Gospel Of Matthew Essay, Research Paper

Response to Matthew

The book of Matthew is written to the Jews. We see this because of the many quotes from the Old Testament. The Jews knew the Old Testament better than anyone of that time, and they should have been looking for the messiah that was promised. The main point that Matthew was trying to make by his book it that, Jesus was the messiah promised to us in the Old Testament. That is why he used so many quotes because he wanted to show the Jews that Jesus was the promised messiah.

One main point that stuck out to me in this gospel is that Jesus was from the line of Abraham and David. Right away in chapter one we see the genealogy of Jesus. This is an interesting topic in the fact that some of the people that we hear about are people that we would not expect to be in the line of the messiah. For example Rahab is one of the people in the line of Jesus. She is not only one of few women in the line she is also a prostitute. Rahab is the one who protected the spies when they went to check out Jericho. She hid them when the guards came to check her house. Because she helped them they told her that she would be protected when they destroyed the city. We see that the Lord works in mysterious ways. He uses all different types of people and even in sin his promises live on.

Sin was a part of the line of Jesus. We see that David was in the line of Jesus as well. David was the one who had Uriah killed in the army so that he could take Bathsheba as his own wife. In his sin of adultery the line of the savior was preserved. The son of David and Bathsheba was Solomon. Solomon was the son of David that carried the promise of the Lord.

The gospel of Mark never mentioned the genealogy of Jesus. Mark was written to the gentiles, and the gentiles would not of known what the genealogy meant. The gentiles did not know the Old Testament that is why they would not know what that means. Matthew was writing to the Jews, and that was one way to explain that the prophecies had come true just like the Old Testament said. They knew the Old Testament and had no reason to reject that Jesus was the Christ.

I like the gospel of Matthew better than the gospel of Mark because I can see how the Old Testament and the New Testament fit together. Both of the gospels Matthew and Mark tell how Jesus talked in parables. However in Matthew we see that Jesus was fulfilling the Old Testament when he taught in parables. Matthew 13:35 says,” So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world’”. We see that that passage comes from Psalm 78:2.

The two gospels are both inspired Word of God and are useful in our study. I like to read the gospel of Matthew more then that of Mark, but my opinion could change when we start Luke or John.