Reading Matthew

Top Highlights

“The righteous person, however, is not one who simply conforms to conventional expectations but one who is obedient to God’s revelation no matter how scandalous it might appear to others.” (Page 23)

“Repentance is not simply remorse and a desire to turn over a new leaf. It is the readiness to heed Jesus’ call ‘immediately’ and to leave everything to follow him (4:20, 22; see 19:27; 8:21–22). It requires a total reordering of priorities in life and unreserved commitment to Jesus.” (Page 49)

“‘The genealogy is an impressive witness to Matthew’s conviction that the birth of Jesus was no unpremeditated accident but occurred in the fullness of time and in the providence of God, who overruled the generations to this end, to inaugurate in Jesus a new order, the time of fulfillment’ (Setting, 73). The genealogy is not the record of one birth after another. It discloses that God has been working within history to achieve foreordained purposes and that Jesus, the last person of the last epoch, is the fulfillment of God’s plan for Israel and the beginning of a new messianic age.” (Page 20)

“Jesus has been proclaimed son of God by a voice from heaven at his baptism; he is then sent into the wilderness to probe his fidelity and filial obedience (cf. Deut 13:3). Jesus recapitulates the history of God’s covenant son, Israel; but he proves true at the very points where Israel failed: hunger (Exod 16), testing God’s faithfulness (Exod 17), and idolatry (Exod 32). Matthew’s interpretation of Hosea 11:1 in 2:15 makes it clear that for him, Jesus is Israel, God’s son, who is called out of Egypt (see Exod 4:22–23; Deut 1:31; Jer 31:9).” (Page 39)