3. Matthew

we're gonna talk about Matthew and what his gospel means and who his audience was. I am gonna be reading quite a bit from my notes, so I apologize for looking down most of the time, but let me start by just praying and then we'll get started. Father, I'm so thankful for your word. I'm so thankful for your mercy and your grace in my life. I thank you for this day and God, how I saw you at work in my life and how I was able to see and understood exactly the directions that you wanted me to take. I thank you for the people that I talked to today. I pray, God, that our conversation was laced with your grace and mercy and love for them. And I just thank you, Lord, for every person that you've given me the opportunity to share the gospel with, both in my actions and also in words. And I just pray, God, that something that is said in this recording is a blessing to them and that they're able to focus on your word and grow in your word and be encouraged by the difference that you're making in their lives. Lord, I'm so thankful for your mercy in Jesus' name, amen. Within the gospels is what some would refer to as a synoptic problem.

So when I say synoptic, I'm talking about Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are synoptic gospels, meaning similar gospels, and very much of the content in one can be found in the other two. And remember, we talked about in this class, we're gonna date Mark as the oldest gospel because that's how Carson dates Mark. So have that in mind. And with that in mind, what you'll find is about 93% of everything that is in Mark can also be found in Matthew and Luke. Now, they were written at different times. And so some have referred to that, the differences, which really amounts to different verbs and different words, meaning pretty much the same thing. And we'll look at some examples of some differences in the gospels that kind of lend itself to this idea that there may be some differences. But given the fact that they didn't have printing presses and they didn't have Kinko's and places where they could just go print the gospel, they had to write it out on many times papyrus, which was an organic leafy type material. The fact that we get very similar messages from those three authors is quite phenomenal. So rather than it being a gospel problem or synoptic problem, rather, I would say it's more a gospel miracle that we have very similar accounts.

It's proof that God is at work, not only now, but was at work then in making sure that his message about his son was similar from three different writers. So anyway, I just found that to be rather fascinating. So the first thing I want you to see is just imagine a cross on the board or on a wall. And in each of the quadrants of that cross are the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And in the middle, obviously, is the message about Christ. Every one of those writers, their primary message in their writings, the gospels named after them is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, Jesus. And they all have that at the center of their message. And so the fact that they come away with, first of all, Jesus being the subject of each of those gospels and different approaches with like different audiences that they're writing to, they all come away with the same message. That is, Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the hope. Jesus is the reason for any hope. And the fact that they have that message as its central aspect of all of those writings written at different times is quite phenomenal. So over a 30 to 40 year span, we have the writings of the gospels. And just as a reminder, I'm gonna go through the four gospels and give you a sense of the dates of each gospel.

Remember, as I just said, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as synoptic gospels because they're very similar in content. John has a different approach to his gospel. And we'll talk about that when we get to John. But in essence, only 8% of what we see in John can be found elsewhere. So that means that 92 to 93% of what's in John is unique or can only be found in the book of John, the gospel of John. So Mark is not an eyewitness. We believe that he wrote his gospel in the mid to late AD 50s. So we have Jesus being crucified right around AD 33. And within 17 years is the first published gospel in the form of... being written by Mark. He was not an eyewitness, so he was not one of the apostles. 93% of Mark's gospel can be found elsewhere. That is, it can be found in Matthew and Luke. Some of what Mark writes is in John, but primarily you can find his gospel also in Matthew and Luke. Luke acts, because Luke wrote acts as well. Luke is not an eyewitness either. We believe he wrote his gospel right around mid AD 60s, and 41% of his gospel can be found elsewhere. Matthew is an eyewitness, and we date Matthew's gospel right before AD 70.

Remember, there's a significant event that happened in AD 70 and that's the destruction of the temple, the attack on Jerusalem. So we feel like since Matthew, Luke, nor Mark mentioned the destruction of the temple in their writings, in their gospels, we feel like the temple was still there. As a matter of fact, many of them refer to the temple as it relates to the temple tax. They're referring to paying the temple tax, and you don't pay a temple tax if the temple's not there, right? So we feel like the temple was there at the time of their writing. So Matthew is an eyewitness, and we believe he wrote his gospel just before the destruction of the temple, so right around AD 66, 67, 68, and 58% of his gospel can be found elsewhere. Carson dates John in the late or mid to late AD 80s, right? So 80 to 85, and we date that late a date because John also doesn't mention the destruction of the temple. A lot of the dating of the letters and the gospels and the epistles in the New Testament are dated in a way to or in thought that none of them mentioned the destruction of the temple, so therefore we believe that it was all written before AD 70 or further away from AD 70, long enough to where they would not have had to mention it.

Now, if you think about the similarities in the gospels, to include John, who is obviously writing about Christ, you think about the fact that they come away with very similar accounts, I mean, that's phenomenal. That is evident, that God was involved in making sure that his story was told in the way that he wanted it told. He wanted it told. You think about today, I mean, I can tell you a story today, and then next week, if I ask whoever you told that story to to give me the story back, the likelihood of it being exactly the way that I told you is pretty slim. That's just the world we live in, and so the fact that God was able to keep that story contained and focused on the Messiah is proof of his involvement in the gospels. All right, so I told you all that one of the things we're gonna do is quote John 17, 17. So John 17, 17 simply says, and you all could have quoted it from different versions, but in the Christian Standard Bible or the CSV, it says, sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth, right? And what we know is the them in that text, and I think this is really important, the them in that text is referring back to the disciples. So if you read John 17, you will see that that's who he's referring to. The them is the disciples. He wants God to sanctify or separate, set apart them, and to make them holy with his word, understanding and applying and being able to share

his word with others, and his word is ultimate truth. It is not debatable. It is not something that one should consider lightly. It is the word of God is truth. So that is what we're doing each time we meet. We're using God's word to separate our life and our heart so that we can be more useful to God in living out the gospel in each of our lives. So let's consider, why did Matthew write his gospel? What was his purpose? Well, he has, Carson identifies five different purposes that Matthew wrote his gospel. The first is to discuss the fact that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the son of God, the son of man. When I say son of God, that refers to his divinity. And when I say son of man, that refers to his humanity. So Jesus was both 100% divine, divinity, and he was also 100% God. man. So Matthew is writing first to talk about Emmanuel, or the Son of God. Emmanuel, for those that have seen that word, is spelled typically two different ways. I-M-M-A-N-U-E-L, which is the Hebrew spelling of Emmanuel, or E-M-M-A-U, I mean A-N-U-E-L, which is the Greek spelling of Emmanuel. Now most people have defined that word as God with us, and in essence it means that, but if you break that word down into the three syllables that exist in it, it really spells something different. So in Hebrew, I-M-M means with. I-M-M is with. Anu, A-N-U, is us, with us, and then E-L, as many of you likely already know, is a way to say God's name. L-E-L is God. So really, if you break that word down, it is with us God, even though when we say it in English, we say God with us. But again, one of our goals as Bible students is to understand what the text, what scriptures, what the Bible would

have meant back then to those that it was written to. The Bible was written, and I don't know if this will upset you, or you might, you know, say something to me the next time I see you in person, but the Bible was not written to you. It was written for you. You could benefit from it, but it was written to a specific audience, and it's important for us to understand who the writers of the New Testament text are, and why those authors, each of the letters, each of the chapters, every word that was written in the New Testament was written to somebody for a purpose, and we can benefit from that. Obviously, we can benefit from that, but Matthew, for example, is writing primarily to Jews, and so he's using terminology, Immanuel, that his audience would have understood very clearly that that is with us God, and another thing that's unique about looking at it that way, it's what do you see there? With us and God. There's nothing separating us and God, right? We are together because God loves us, and obviously those that are in the room that I'm talking to, you love God. So the first purpose that Matthew had in writing his gospel was to discuss the fact that Jesus is the promised Messiah, okay? The second purpose that Matthew had in mind for writing his gospel is to warn the many Jews, especially the Jewish leaders, who were simply failing to recognize Jesus during his earthly ministry, and by implication, or because they were failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah during his earthly ministry, they are in great danger to continue in their unbelief. Remember, the first purpose is to talk about Jesus the Messiah, right, as the promised Messiah. The second purpose is to warn the Jews, especially the Jewish leaders. Well, why the Jewish leaders? Because they influence the people, right? So if he can get, if Matthew's thinking, if he can get the Jewish leaders to believe that Christ is the Messiah, then they're going to share that message with those that follow them, right? So that's purpose number two. The second, I mean, I'm sorry, the third purpose is to educate his readers that the promised eschatological kingdom, remember eschatology is the study of the end times, right, has already dawned. It was here and now, at the time that he was writing it, and it started by the life, death, resurrection, and

exaltation of Jesus. Remember, Marian and I were talking about bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth, right? And so what Matthew is writing in this text, and it's ironic that Matthew has the prayer in Matthew 6 in his gospel, what he's writing about is, since Jesus is here, eschatology begins now, right? So I see Jesus, and he is the start, this person that I see who is both 100% man and 100% divine. He is starting the end times, and it is our role as Christ followers to tell people about the fact that Christ has come to save you. And, you know, you can live in a heavenly mindset now. That doesn't mean that you are of no earthly good, as the phrase says, just means that we should be bringing peace. or Shalom, and love and mercy and grace to those that are around us. That is bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. All right, the fourth purpose is to inform his readers that the Masonic reign is continuing in the world as believers, both Jews and Gentiles, when they share their faith. So the Masonic reign starts with Christ, but the way it continues is through his believers, you and I. And then lastly, Matthew writes to inform his readers that this Masonic reign is not only the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes, but the foretaste of Jesus's second return. Okay, I know I said a lot, but I will have my notes, Tommy will have my notes for class, and he can go into it further. All right, so Carson also provides a structure for the Gospel of Matthew. If you read Carson about Matthew, you already realize that he gives a lot of opinions of various people, right? And sometimes it's hard to track what his opinion is, because he doesn't tell you directly whatever his opinion might be, but then he does offer a structure for Matthew so that we can follow it. Let's see here. So on page 136, I'm not sure in the Hispanic version, the Spanish version, but in the English version on page 136, you'll see this outline that Carson provides for Matthew's Gospel. The first section is the prologue, or the introduction, and Carson separates that out as being Matthew 1 through Matthew 2.23. The next section is the Gospel of the Kingdom, which contains the Sermon on the Mount, is Matthew 3.1 through 7.29. And then the next section that Carson identifies within Matthew's Gospel is the kingdom extended under

authority, and we can find that in Matthew 8 through 11.1. The next section that Carson identifies is teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom against rising opposition. That is found in Matthew 11.2 through chapter 19. The next section is the glory and the shadow, or progressive polarization, or separating the believers from the non-believers, and we find that in Matthew 13.54 through chapter 19 verse 2. And I'm sorry, the previous section is 11.2 through 13.53. And then the next section is opposition and the eschatological, or end times focus, and the triumph of grace. We can find that in Matthew 19.3 through Matthew 26.5. And then lastly, the passion, or the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, and his ultimate dying on the cross and rising from the dead. When I say passion, that's what I'm referring to. We can see that in Matthew 26.6 through 28.20. We believe the Gospel of Matthew was likely written in modern-day Syria. This is not certain, but most would believe that that's the case, that that's where it would have been written. All right, so this next section, I'm going to do quite a bit of reading, that there's proof within the Gospels that the temple was still standing at the writing of the Gospel. And here's an example of that proof. So if you look at Matthew 17 verses 24 and 25, Matthew writes, when they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax? Yes, he said. When he went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first. What do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers? From strangers, he said. Then the sons are free, Jesus told him. So what do you see in that text? Well, first of all, he's referring, well, not first of all, the fact that he's referring to the temple tax proves that the temple was still there. So there's examples throughout the other Gospels of the temple still being there, that's just an example in Matthew. All right, so when you see this slide in class, it's a slide six in class, it doesn't look pretty. This is an example of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, ultimately that ended in AD 70. So I'm going to read a little history about this time, just to give you some sense about what was

occurring. at that time in history. So in the year AD 66, the Jews of Judea, Judea is the region surrounding Jerusalem, the city, rebelled against their Roman masters. In response, the Emperor Nero dispatched an army under the leadership of Vespasian to restore order. By the year AD 68, resistance in the northern part of the province had been eradicated and the Romans turned their full attention to the subjugation of Jerusalem. That same year, the Emperor Nero committed suicide, creating a power vacuum in Rome. And the resulting chaos, Vespasian was declared Emperor and returned to the imperial city. Titus, his son, son of Vespasian, led the remaining army in the assault on Jerusalem. The Roman Legion surrounded the city and began to slowly squeeze the life out of the Jewish stronghold. By the year AD 70, the attackers had breached Jerusalem's outer walls and began a systematic ransacking of the city. The assault culminated in the burning and destruction of the temple, which served as the center of Judaism. In victory, the Romans slaughtered thousands. Of those spared from death, thousands more were enslaved and sent to toil in the mines of Egypt.

Others were dispersed in arenas throughout the empire to be butchered for the amusement of the public. The temple's sacred relics were taken to Rome where they were displayed in celebration of the victory. The rebellion sputtered on for another three years and was finally extinguished in AD 73 with the falls of various pockets of resistance, including the stronghold at Maceda. Maceda was an area where the Jews who were held captive, where they were being attacked. They were going to, they felt like they were gonna be captured and put in prisons or made to work for the Roman government. And instead of that, they killed themselves. Now you can do some research about that, but it's spelled M-A-S-A-D-A. As we study the other gospels, their dating will largely depend on whether or not the temple had been destroyed or not. And I can tell you, as we get into Mark, Luke and John, the temple was already destroyed. None of them mentioned the temple. Now this next slide, the Arch of Titus is still standing in Rome. This arch was erected or constructed in AD 82, 12 years after the destruction of the temple by the Emperor Domitian, shortly after the death of his older brother, Titus. Remember Titus is the one that led,

that ultimately led the revolt against or the attack on Jerusalem, resulting in the destruction of the temple. Well, this arch, which is called the Arch of Titus, is still in Rome and you can see it today as a testament to the victory that Titus had over the Jews at that time. All right. So Matthew, of which I think Mark refers to him as Levi, it's the same guy. There's two basically levels of proof. I'm sure you all may be familiar with this, but in criminal justice, there's two levels of proof, right? Primarily two levels of proof. Beyond a reasonable doubt and preponderance of evidence. Preponderance of evidence takes the notion of scales. You all have seen the justice scales, right? So with preponderance of evidence, if the evidence submitted outweighs that which is not submitted, then it's likely that we come away with a guilty verdict, right? Or the case is awarded to whichever party. Well, think about it in that way. The preponderance of evidence, as Matthew being the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, who is also the disciple or apostle that followed Jesus, who is also Levi and Mark and is a tax collector, the preponderance of evidence shows

that he likely is the writer of the Gospel that is named after him, okay? We can't know for sure because we weren't there. That's why I give you that particular notion. So we've talked a lot about who Matthew might be or who he was. He was a Jew, he was a tax collector. He was likely hated by his Jewish brothers and sisters. If you look at Matthew 4, 5, for example, I'm sorry, not Matthew, Malachi 4, 5. Look, I'm going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. So he was a Jew, and as a Jew, their primary purpose was waiting for and looking for. for the Messiah. So Matthew would have been doing that. And before he meets Jesus, obviously, he thinks that the Messiah is still coming. They believed that the Messiah could have been Elijah, and that, I'm sorry, that Elijah would announce his coming, literally the prophet Elijah of the Old Testament. So Matthew would have been trained in that, and that's who he would have been looking for. If we look at Matthew chapter 1, verse 1 through 16, I find it interesting that genealogies leading from, I guess, Abraham to Jesus occur in two Gospels. One is in Matthew, Matthew 1. That's how Matthew starts his Gospel, with a genealogy, 1 through 16. But Matthew starts with Abraham. And if I were there, I would ask you, why does he start with Abraham? Well, because Abraham is significant to his audience, right? Abraham is the father of Isaac. Isaac is the father of Jacob, who becomes, or God changes his name to Israel, and Israel has the twelve men who become the twelve tribes of Israel. So the Jews would have been interested in a genealogy that starts with Matthew. Matthew does something also different in his genealogy that Luke does not. I'm sorry, the other author of the Gospel writer that has a genealogy is Luke. Mark

doesn't have a genealogy, nor does John. But Matthew includes five women that we don't see in Luke's genealogy. Tamar is one of the women in Luke's genealogy who actually slept with Judah, her father-in-law, and that is in Jesus' genealogy. Rahab, the prostitute, is in the genealogy and is also part of Jesus' ancestry. Ruth is in the genealogy, Uriah's wife, or Bathsheba, and Mary. Those are five women that the Jews would have been able to recognize as being important in Jesus or the Messiah's ancestry. So I'm always encouraged by a particular verse in Matthew's genealogy, and I'm going to read that. So he's going through the names. You start with verse 2. Abraham fathered Isaac. Isaac fathered Jacob. Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers. Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez fathered Hezron. Hezron fathered Aram. Aram fathered Amminadab. Amminadab fathered Nashon. Nashon fathered Salmon, and Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab. Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth. Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered King David. Now look at the next part of verse 6. David fathered Solomon by Uriah's wife. Now obviously David killed Uriah so that he could have Bathsheba as his wife, and the reason that's interesting is because David is also known as a man after God's own heart, yet his sin appears in the Gospel of Matthew. I don't know if that was his most significant sin, but it was a big He has this affair with the wife of one of his soldiers, and that's not enough. He then has that soldier killed, and then has a child by Uriah's wife, and that first child dies, and then they have a second child, Solomon, and Solomon is in Jesus's genealogy, Jesus's ancestry. I just find that fascinating that God is going to choose who He chooses. He chooses us. He chose us, and it doesn't matter our past sins. It doesn't matter our mistakes. It doesn't matter our father, our mother, or anyone that raised us. What is important is that our Father God chose us, and He has a plan for our life, and we are valuable to Him, and since we're valuable to Him, we should give ourselves a pass sometimes, and not focus so much on our mistakes, but look forward as to what God wants us to do. No matter where we are, there are things and people that God wants you to reach, and me to reach, no matter where we are, okay? So that gives me hope that David's life,

his sin, shows up in Matthew's Gospel. He doesn't even mention Bathsheba. He mentions Bathsheba by saying Uriah's wife, indicating that obviously David had something to do with his death. All right, so let's look at some quotation from the Old Testament that Matthew includes in his gospel. I'm starting to learn that this class is much longer when I don't have readers. So hang in there, it's good. All right, so Carson notes 47 quotations from the Old Testament or the Testament that Matthew includes in his gospel. In my research, I found as many as 65 references to the Old Testament. And he obviously uses more Old Testament references than the other three gospels. Why do you think that is? I just heard somebody say, it's because of his audience. His audience are the Jews, right? They would know the Torah. They would know the major and minor prophets and the poetic books. And they would know the history books of the Old Testament. So they would identify very quickly with some Old Testament references. So let's look at a few here. So Matthew 1, 22 and 23. This is not gonna go as fast as I want. So Tommy, I'm gonna send you my notes. If you all could look at these references, I'll just do a couple. So Matthew 1, 22 and 23.

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. See the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son and they will name him Emmanuel. That reference in the Old Testament is Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. See the virgin will conceive and have a son and name him Emmanuel. You see that? All right, Matthew 2, five and six. In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him because of this, this is what was written by the prophet. And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. We can see that reference in Micah chapter five, verse two. Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah. One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times. You see that reference? You see how Matthew calls back to the Testament, the first Testament that the Jews would have been able to recognize. And there are several other. All right, so here's a scripture on the slide if you're looking at this and Matthew writes in chapter 11, 11 through 15. Truly I tell you among those born of women,

no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence and the violent have been seizing it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesies until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come. That anyone who has ears to hear, listen. Matthew is the only gospel that includes verse 12. So let's look at verse 12 again. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence and the violent have been seizing it by force. So Luke speaks of this same happening. He just doesn't include verse 12 that talks about the kingdom of heaven suffering violence. So this particular, and this is where we're gonna use hermeneutics. You know what hermeneutics is? Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible, okay? So let's exegete or use exegesis to pull out the meaning rather than eisegesis, that is to read in the meaning. So let's use hermeneutics to understand what's happening here and why Matthew would have included this verse, why this verse would have been important to Matthew's audience. The parallel texts or the similar texts

to this particular verse is found in Luke 16, 16. So I'm gonna read that. The law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed. And everyone is urgently invited to enter it. You see, that's all that Luke includes. He does not mention verse 12 that the violent have been seizing it by force. Matthew Henry, a commentary, a commentator of the Bible explains this violent notion in this way. You all may have read a text about Jacob, the son of Isaac wrestling with God or wrestling with an angel. And in a similar way, that's what Matthew is writing about here. It's not wrestling or being violent for the purpose of causing harm. Jacob wrestled with God so that God would bless him. Does that make sense? And in a similar way, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence and the violent have been seizing it by force because they want a blessing, those that are seeking the kingdom of heaven. All right, so Matthew writes this, Matthew Henry writes this, like the violence of an army taking a city by storm or a crowd bursting into a house, so the violent take it by force.

Multitudes are witnessed to by the ministry of John and become his disciples. But the multitude that become his disciples are improbable. That is, they're not the expected ones. These are folks who are outsiders. They're people who are tax collectors or prostitutes. They're not the scribes and the Pharisees that you would think would be listening to God speak through his son, Jesus Christ. It's only those who are willing to put up with shame and put up with, because they've already been shamed most of their life. I mean, tax collectors were considered at that time some of the worst people on the planet, prostitutes in a similar way. So those types of folks are seizing the opportunity to become Christ's followers and they're not concerned about the shame. So in a similar way, it is entering a violent situation to become a Christ's follower. This violent denotes, Matthew Henry writes, a strength, a vigor, an earnestness, a desire to become a follower of Christ, despite what might have been accused, what they might've been accused of. So they wrestle against the opposing folks. They wrestle against the ridicule of the leaders of the time. And so that's why Matthew writes this. He knows that if you, because he experienced it himself,

him being a tax collector was considered one of the worst people, if not the worst person on the planet. And so he commits to Christ. When Jesus asked him, follow me, Matthew goes despite the shame that he had faced most of his life. And so in a similar sense, Matthew, in a sense gives up, but he also enters a fight to believe in this Messiah that not everyone believes in. So the reason he includes that verse is because of his audience. He knows that people that, especially Jews, that accept Christ are not gonna be welcomed by everyone around them because not everybody recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Here's another comparison, Matthew 26, 15. And said, I'm sorry, let's look at 14. Then one of the 12, the man called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, what are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? So they weighed out 30 pieces of silver for him. And then Zechariah 11, 12. Then I said to them, if it seems right to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them. So they weighed my wages, 30 pieces of silver. Now, when they offered Judas Iscariot 30 pieces of silver, his mind, because he was a Jew, would have went directly back to the prophet Zechariah. He would have known that that 30 pieces of silver

was significant and guilt and shame likely entered his heart. Mark and Luke had Old Testament references also, but not nearly as much as Matthew. As noted earlier, in my research, I found 65 references to the Old Testament. And the reason Matthew includes so many references to the Old Testament is because of his audience. So he was a Jew by humble birth, but he was also a tax collector. And I wanna read what a tax collector was. Matthew was multidimensional. That is, he may have addressed several aspects in his gospel, but he was appealing to his audience. So I have a couple of books that I wanna read from. The first is Who's Who in the Bible. So tax collectors are also referred to as publicans. They're sometimes used, they use that terminology in the synoptic gospels. And they're referring to people employed in collecting the state or public revenue. The collection of taxes within the provinces of the Roman Empire was auctioned in Rome to financial companies. The highest bid was accepted and the company sold their rights to collect in different areas of the province to smaller spectators. The result was often an exorbitant rate of taxation, far exceeding the original bid to the imperial colony administration.

Consequently, publicans or tax collectors were highly unpopular members of society, particularly as those could, they could call upon the support of the. Roman colonial governor and his military forces when they faced opposition by their Jewish brothers and sisters. Those Jews who were willing to earn a living by exhorting high rates from their fellow brothers in order to pay their Roman masters were doubly despised and disliked. Moreover, as their business transactions brought them into close and constant touch with Gentiles and they were deemed to be dishonest anyway, publicans were or tax collectors were regarded as sinners and outside the law. There's another book I wanna read from, the Bible Dictionary. It's just a dictionary of, let's see, theological terms. I know that shows up on your screen backwards, but I think you get my point here. So 1349 is where we're going. So a publican or tax collector is a political office created by the Romans to help collect taxes in the provinces. Actually, the title tax collector is more correct than the older term publican in referring to the lowest rank in the structure. Zacchaeus is called a chief tax collector in Luke 19 too,

probably indicating one who contracted with the government and who in turn, Zacchaeus, hired people to do the work of tax collecting. In the New Testament times, people bid for the job of chief tax collector and then exacted the tax plus a profit from the citizens. Most of the offices were filled by Romans, although some natives got the bids. Publicans were held in the lowest esteem because of their excessive profits being placed in the same category as prostitutes. Jesus was accused of eating with and defending, if not befriending them in Matthew 9, 11. So it's not surprising that Matthew has a story about tax collectors in his gospel because he was one of them, right? Matthew is the same guy as I mentioned earlier as Levi in Mark and Luke. I'll read the references there, Mark 2, 13. When you have it on the board there, you all can look at that. And then Matthew obviously contains a very popular sermon by Christ, the Sermon on the Mount. One of the quotes there from Matthew 6, 25 through 34 talks about worrying. And the interesting part about that sermon on worrying is that very often we can't do anything about the thing we're worried about. But I found another study that was interesting also. A study found that the average person

reported three to four actual worries per day, okay? Three to four things that we worry about per day. The result, a whopping 91% of the worries were false alarms that did not come true. And of the remaining 9% of the worries that we worry about each day that did come true, the outcome was far better than what we expected. So stop worrying, right? That's easy to say, not necessarily hard to do. I mean, not necessarily easy to do. The other thing in Matthew, Matthew talks a lot about the feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew 14, 13 through 21. There are several healing miracles in Matthew's gospel. The transfiguration is seen in Matthew's gospel, all referring to the sovereignty of God. Teaching with authority is seen in Matthew's gospel, prophesying and fulfillment of it, and Jesus's resurrection from the dead. What I find interesting about the sovereignty of God, what a lot of people don't consider, is that means that God is in charge. That means that he chooses. That means that we, of course, have a say, but that doesn't dictate what God does. God is going to do what he chooses to do. And he will give us the strength, the wisdom, the grace and the mercy to make it if we trust him. So I appreciate this time that you all have given me to talk about Matthew's gospel.

I hope that this very quick overview was helpful. So next week, we will talk about the gospel of Mark. We'll learn what is significant about this gospel, what the theme of Mark's gospel is. How did Mark know so much about Jesus's life? We'll talk about that. The Bible reading for next week is Mark 1, 9, 10, and 16. Shortest gospel of the four. Again, thank you all for your time. Father, I'm so thankful for this time. I'm thankful for your grace and mercy. I'm thankful, Lord. for each of these men. And God, I pray that you continue to work in their hearts, drawing them into closer fellowship, relationship with you so that they can not only trust you with whatever is happening in their life, but that also, Lord, they can make an impact, a positive, a godly, a gospel impact to those around them. And Lord, we're so thankful for your grace and mercy in our lives, and we just give you our life, and we just trust you with what you decide will happen with us. I'm just grateful, Lord, for this opportunity and to be able to share what you've taught me about Matthew in Jesus' name, amen.