Description
Book SynopsisMatthew's Gospel is the most significant Jewish-Christian document of the New Testament. For Matthew, the story of Jesus is the underlying tale of his own community, summoned from Israel by the living Jesus and now, following Israel's rejection, sent to the Gentiles. Matthew's Jesus story bears much the same relation to the Matthean community as does the Pentateuch to Israel, hence the profoundly Jewish basis of his theology. This book, first published in 1995, both outlines and elucidates the story told in Matthew's Gospel, emphasising its focal points: the Sermon on the Mount, the miracles, the renunciation of possessions and particularly the theology of judgement by works, an idea which represents both a challenge, in its quest for a church set apart from non-Christians by deeds alone, and a burden, through its traumatic origin in the breach between the Matthean community and the Israelite majority.
Trade Review'... a model of issue-facing. It is full of judicious observations on the intractable question of the relation of Matthew's Jesus to the Jesus of history, the apparent tensions between Matthew's stress on moral performance and Paul's gospel of grace, on 'Matthew and church history' and on topics of particular relevance to today - in effect, whether Matthew's story was, from our point of view, worth telling.' Church of England Newspaper
Table of Contents1. The Book; 2. The Prologue (Matthew 1:1-4:22); 3. The discourse on the Mount (Matthew 5-7); 4. The ministry of the Messiah and his disciples in Israel (Matthew 8:1-11:30); 5. The origins of the community of disciples in Israel (Matthew 12:1-16:20); 6. The life of the community of disciples (Matthew 16:21-20:34); 7. The final reckoning with Israel and the judgement of the community (Matthew 21:1-25:46); 8. Passion and Easter (Matthew 26-28); 9. Concluding thoughts.
