Preaching through Matthew 4:12-25:46
Hello Everyone,
If you were to preach through Matthew 4:12-25:46, what would be your main points? These main points would be determined by the central ideas of these related passages. The needs of your congregation would shape your imperative themes, which is the particular response from them that you expect to achieve from your message. Please read the following summary of Matthew 4:12-25:46, which provides these answers for you.
The Theological Framework of the Main Body: The Teaching Ministry of Jesus Christ (4:12-25:46) – Matthew 4:12-25:46 is popularly considered the main body of the Gospel of Matthew. It records the public ministry of Jesus Christ in His office as a Teacher; thus, an emphasis is placed upon His major discourses. The literary structure of the main body of Matthew (4:12-25:46) is generally divided into five narrative-discourse blocks. While the prologue-epilogue presents the person of Jesus Christ through the thematic scheme of the ordo salutis in its simplest form (predestination-calling-justification-glorification), the main body presents the Kingdom of Heaven through the thematic scheme of the ordo salutis in its expanded form. These five discourses have a thematic scheme that follows the ordo salutis or God’s plan of salvation: indoctrination, divine service, perseverance amidst persecutions, perseverance in church doctrine and fellowship, and glorification. Each narrative section prepares the reader for the message that Jesus delivers in the discourses that follows.
Block 1 (4:12-7:27) Predestination—Calling—Justification—Doctrine
Block 2 (7:28-10:42) Divine Service
Block 3 (11:1-13:52) Perseverance amidst Persecutions
Block 4 (13:53-18:35) Perseverance amidst Offenses/False Doctrines
Block 5 (19:1-25:46) Glorification
Biblical scholarship generally recognizes five major discourses within Matthew’s Gospel, each discourse ending with similar transitional statements interwoven with large sections of narrative material. These transitions give the major body of the Gospel of Matthew the characteristic feature of alternating narrative and discourse sections. Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures proposes that the theme of each narrative section relates to and prepares the reader for further development of the same theme in the discourse that follows. Such a concept is not new to the literary analysis of Matthew’s Gospel, but one that has received little attention. These five narrative-discourse blocks follow a sequence of five dominant themes listed above that serve as the theological framework of the main body. This framework supports the testimony of Old Testament Scriptures predicting the coming of the Messiah, the King of the Jews to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth.
In addition, Matthew places the literary device of quotation formulae derived from ἵνα πληρωθῇ or a variation of this form into each narrative section to capture the dominant theme of its respective narrative-discourse block. These quotation formulae reflect the theological framework of the entire main body of the Gospel of Matthew through the following expanded thematic scheme of the ordo salutis:
Block 1 - Predestination-Calling-Justification-Indoctrination (Matt 4:14-16) – Faith in the Light of the Gospel, “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”
Block 2 - Divine Service (Matt 8:17) – Divine service through the Atonement, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”
Block 3 - Perseverance amidst Persecutions (Matt 12:17-21) – Preaching the Gospel in meekness, “I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”
Block 4 - Perseverance amidst Offenses/False Doctrines (Matt 15:7-9) – Preaching the Gospel in truth, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Block 5 - Glorification (Matt 21:4-5) – Hope in the coming King, “Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.”
Matthew’s key literary devices (transitional statements, quotation formulae, and thematic schemes) support Bacon’s five-discourse division better than Kingsbury’s three-fold division at its macro and micro-levels. Therefore, this discourse chooses the Five-Discourse Division as the best approach to do a literary analysis of the main body of Matthew’s Gospel.