Gospel Study Guide
The King and his kingdom, from the genealogy to the Great Commission
The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King of Israel, the son of David and of Abraham, who fulfills the Law and the Prophets and sends his disciples to all nations. It opens with a genealogy and closes with the Great Commission. In between, it gathers Jesus' teaching into five great discourses, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, and shows again and again that what the prophets said has come true in him.
Matthew stands first in every New Testament, and for most of church history it was the church's favourite Gospel: the one most quoted by the early fathers and the one read most often in worship. It is orderly, it is thorough, and it is built for teaching. If you want to learn what Jesus taught, Matthew is where the church has always started.
Like the other three Gospels, Matthew never names its author. The title "According to Matthew" was added by the early church, and the tradition behind it is old. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, writing around AD 100 to 130, said that "Matthew put together the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he was able." Irenaeus, around AD 180, wrote that Matthew "issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome." No early writer attributes the book to anyone else.
The Matthew in question is the tax collector of chapter 9:
As Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection office. He said to him, "Follow me." He got up and followed him.
Matthew 9:9, World English Bible
Mark and Luke call the same man Levi (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27). Only this Gospel calls him Matthew in the call story, and only this Gospel adds "the tax collector" to his name in the list of the twelve (Matthew 10:3). A tax collector would have been literate, numerate and used to keeping records, which fits a Gospel so carefully arranged.
Most scholars today think our Greek Matthew used the Gospel of Mark as a source, since about ninety percent of Mark appears in Matthew, often word for word. That has led many to conclude that an unnamed Jewish Christian, writing in Greek, produced the book we have, perhaps drawing on material that went back to the apostle. Others hold to the traditional view that the apostle wrote it. The text itself does not settle the question.
No ancient source dates the book. Scholars who hold that Matthew used Mark usually place it between AD 70 and 85, after the destruction of the temple. Those who think Matthew wrote independently often date it in the 60s, before the temple fell. The only firm boundary is that Ignatius of Antioch, writing around AD 110, already seems to know it.
Matthew was written for readers who knew the Old Testament and cared about it: Jewish Christians, and Jews who were weighing the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. Several features of the book make that plain.
Why write it? Matthew's own answer is in the last three verses: Jesus has been given all authority, and his disciples are to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. The book is a teacher's Gospel. It gathers what Jesus taught into blocks a church could learn from, and it shows a Jewish reader that following Jesus is not leaving the Scriptures behind but finding what they were always pointing to.
"Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill."
Matthew 5:17, World English Bible
Matthew alternates between narrative and teaching. Five times he gathers Jesus' words into a long discourse, and five times he closes it with almost the same sentence: "When Jesus had finished saying these things" (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). Readers have noticed this pattern for a long time; the American scholar B. W. Bacon made it famous in 1930, and suggested the five blocks echo the five books of Moses. Whether or not that was Matthew's intent, the five discourses are the clearest map of the book.
| Chapters | Narrative | Discourse |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | Genealogy, birth, the Magi, Egypt, John the Baptist, baptism, temptation, first disciples | |
| 5 to 7 | The Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes, the law fulfilled, the Lord's Prayer, the two builders | |
| 8 to 9 | Ten miracles, the call of Matthew | |
| 10 | The Mission Discourse: the twelve sent out | |
| 11 to 12 | John's question, woes on the cities, "Come to me," Sabbath disputes, the sign of Jonah | |
| 13 | The Parables of the Kingdom: the sower, the weeds, the mustard seed, the treasure, the pearl, the net | |
| 14 to 17 | Feeding the five thousand, walking on water, Peter's confession, the transfiguration | |
| 18 | The Community Discourse: the lost sheep, the brother who sins, the unforgiving servant | |
| 19 to 23 | Journey to Jerusalem, the triumphal entry, the temple cleansed, disputes, the woes on the scribes and Pharisees | |
| 24 to 25 | The Olivet Discourse: the end of the age, the ten virgins, the talents, the sheep and the goats | |
| 26 to 28 | The Last Supper, Gethsemane, trial, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, the Great Commission |
Two other seams are worth knowing. Twice Matthew writes "From that time, Jesus began" (4:17 and 16:21). The first marks the start of the public ministry; the second marks the turn toward the cross. Read with those two hinges, the book has three movements: who Jesus is (1:1 to 4:16), what Jesus proclaims (4:17 to 16:20), and where Jesus is going (16:21 to 28:20).
From that time, Jesus began to preach, and to say, "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
Matthew 4:17, World English Bible
Matthew's first words call Jesus "the son of David," and the royal thread runs to the end. The Magi ask for "he who is born King of the Jews" (2:2). Jesus enters Jerusalem as the king of Zechariah 9:9 (21:5). The charge over the cross reads "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" (27:37). And the risen Jesus claims "all authority in heaven and on earth" (28:18). The kingdom he preaches is his own.
Matthew reads the Old Testament as a book of promises that Jesus keeps. The birth fulfills Isaiah, the return from Egypt fulfills Hosea, the ministry in Galilee fulfills Isaiah again, the healings fulfill Isaiah 53, the parables fulfill the Psalms, the entry fulfills Zechariah, and the betrayal money fulfills the prophets. Jesus does not replace the Scriptures; he completes them (5:17).
The phrase occurs about thirty times, and only in Matthew. The kingdom is "at hand" (4:17), it belongs to the poor in spirit (5:3), it grows like a mustard seed (13:31), it is worth selling everything for (13:44 to 46), and its keys are given to Peter (16:19). It is God's rule, breaking in through Jesus, to be completed at the end of the age.
Matthew uses the word "righteousness" more than the other Gospels combined. Jesus is baptized "to fulfill all righteousness" (3:15), and he tells his disciples that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees they will not enter the kingdom (5:20). The Sermon on the Mount then shows what that deeper righteousness looks like: not only no murder, but no contempt; not only no adultery, but no lust; not only love for neighbours, but love for enemies.
Matthew is the only Gospel to use the word "church" (16:18; 18:17). Chapter 18 is a manual for life together: humility, care for the straying, how to deal with a brother who sins, and forgiveness without limit. The book ends not with Jesus departing but with Jesus promising to stay: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (28:20).
Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Matthew 28:18 to 20, World English Bible
Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the same story in much the same order, which is why they are called the Synoptic Gospels (from a Greek word meaning "seen together"). John stands apart. Within the three, Matthew has a character of its own.
| Matthew | Mark | Luke | John | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portrait of Jesus | The King, son of David, the new Moses who teaches | The Servant who acts, the suffering Son of God | The Saviour of all, friend of the poor and the outsider | The eternal Word made flesh |
| Opening | Genealogy from Abraham | John the Baptist, no birth story | Birth of John and Jesus, genealogy back to Adam | "In the beginning was the Word" |
| Length | 28 chapters | 16 chapters | 24 chapters | 21 chapters |
| Teaching | Five long discourses | Little extended teaching | Teaching spread through a long journey (9:51 to 19:27) | Long dialogues and the Farewell Discourse |
| Old Testament | Quoted most often, with "that it might be fulfilled" | Quoted least | Quoted, with an eye to the nations | Alluded to, through signs and feasts |
| Only here | Magi, flight to Egypt, Peter on the water, the temple tax, the sheep and goats, Pilate's wife, the guard at the tomb, the Great Commission | The deaf man of Decapolis, the blind man at Bethsaida, the young man who fled | The shepherds, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, Zacchaeus, the Emmaus road | Cana, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, Lazarus, the foot-washing, Thomas |
The fuller comparison, with the Synoptic relationship explained, is on the four Gospels page.
Free study sheets. "The Four Gospels at a Glance" puts Matthew beside the other three on one page, and "The Life of Jesus: A Timeline" shows where each chapter falls in the story. Both are free on the free downloads page.
John Charles Ryle (1816 to 1900) was an English parish clergyman who became the first Bishop of Liverpool in 1880. His Expository Thoughts on the Gospels began with Matthew in 1856. He wrote it, as he explained in his preface, for family reading: short expositions on each passage, plain enough to read aloud, each drawing out the doctrine, the warning and the comfort in the text. The series went on to Mark, Luke and John, and has stayed in print ever since.
Our edition keeps Ryle's words and his order and modernizes what slows a reader now: the "thee" and "thou," the old spellings, and the Scripture references written out in full. Where a word or a reference needs help, an editor's note says so in brackets. A new biography opens the volume. The books page says more about what changed and what did not.
The book does not name its author. The earliest church writers, from Papias in the early second century onward, attributed it to Matthew, the tax collector whom Jesus called (Matthew 9:9). Many modern scholars think an unnamed Jewish Christian compiled it, drawing on Mark and other sources. Either way, the church has read it as the apostolic Gospel of Matthew since the second century.
Estimates range from the 60s to the 80s AD. Scholars who think Matthew used Mark usually place it after Mark, around AD 70 to 85. Those who see it as independent of Mark often date it earlier, in the 60s. No ancient source gives a date.
Because the first thing Matthew wants a Jewish reader to know is that Jesus is "the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1, WEB): the promised King in David's line and the heir of the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed. The genealogy is the book's thesis in family-tree form.
Matthew's usual phrase for what Mark and Luke call "the kingdom of God." It is God's rule, arriving in Jesus, present now in those who follow him and to be completed when he returns. Matthew uses "kingdom of heaven" about thirty times and no other Gospel uses it at all.
Matthew is the most Jewish of the four, quotes the Old Testament most often, and gathers Jesus' teaching into five long discourses, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount. Only Matthew has the Magi, the flight into Egypt, Peter walking on the water, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the Great Commission. See the full comparison on the four Gospels page.
Matthew has 28 chapters. Read straight through, it takes about two and a half hours. Studied a chapter a week with a group, it takes 28 weeks, which is why the Matthew study workbook is laid out that way, with shorter 13-week and 8-week tracks for groups that need them.
Ryle's Expository Thoughts on Matthew, modernized and annotated, and the 28-week study workbook that pairs with it.
Commentary
Ryle's complete commentary on Matthew, modernized for today's reader. Short expositions on every passage, with his doctrine, warning and comfort in his own order, a new biography, and editor's notes where a word or reference needs help.
Ebook $0.99 · Paperback $21.99
Study workbook
One chapter a week through Matthew, with Ryle's exposition printed in each week, observation and discussion questions, the Family Fifteen for households, and room to write. Tracks for 28, 13 or 8 weeks.
Ebook $6.99 · Paperback $21.99 · Spiral-bound $24.99