Matthew

A Theological Commentary on the Bible

Anna Case-Winters

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781611645651
  9780664232672
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611645651
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

One of the most beloved books of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew speaks with eloquence and power. Among the Gospels, Matthew paints a fuller picture of the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus. Anna Case-Winters's incisive commentary reveals that Matthew is clearly a theological book. It is about God's saving work in Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is presented in a way that easily lends itself to the task of teaching and preaching. Case-Winters highlights five themes that shape the distinctive portrait of Jesus this Gospel offers. Here we see Jesus facing up to conflict and controversy, ministering at the margins, overturning presuppositions about insiders and outsiders, privileging the powerless, demonstrating the authority of ethical leadership, challenging allegiance to empire, and pointing the way to a wider divine embrace than many dared imagine. Case-Winters captures the core of Matthew's unique Gospel, which speaks powerfully to the life of Christian faith today in the midst of our own issues and struggles.

PART 1

THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH

1:1–2:23

1:1–2:23

Jesus the Messiah, King of the Jews

1:1–25

Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, Emmanuel

The opening words of the Gospel of Matthew begin, “the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah …” “Messiah” (mashiach) is a Hebrew word meaning “anointed one.”¹ When translated into Greek it is rendered as “Christos” from which we get the title “Christ.” In our everyday usage we forget that “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. It is a rather audacious faith affirmation that Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah—God’s anointed one.

As it goes forward, the genealogy proceeds as a mind-numbing list of names. But the author is up to something here. He is making yet another audacious messianic claim. One vision of the coming Messiah was as one who would be a great and powerful king like King David. The genealogy shows that Jesus is of David’s royal lineage, a true “son of David.”

We are meant to see the contrast between Jesus and King Herod, whom we meet in chapter 2. Herod has no royal blood. He is not even fully Jewish. He is just an opportunistic military commander that the Romans have coopted for their own political agenda.² He is a puppet king. Jesus, as Matthew means us to understand, is the true King of the Jews. This designation, present here at the beginning, will appear again at the end of the story (Matt. 27:11, 29, 37, 42) when the charge placed over his head reads, “This is Jesus, King of the Jews.”

After the designation “son of David” there follows the designation “son of Abraham.” The lineage is traced all the way back to Abraham, the great patriarch who received God’s covenant promise. Jesus is the one in whom the promise of blessing given in the covenant (Gen. 22:18) comes to full fruition. In this listing, there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David and fourteen more from David to Jesus. The names can also be divided into six groups of seven names. The number seven was considered the “perfect” number. The symbolic power of locating Jesus in the auspicious place as the first of the seventh seven would not have been lost on the early audience.

The Messiah does not wander onto the stage of history as an impressive newcomer to the drama, but in continuity with God’s saving history in the past.

Boring, The New Interpreters Bible, 8:131.

There are other extraordinary things about this genealogy. One of the most striking is the inclusion of the names of women. Luke’s genealogy does not include any women, not even Mary. Including women, as Matthew does, in a genealogy that is traced down through the male line is uncommon. It concludes with Joseph “the husband of Mary” even though Matthew intends us to understand that Joseph was not the father. This is strange and so is the inclusion of four other women along the way. Much has been made of issues around sexuality for these women: Tamar seduced her father-in-law; Rahab was a prostitute; Ruth seduced her kinsman Boaz; Bathsheba committed adultery, and so on. However, this really does not distinguish them from the men in the list(!)—Judah was seeking a prostitute when he came upon Tamar, and David committed adultery with Bathsheba. That God works with ordinary people in the midst of the irregularities and scandals of their lives could be part of Matthew’s point. He does, in fact, have to counter the scandal around Mary and the charge of Jesus’ illegitimacy. Perhaps a more notable distinction than the issues around sexuality, however, is the fact that these women are Gentiles: Tamar is a Canaanite, Rahab is from Jericho, Ruth is a Moabite, Bathsheba a Hittite. These women are “outsiders,” and yet they stand in the messianic line. The inclusion of these Gentile women in the unfolding of God’s promise underscores from the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, a theme that will run throughout. God’s promise to Abraham has universal dimensions; through him all the nations would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).³ Note that all four of these women were “socioeconomically, politically, or cultically powerless, and all fulfilled their role in Israel’s salvation history by overcoming obstacles created by people in authority unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities.”⁴

More about the identity of Jesus unfolds when Joseph, in a dream, is instructed to “name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (1:21). Only Matthew offers an explanation of this name. The name Jesus, like the name Joshua, (both common in that time) is an affirmation of faith as the Hebrew root Yeshua or Jeshu means “YHWH saves.” There is in this naming an explicit reminder of the many ways God has saved God’s people along the way. Echoes of the Exodus ring through. As Joshua brought the Israelites into the promised land after the death of Moses, Jesus will now fulfill what the law of Moses intended. As God through Moses delivered the people of Israel out of the house of bondage in Egypt, so now God in Jesus will save them—and people of all nations—from their sin.

Jesus’ identity is illumined further by his miraculous conception. Matthew draws on Isaiah 7, “Look the virgin shall conceive and bear a son … .” The reference to a virgin conceiving is not found in the original Hebrew. There it is simply a “young woman” who will conceive. However, the Greek translation (the Septuagint) of the Hebrew Scriptures uses the Greek word for “virgin.” Matthew follows this reading.⁵ In doing so he heightens the sense that in this birth there is a special working of God. It echoes the extraordinary conceptions of central figures in the history of Israel such as Isaac and Samuel, who were born to women thought to be barren (Gen. 20:15–21:7 and 1 Sam. 1:15–25). Their extraordinary conceptions were taken to be signs that God had a special purpose for them in God’s saving work. God is involved and the unsuspecting are expecting.

It is interesting that Matthew does not give Mary center stage the way Luke (1–2) does. Joseph is the actor featured here. He becomes an exemplar in his obedience to God (1:20–25; 2:13–14, 19–21). The theme of “higher righteousness” that is drawn out in the larger Gospel of Matthew is first illustrated in Joseph. A central problem in Matthew’s community was the tension between keeping the letter of the law and being “righteous.”⁶ Joseph faced that tension. He was prepared to “do the right thing,” which in the cultural context was to dismiss Mary, and he was even planning to do so compassionately, “quietly,” rather than expose her to pubic disgrace. Then the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and called him to follow the divine leading rather than doing what was expected. Joseph, in obeying, becomes the model for all disciples who confront the tension of “you have heard that it was said … but I say to you.” This tension, set forth more fully in the Sermon on the Mount, is between what is commonly understood to be commanded by God and the new thing God is doing in Jesus.⁷

In this first chapter the double direction of Matthew’s proclamation is already manifest. Jesus is “embedded in the history and hopes of Israel and yet inaugurating a breakthrough to the nations.”⁸ When the final naming (v. 23) is introduced we learn what matters most is not necessarily the genealogy—God can “raise up children to Abraham” from stones (3:9)—nor is it the fulfillment of promise. It is not even the special circumstances of Jesus’ birth. What matters most is this is Emmanuel—“God with us.” This is the message that frames the book of Matthew. It is a promise reiterated at the end of the Gospel when Jesus says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20).

2:1–23

King of the Jews: A Threat to Herod

At the opening of the second chapter, wise men come from the east seeking “the child who has been born King of the Jews.” They have seen his star “at its rising.” What we translate here as “wise men” is the Greek word magos, which often means astrologer. It makes sense that astrologers might follow an extraordinary sign in the heavens. Scholars have speculated about what might have been going on in the night sky at this time that could provide some historical setting for this account of the natal star. One of the more interesting proposals is that Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction with each other three times in 7 BCE. Jupiter was known as the “royal,” or kingly, planet, and Saturn was thought to represent the Jews.⁹

In this chapter there is a sharp contrast in the receptions the newly born Jesus receives. On the one hand, there are these wise men, nameless strangers and aliens who have come a great distance following that “star of wonder.” They come in an attitude of seeking. They are prepared to do homage, bringing gifts¹⁰ fit for a king. On the other hand, there is King Herod, who is no stranger or alien but one who sits in the seat of power. What he seeks is to secure his power and his place. He is frightened and scheming, killing innocent babes in his rage.

There is another sharp contrast in this chapter between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Jerusalem is the place the wise men expect to find this auspicious event occurring, the birth of the King of the Jews. Jerusalem, after all, is the center of power politically and religiously. Bethlehem, by contrast, is a seemingly inconsequential place inhabited by people at the margins—peasants, like Mary and Joseph. Yet Bethlehem is the place where God is at work in ways that will threaten the imperial power entrenched in Jerusalem. When King Herod was frightened, the text says “all Jerusalem” was frightened with him (2:3). Likely this “all” would mean the elite and powerful centered at Jerusalem, those who had something to lose if there were changes afoot. Herod calls together “the chief priests and scribes of the people, his advisory council the Sanhedrin.”¹¹ They, along with the Pharisees and Sadducees (3:7), would be members of the governing classes, who are in alliance with Rome and Rome’s representatives (i.e., Herod and Pilate). This first appearance of the religious leaders who will be major players in the Gospel story does not bode well, for they are linked with Jerusalem’s fear, and they are allied with Herod’s scheming (2:3).¹²

One commentator titles this chapter in Matthew, “The Empire Strikes Back.”¹³ Why is the great King Herod threatened by this little baby? Matthew means for us to know that the threat is real. The announcement from the wise men is political dynamite for Herod. Jesus is the true King of the Jews in the line of David. Herod is an imposter, a usurper.¹⁴ Matthew carefully drew out the genealogy that established Jesus’ royal lineage, and now even Gentiles from far parts seem already to know that this newborn is the King of the Jews. Herod reacts with haste and deploys the wise men in his plot of destruction, enjoining them to “go and search diligently for the child” (2:8)—indeed, track him down! The sense of threat is so strong that when Herod’s plot is unsuccessful, he is so infuriated that he orders all children in the whole region of Bethlehem who are age two and under to be put to death.¹⁵

It is not only King Herod and the religious leaders at Jerusalem who will recognize Jesus as a threat to the present order. As the story unfolds, Jesus will face opposition and conflict with elites and authorities all along the way. The problem is that he overturns tables (21:12) and expectations, violates religious and cultural rules, privileges the powerless, questions the agreed arrangements regarding insiders and outsiders. The opposition that attends his ministry culminates in the Jerusalem establishmen...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Publisher’s Note
• Series Introduction by William C. Placher and Amy Plantinga Pauw
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Why Matthew? Why Now?
• Part 1: The Birth of the Messiah
• Part 2: The Life and Ministry of Jesus
• Part 3: The Cross of Christ
• Part 4: The Resurrection of the Lord
• Final Thoughts
• For Further Reading
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects