) foretold in Hebrew Scripture, our Old Testament, and that the Kingdom of the Lord is the Kingdom of Heaven. For example, Jesus fulfills the prophecies of Isaiah 7:14, that the Lord is to be born of a virgin; and Micah 5:2, that the Lord is to be born in Bethlehem. He was named "Jesus because he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Yeshua, his very name in Hebrew, means "the Lord Saves." Jesus grew up in Nazareth of Galilee and was called a Nazarene (2:23). Jesus calls himself the Son of Man thirty times, fulfilling the destiny of the Messianic figure in Daniel 7:13. He is called the Son of David nine times in the Gospel of Matthew. Just as the twelve sons of Jacob were the origin of the twelve tribes of Israel, Jesus as the Christ chose Twelve Apostles to inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham (1:1). Matthew names five women in the Genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba), and Mary, the mother of Jesus. The genealogy regularly notes the male who fathers a child, but Matthew delivers an exact statement when he reaches Joseph, "the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born" (1:16). The relative pronoun "of whom" in Greek is ῆς, which clearly refers to Mary, for it is specific to the feminine gender! And the passive voice of the verb ἐγεννήθη - "was born" - is the only passive among the forty occurrences of γεννάω in the genealogy, which prepares the way for the divine conception and natural birth of Jesus Christ in 2:1.
St. Matthew records five major speeches of Christ Jesus: the Sermon on the Mount (5-7); the Missionary Sermon to the Apostles (10); the Parables of the Kingdom (13); the Discourse on Life in the early Christian community the Church (18); and his eschatological speech on the End Times (24-25). Upon Peter's statement "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus designates the Apostle Simon Peter to lead his Church (Matthew 16:15-19). The name Peter or Πέτροϛ in 16:18 is the same as the word for rock - kepha in Aramaic or Κηϕᾶϛ in Greek. The 'keys to the kingdom of heaven' in 16:19 recalls Isaiah 22:20-25 and indicates the rite of succession to the Steward of the Kingdom.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels, as they follow a similar pattern in describing the Life of Jesus and his teachings. Characteristic of all three are the Parables of Jesus. Matthew relates ten Parables on the Kingdom of Heaven, seven of which occur in Chapter 13 and are central to his Gospel. In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, the King remarks, "For many are called but few are chosen" (22:14).
Matthew 18:10 is traditionally cited as biblical evidence of Guardian Angels.
There are elements to Matthew's Gospel that are unique to it alone. The Infancy Narrative of Matthew comprises the first two Chapters and emphasizes the appearance of an Angel of the Lord in a dream to Joseph, the Star of Bethlehem to guide the Visit of the Magi, Joseph's role in the Flight into Egypt before the Massacre of the Innocents, and the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth. Matthew includes the complete Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5 through 7; and Matthew's description of his becoming an Apostle in Chapter 9:9-13. Matthew is the only one of the Gospel writers to refer to the Church in his reference to establishing Church authority with Peter, and in Matthew 18:17-20 where Jesus concludes "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Parables unique to Matthew include the Weeds Among the Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30), the Unforgiving Servant (18:23-35), the Laborers in the Vineyard (20:1-16), the Two Sons (21:28-32), and the Ten Virgins (25:1-13). The Last Judgement in Matthew 25:31-46 indicates that Christ Jesus cared for every living soul, expressed in the famous quote, "As you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), a quote that supports the theological basis for the dignity of the human person, a core principle of liberty. Following his Resurrection, Jesus gave his Apostles the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20).
Our New Testament of the Bible in the West was written in Greek. There are indications in the writings of the Fathers of the Church (Papias of Hierapolis, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and St. Jerome) that "Matthew put together the sayings of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could" (Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III, 39, 16). St. Irenaeus of Lyons in 180 AD wrote "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the Church" (Against Heresies Book III, 1:1). Origen about 240 AD wrote in his Commentary on Matthew: "I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism" (Eusebius 6:25). Eusebius in 325 AD in his Ecclesiastical History wrote "when Matthew, who had first preached among the Hebrews, decided also to reach out to other peoples, he wrote down the Gospel he preached in his mother tongue" (III, 24, 6). St. Jerome noted that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx), but said that it is not known who translated it into Greek. It is not known whether Matthew's writings were in Hebrew or Aramaic, for while Hebrew was the formal language of Israel, daily language was in the Western Aramaic dialect of Palestine, as with Jesus and the Apostles. The oldest manuscripts available to us are the Curetonian and Sinaiticus texts of the Old Syriac Gospels, the Greek Codex Sinaiticus from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai, Egypt, and the Codex Vaticanus in Greek from the fourth century AD.
Was Matthew or Mark written first? There must be a reason for St. Augustine and the Church Fathers to have placed Matthew first in the New Testament!
The following Scripture is the Revised Standard Version of the King James Bible, which has been accepted and approved by all of Christianity. Permission to publish Scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible (copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971), has been granted by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
CHAPTER 1
The Geneology of Jesus
1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, 8 and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. 12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
The Birth of Jesus
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.
When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit;
19 and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
20 But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
"Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;
21 she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
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