Text -- Matthew 13:33 (NET)

The Parable of the Yeast

13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Mat 13:33

Is like unto leaven ( homoia estin zumēi ).

In its pervasive power. Curiously enough some people deny that Jesus here likens the expanding power of the Kingdom of heaven to leaven, because, they say, leaven is the symbol of corruption. But the language of Jesus is not to be explained away by such exegetical jugglery. The devil is called like a lion by Peter (1Pe 5:8) and Jesus in Revelation is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5). The leaven permeates all the "wheaten meal"(aleurou ) till the whole is leavened. There is nothing in the "three measures,"merely a common amount to bake. Dr. T.R. Glover in his Jesus of History suggests that Jesus used to notice his mother using that amount of wheat flour in baking bread. To find the Trinity here is, of course, quite beside the mark. The word for leaven, zumē , is from zeō , to boil, to seethe, and so pervasive fermentation.

Vincent: Mat 13:33

Leaven ( ζύμῃ )

Wyc., sour dough, as German Sauerteig . From ζέω , to boil or seethe, as in fermentation. The English leaven is from the Latin levare, to raise, and appears in the French levain.

Wesley: Mat 13:33

This was the quantity which they usually baked at once: till the whole was leavened - Thus will the Gospel leaven the world and grace the Christian. Luk 13:20.

JFB: Mat 13:33

This parable, while it teaches the same general truth as the foregoing one, holds forth, perhaps, rather the inward growth of the kingdom, while "the Mustard Seed" seems to point chiefly to the outward. It being a woman's work to knead, it seems a refinement to say that "the woman" here represents the Church, as the instrument of depositing the leaven. Nor does it yield much satisfaction to understand the "three measures of meal" of that threefold division of our nature into "spirit, soul, and body," alluded to in 1Th 5:23, or of the threefold partition of the world among the three sons of Noah (Gen 10:32), as some do. It yields more real satisfaction to see in this brief parable just the all-penetrating and assimilating quality of the Gospel, by virtue of which it will yet mould all institutions and tribes of men, and exhibit over the whole earth one "kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ."

Clarke: Mat 13:33

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven - On the nature and effects of leaven, see the note on Exo 12:8. As the property of leaven is to change, or assimulate to its own nature, the meal or dough with which it is mixed, so the property of the grace of Christ is to change the whole soul into its own likeness; and God intends that this principle should continue in the soul till all is leavened - till the whole bear the image of the heavenly, as it before bore the image of the earthly. Both these parables are prophetic, and were intended to show, principally, how, from very small beginnings, the Gospel of Christ should pervade all the nations of the world, and fill them with righteousness and true holiness.

Defender: Mat 13:33

Leaven is invariably symbolic of evil doctrine or practice. It produces fermentation, which is a decay process; decay and death, of course, were the precise features of God's curse on the earth because of sin (Gen 3:17-19). The Levitical offerings, for this reason, could not be "made with leaven" (Lev 2:1, Lev 2:11), and the Passover memorial had to be observed with "unleavened bread" (Exo 12:15). The spreading of leaven here represents the corrupting influence of even a small amount of false doctrine (Gal 5:9) or impure practice in the kingdom (1Co 5:6).

Defender: Mat 13:33

The "three measures of meal" correspond to the "three tenth deals of fine flour" (Lev 14:10), which were specified for the offerings. The woman of the parable, evidently preparing such an offering, surreptitiously "hid" leaven in the proposed offering, contrary to the law. The meal offerings was actually a type of Christ (Joh 6:33), bringing life to the world, as our Passover, but His work was being corrupted by the world's leaven (1Co 5:8).

Defender: Mat 13:33

Both the growing mustard seed and spreading leaven indicate that, as the outward kingdom grows, both its membership and doctrine will increasingly become corrupted. The true spiritual kingdom within the outward kingdom, on the other hand, will always be a relatively "little flock" (Luk 12:32), surrounded by wolves (Mat 10:16). Even at the future time of Christ's return, the Lord anticipated that it will be difficult to find real "faith on the earth" (Luk 18:8). The common interpretation of these two parables (that they indicate the eventual conversion of the whole world through evangelism and development of a theocratic world government) is thus badly mistaken."

TSK: Mat 13:33

Another : Mar 13:20

like : Luk 13:21; 1Co 5:6, 1Co 5:7; Gal 5:9

measures : Gr. ""A measure containing about a peck and a half, wanting a little more than a pint."

till : Job 17:9; Pro 4:18; Hos 6:3; Joh 15:2, Joh 16:12, Joh 16:13; Phi 1:6, Phi 1:9, Phi 2:13-15; 1Th 5:23, 1Th 5:24; 2Pe 3:18

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Mat 13:33

The kingdom of heaven - The meaning here is the same as in the last parable; perhaps, however, intending to denote more properly the secret and hidden nature of piety in the soul. The other parable declared the "fact"that the gospel would greatly spread, and that piety in the heart would greatly increase. This states the "way"or "mode"in which it would be done. It is secret, silent, steady; pervading all the faculties of the soul and all the kingdoms of the world, as leaven, or yeast, though hidden in the flour, and though deposited only in one place, works silently until all the mass is brought under its influence.

Three measures - These were small measures (see the margin); but the particular amount is of no consequence to the story; nor is anything to be inferred from the fact that three are mentioned. That number is mentioned as a circumstance giving interest to the parable, but designed to convey no spiritual instruction. The measure mentioned here probably contained about a peck and a half.

Poole: Mat 13:24-33

Ver. 24-33. Here are three parables by the evangelist put together before he cometh to the explication which our Saviour giveth of the first; all of them concerning the gospel church, and the dispensation of the gospel. In the one he instructs us what we are to expect as to the mixture of persons in it while it is in this world. In the other two concerning the increase and propagation of it. The first himself expounds, Mat 13:37-43 . This parable is only found in Matthew. The other two are found, shortly both of them in Luke, one in Mark; neither of them are expounded. I will therefore, without any explication of these verses at present, go on to the verses following them, all which will lead me to our Saviour’ s own interpretation of the first of these parables; after which I will also consider these two parables that follow here, but are neither expounded here nor in the other evangelists.

Lightfoot: Mat 13:33

Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.   

[In three (sata) measures of meal] that is, in an ephah of meal. Exo 16:36; "Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah." The Chaldee reads, The tenth part of three sata. The LXX reads, The tenth part of three measures. And Rth 2:17; "It was as an ephah of barley." Where the Targum reads, As it were three sata of barley.   

"A seah contains a double hin, six cabes, twenty-four login; a hundred and forty-four eggs."

Haydock: Mat 13:33

In three measures. Sata, the word here used, was a particular Hebrew measure, which corresponds not to any particular measure that we make use of, and therefore I have put measures, as it is in other English translations. See Walton de Ponderibus & mensuris, before his first tome. p. 42. (Witham) ---

It was the Seah of the Jews, the third part of the Epha, and contained about ten pints, and appears to be the ordinary quantity they baked at a time. (Bible de Vence) ---

By the woman here mentioned, St. Jerome understands the Church gathered from all nations; or the power and wisdom of God, according to St. Augustine.

Gill: Mat 13:33

Another parable spake he unto them,.... To the disciples and the multitude, and which was of the same kind, to the same purpose, and relating to the same subject as the former; the spread of the Gospel, and the increase of it in the world,

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven. The word "leaven" is every where else used in a bad sense; and either designs immorality, as malice and wickedness, or false doctrine, such as that of the Pharisees and Sadducees: but here it seems to be taken in a good sense, and the Gospel to be compared unto it; nor for its disagreeable qualities, but on account of its small quantity; it is a little leaven that leavens the whole lump, and may express, as the grain of mustard seed does, the small beginnings of the Gospel, and its meanness in the eyes of men; and on account of its piercing, penetrating, and spreading nature: so the Gospel reaches the conscience, pierces the heart, enlightens the understanding, informs the judgment, raises and sets the affections on right objects, subdues the will, and brings down all towering thoughts, to the obedience of Christ, in particular persons; and has penetrated and made its way, under divine influence, through towns, cities, kingdoms, and nations: also on account of its heating, swelling, and assimilating nature; so the Gospel, where it takes place, warms the affections, causes the heart to burn within, inspires with zeal for God, and Christ, and the Gospel; it swells and fills churches with such as shall be saved, and assimilates the several persons it operates in, makes them like one another, one bread, one body, having like precious faith, knowledge, and experience, though in a different degree,

Which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. By the "three measures of meal", are meant the elect of God; who, because of their nature and quality, are compared to meal, or fine flour; and that because of that of which it is made, wheat, to a corn of which Christ is compared, Joh 12:24 and by whose grace the saints are what they are, justified, regenerated, and sanctified; and on account of the manner it becomes so, as by grinding the wheat, sifting it when ground, and separating it from the bran; all which may express the first convictions in the conscience of awakened sinners, the grace of God in conversion, and the separation of them from the rest of the world, in the effectual calling; as also by reason of its choiceness, purity, and goodness, the saints being chosen of God and precious, and being pure and spotless, through the grace and righteousness of Christ, and being highly valued, and had in great esteem by him; and because of their quantity, are compared to three measures of meal. The measure here designed, is the Hebrew seah, which held a gallon and an half, and three of these made an ephah; and which is often rendered by the ^a Targumists, תלת סאין, "three seahs", or "measures", the very phrase here used; and the reason why three are particularly mentioned is, because such a quantity used to be fermented and kneaded by women at one time; see Gen 18:6 and for the further illustration of this, take the following passage out of the Talmud ^b,

"The wise men say, that three women may be employed in one lump of dough; one may knead it, another may make it into loaves, and another may bake it--and it is a tradition,

בחיטין שלשת קבין "that in wheat they use three kabs", or "measures", and in barley four "kabs".

These measures, as here used parabolically, may design the small number of God's elect; and, as some have thought, may have respect to the three then known parts of the world, where they were, or should be: by the woman that took and hid the leaven in these measures, is meant, either the church, sometimes compared to a woman in Scripture, Rev 12:1 or the ministers of the Gospel, wisdom's maidens; or rather, Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God; see Pro 9:1 and the reason why a woman is mentioned is, because it was, with the Jews, the work of women to ferment the flour, knead the dough, and make the bread: and this action of taking and covering the leaven in the meal, may denote the power of Christ, in opening the heart, and putting in the Gospel, which unless he takes in hand, and uses, is ineffectual; as also the passiveness of men, under the first workings of the Spirit of Christ upon their souls, by the Gospel; and likewise, the secret and invisible power of divine grace, operating by the ministry of the word, upon the heart,

Until the whole was leavened: to be "leavened" by the Gospel, is to be evangelized by it, to be brought into the life and liberty of it, to a Gospel way of living by faith on Christ; to derive all peace, joy, and comfort from him, and not from any works of righteousness; and to have a man's obedience influenced by the love of God, so as to do it cheerfully, and without dependence on it. Now the Gospel, where it has entrance and takes place, powerfully and effectually, continues to operate more or less, as the leaven in the meal, until the whole man, soul and body, all the faculties of the soul, and members of the body, are influenced by it; and will continue with power and efficacy in the world, and church, until all the elect of God are wrought upon by it, and are brought in. There is a late ingenious interpretation ^c of this parable, which, since the word "leaven" is elsewhere always used in a bad sense, deserves consideration; according to which, this parable expresses not the spread of truth, but of error; by "the woman" is thought to be meant, the Apocalyptic woman, the woman spoken of in the Revelations, the whore of Rome, the mother of harlots; and the "leaven" which she took, the leaven of false doctrine and discipline; by her "hiding" it, the private, secret, artful methods, false doctrines, and bad discipline were introduced, and the gradual progress thereof; and by the "three measures of meal", the bishops and doctors of the church, among whom this leaven was spread, and who were fermented with it; particularly those three bishops of Rome at first, Sosymus, John the faster, and Boniface the third; which by degrees spread itself, until the whole Christian world was affected with it; and for a long time lay hid and undiscovered, till the Lord raised up Wyclif, John Huss, Jerom of Prague, Luther, and other reformers. The reader may choose which interpretation he likes best,

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Mat 13:33

¹ tn Grk “hid in.”

² sn This measure was a saton, the Greek name for the Hebrew term “seah.” Three of these was a very large quantity of flour, since a saton is a little over 16 pounds (7 kg) of dry measure (or 13.13 liters). So this was over 47 lbs (21 kg) of flour total, enough to feed over a hundred people.

³ tn Grk “it was all leavened.”

sn The parable of the yeast and the dough teaches that the kingdom of God will start small but eventually grow to permeate everything. Jesus’ point was not to be deceived by its seemingly small start, the same point made in the parable of the mustard seed, which preceded this one.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Mat 13:1-58

1 The parable of the sower and the seed;

18 the exposition of it.

24 The parable of the tares;

31 of the mustard seed;

33 of the leaven;

36 exposition of the parable of the tares.

44 The parable of the hidden treasure;

45 of the pearl;

47 of the drag net cast into the sea.

53 Christ is contemned of his own countrymen.

Maclaren: Mat 13:33

Leaven

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.'--Matt. 13:33.

How lovingly and meditatively Jesus looked upon homely life, knowing nothing of the differences, the vulgar differences, between the small and great! A poor woman, with her morsel of barm, kneading it up among three measures of meal, in some coarse earthenware pan, stands to Him as representing the whole process of His work in the world. Matthew brings together in this chapter a series of seven parables of the kingdom, possibly spoken at different times, and gathered here into a sequence and series, just as he has done with the great procession of miracles that follows the Sermon on the Mount, and just as, perhaps, he has done with that sermon itself. The two first of the seven deal with the progress of the Gospel in individual minds and the hindrances thereto. Then there follows a pair, of which my text is the second, which deal with the geographical expansion of the kingdom throughout the world, in the parable of the grain of mustard-seed growing into the great herb, and with the inward, penetrating, diffusive influence of the kingdom, working as an assimilating and transforming force in the midst of society.

I do not purpose to enter now upon the wide and difficult question of the relation of the kingdom to the Church. Suffice it to say that the two terms are by no means synonymous, but that, at the same time, inasmuch as a kingdom implies a community of subjects, the churches, in the proportion in which they have assimilated the leaven, and are holding fast by the powers which Christ has lodged within them, are approximate embodiments of the kingdom. The parable, then, suggests to us, in a very striking and impressive form, the function and the obligations of Christian people in the world.

Let me deal, in a purely expository fashion, with the emblem before us.

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.' Now of course, leaven is generally in Scripture taken as a symbol of evil or corruption. For example, the preliminary to the Passover Feast was the purging of the houses of the Israelites of every scrap of evil ferment, and the bread which was eaten on that Feast was prescribed to be unleavened. But fermentation works ennobling as well as corruption, and our Lord lays hold upon the other possible use of the metaphor. The parable teaches that the effect of the Gospel, as ministered by, and residing in, the society of men, in whom the will of God is supreme, is to change the heavy lump of dough into light, nutritious bread. There are three or four points suggested by the parable which I could touch upon; and the first of them is that significant disproportion between the apparent magnitude of the dead mass that is to be leavened, and the tiny piece of active energy which is to diffuse itself throughout it.

We get there a glimpse into our Lord's attitude, measuring Himself against the world and the forces that were in it. He knows that in Him, the sole Representative, at the moment, of the kingdom of heaven upon earth--because in Him, and in Him alone, the divine will was, absolutely and always, supreme--there lie, for the time confined to Him, but never dormant, powers which are adequate to the transformation of humanity from a dead, lumpish mass into an aggregate all-penetrated by a quickening influence, and, if I might so say, fermented with a new life that He will bring. A tremendous conception, and the strange thing about it is that it looks as if the Nazarene peasant's dream was going to come true! But He was speaking to the men whom He was charging with a delegated task, and to them He says,' There are but twelve of you, and you are poor, ignorant men, and you have no resources at your back, but you have Me, and that is enough, and you may be sure that the tiny morsel of yeast will penetrate the whole mass.' Small beginnings characterise the causes which are destined to great endings; the things that are ushered into the world large, generally grow very little further, and speedily collapse. An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, but the end shall not be blessed.' The force which is destined to be worldwide, began with the one Man in Nazareth, and although the measures of meal are three, and the ferment is a scrap, it is sure to permeate and transform the mass.

Therefore, brethren, let us take the encouragement that our Lord here offers. If we are adherents of unpopular causes, if we have to stand alone with two or three,' do not let us count heads, but measure forces. What everybody says must be true,' is a cowardly proverb. It may be a correct statement that an absolutely universal opinion is a true opinion, but what most people say is usually false, and what the few say is most generally true. So if we have to front--and if we are true men we shall sometimes have to front--an embattled mass of antagonism, and we be in a miserable minority, never mind! We can say, They that be with us are more than they that be with them.' If we have anything of the leaven in us, we are mightier than the lump of dough.

But there is another point here, and that is the contact that is necessary between the leaven and the dough. We have passed from the old monastic idea of Religion being seclusion from life. But that mistake dies hard, and there are many very Evangelical and very Protestant--and in their own notions superlatively good--people, who hold a modern analogue of the old monastic idea; and who think that Christian men and women should be very tepidly interested in anything except what they call the preaching of the Gospel, and the saving of men's souls. Now nobody that knows me, and the trend of my preaching, will charge me with undervaluing either of these things, but these do not exhaust the function of the Church in the world, nor the duty of the Church to society. We have to learn from the metaphor in the parable. The dough is not kept on one shelf and the leaven on another; the bit of leaven is plunged into the heart of the mass, and then the woman kneads the whole up in her pan, and so the influence is spread. We Christians are not doing our duty, nor are we using our capacities, unless we fling ourselves frankly and energetically into all the currents of the national life, commercial, political, municipal, intellectual, and make our influence felt in them all. The salt of the earth' is to be rubbed into the meat in order to keep it from putrefaction; the leaven is to be kneaded up into the dough in order to raise it. Christian people are to remember that they are here, not for the purpose of isolating themselves, but in order that they may touch life at all points, and at all points bring into contact with earthly life the better life and the principles of Christian morality.

But in this contact with all phases of life and forms of activity, Christian men are to be sure that they take the leaven with them. There are professing Christians that say: Oh! I am not strait-laced and pharisaical. I do not keep myself apart from any movements of humanity. I count nothing that belongs to men alien to a Christian.' All right! but when you go into these movements, when you go into Parliament, when you become a city Councillor, when you mingle with other men in commerce, when you meet other students in the walks of intellect, do you take your Christianity there, or do you leave it behind? The two things are equally necessary, that Christians should be in all these various spheres of activity, and that they should be there, distinctly, manifestly, and, when need be, avowedly, as Christian men.

Further, there is another thought here, on which I just say one word, and that is the effect of the leaven on the dough.

It is to assimilate, to set up a ferment. And that is what Christianity did when it came into the world, and

Cast the kingdoms oldInto another mould.'

And that is what it ought to do to-day, and will do, if Christian men are true to themselves and to their Lord. Do you not think that there would be a ferment if Christian principles were applied, say, for instance, to national politics? Do you not think there would be a ferment if Christian principles were brought to bear upon all the transactions on the Exchange? Is there any region of life into which the introduction of the plain precepts of Christianity as the supreme law would not revolutionise it? We talk about England as a Christian country. Is it? A Christian country is a country of Christians, and Christians are not people that only say I have faith in Jesus Christ,' but people that do His will. That is the leaven that is to change, and yet not to change, the whole mass; to change it by lightening it, by putting a new spirit into it, leaving the substance apparently unaffected except in so far as the substance has been corrupted by the evil spirit that rules. Brethren, if we as Christians were doing our duty, it would be true of us as it was of the early preachers of the Cross, that we are men who turn the world upside down.

But there is one more point on which I touch. I have already anticipated some of what I would say upon it, bus I must dwell upon it for a little longer; and that is, the manner in which the leaven is to work.

Here is a morsel of barm in the middle of a lump of dough. It works by contact, touches the particles nearest it, and transforms them into vehicles for the further transmission of influence. Each particle touched by the ferment becomes itself a ferment, and so the process goes on, outwards and ever outwards, till it permeates the whole mass. That is to say, the individual is to become the transmitter of the influence to him who is next him. The individuality of the influence, and the track in which it is to work, viz. upon those in immediate contiguity to the transformed particle which is turned from dough into leaven, are taught us here in this wonderful simile.

Now that carries a very serious and solemn lesson for us all. If you have received, you are able, and you are bound, to transmit this quickening, assimilating, transforming, lightening influence, and you need never complain of a want of objects upon which to exercise it, for the man or woman that is next you is the person that you ought to affect.

Now I have already said, in an earlier portion of these remarks, that some good people, taking an erroneous view of the function and obligations of the Church in the world, would fain keep its work to purely evangelistic effort upon individual souls in presenting to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Saviour. But whilst I vehemently protest against the notion that that is the whole function of the Christian Church, I would as vehemently protest against the notion that the so-called social work of the Church can ever be efficiently done except upon the foundation laid of this evangelistic work. First and foremost amongst the ways in which this great obligation of leavening humanity is to be discharged, must ever stand, as I believe, the appeal to the individual conscience and heart, and the presentation to single souls of the great Name in which are stored all the regenerative and quickening impulses that can ever alleviate and bless humanity. So that, first and foremost, I put the preaching of the Gospel, the Gospel of our salvation, by the death and in the life of the Incarnate Son of God.

But then, besides that, let me remind you there are other ways, subsidiary but indispensable ways, in which the Church has to discharge its function; and I put foremost amongst these, what I have already touched upon, and therefore need not dilate on now, the duty of Christians as Christians to take their full share in all the various forms of national life. I need not dwell upon the evils rampant amongst us, which have to be dealt with, and, as I believe, may best if not only, be dealt with, upon Christian principles. Think of drink, lust, gambling, to name but three of them, the hydra-headed serpent that is poisoning the English nation. Now it seems to me to be a deplorable, but a certainly true thing, that not only are these evils not attacked by the Churches as they ought to be, but that to a very large extent the task of attacking them has fallen into the hands of people who have little sympathy with the Church and its doctrines. They are fighting the evils on principles drawn from Jesus Christ, but they are not fighting the evils to the extent that they ought to do, with the Churches alongside. I beseech you, in your various spheres, to see to it that, as far as you can make it so, Christian people take the place that Christ meant them to take in the conflict with the miseries, the sorrows, the sins that honeycomb England to-day, and not to let it be said that the Churches shut themselves up and preach to people, but do not lift a finger to deal with the social evils of the nation.

MHCC: Mat 13:31-35

The scope of the parable of the seed sown, is to show that the beginnings of the gospel would be small, but its latter end would greatly increase; in this way the work of grace in the heart, the kingdom of God within us, would be carried on. In the soul where grace truly is, it will grow really; though perhaps at first not to be discerned, it will at last come to great strength and usefulness. The preaching of the gospel works like leaven in the hearts of those who receive it. The leaven works certainly, so does the word, yet gradually. It works silently, and without being seen, Mar 4:26-29, yet strongly; without noise, for so is the way of the Spirit, but without fail. Thus it was in the world. The apostles, by preaching the gospel, hid a handful of leaven in the great mass of mankind. It was made powerful by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, who works, and none can hinder. Thus it is in the heart. When the gospel comes into the soul, it works a thorough change; it spreads itself into all the powers and faculties of the soul, and alters the property even of the members of the body, Rom 6:13. From these parables we are taught to expect a gradual progress; therefore let us inquire, Are we growing in grace? and in holy principles and habits?

Matthew Henry: Mat 13:24-43

In these verses, we have, I. Another reason given why Christ preached by parables, Mat 13:34, Mat 13:35. All these things he spoke in parables, because the time was not yet come for the more clear and plain discoveries of the mysteries of the kingdom. Christ, to keep the people attending and expecting, preached in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them; namely, at this time and in this sermon. Note, Christ tries all ways and methods to do good to the souls of men, and to make impressions upon them; if men will not be instructed and influenced by plain preaching, he will try them with parables; and the reason here given is, That the scripture might be fulfilled. The passage here quoted for it, is part of the preface to that historical Psa 78:2, I will open my mouth in a parable. What the Psalmist David, or Asaph, says there of his narrative, is accommodated to Christ's sermons; and that great precedent would serve to vindicate this way of preaching from the offence which some took at it. Here is, 1. The matter of Christ's preaching; he preached things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world. The mystery of the gospel had been hid in God, in his councils and decrees, from the beginning of the world. Eph 3:9. Compare Rom 16:25; 1Co 2:7; Col 1:26. If we delight in the records of ancient things, and in the revelation of secret things, how welcome should the gospel be to us, which has in it such antiquity and such mystery! It was from the foundation of the world wrapt up in types and shadows, which are now done away; and those secret things are now become such things revealed as belong to us and to our children, Deu 29:29. 2. The manner of Christ's preaching; he preached by parables; wise sayings, but figurative, and which help to engage attention and a diligent search. Solomon's sententious dictates, which are full of similitudes, are called proverbs, or parables; it is the same word; but in this, as in other things, Behold a greater than Solomon is here, in whom are hid treasures of wisdom.

II. The parable of the tares, and the exposition of it; they must be taken together, for the exposition explains the parable and the parable illustrates the exposition.

Observe, 1. The disciples' request to their Master to have this parable expounded to them (Mat 13:36); Jesus sent the multitude away; and it is to be feared many of them went away no wiser than they came; they had heard a sound of words, and that was all. It is sad to think how many go away from sermons without the word of grace in their hearts. Christ went into the house, not so much for his own repose, as for particular converse with his disciples, whose instruction he chiefly intended in all his preaching. He was ready to do good in all places; the disciples laid hold on the opportunity, and they came to him. Note, Those who would be wise for every thing else, must be wise to discern and improve their opportunities, especially of converse with Christ, of converse with him alone, in secret meditation and prayer. It is very good, when we return from the solemn assembly, to talk over what we have heard there, and by familiar discourse to help one another to understand and remember it, and to be affected with it; for we lose the benefit of many a sermon by vain and unprofitable discourse after it. See Luk 24:32; Deu 6:6, Deu 6:7. It is especially good, if it may be, to ask of the ministers of the word the meaning of the word, for their lips should keep knowledge, Mal 2:7. Private conference would contribute much to our profiting by public preaching. Nathan's Thou art the man, was that which touched David to the heart.

The disciples' request to their Master was, Declare unto us the parable of the tares. This implied an acknowledgement of their ignorance, which they were not ashamed to make. It is probable they apprehended the general scope of the parable, but they desired to understand it more particularly, and to be assured that they took it right. Note, Those are rightly disposed for Christ's teaching, that are sensible of their ignorance, and sincerely desirous to be taught. He will teach the humble (Psa 25:8, Psa 25:9), but will for this be enquired of. If any man lack instruction, let him ask it of God. Christ had expounded the foregoing parable unasked, but for the exposition of this they ask him. Note, The mercies we have received must be improved, both for direction what to pray for, and for our encouragement in prayer. The first light and the first grace are given in a preventing way, further degrees of both which must be daily prayed for.

2. The exposition Christ gave of the parable, in answer to their request; so ready is Christ to answer such desires of his disciples. Now the drift of the parable is, to represent to us the present and future state of the kingdom of heaven, the gospel church: Christ's care of it, the devil's enmity against it, the mixture that there is in it of good and bad in the other world. Note, The visible church is the kingdom of heaven; though there be many hypocrites in it, Christ rules in it as a King; and there is a remnant in it, that are the subjects and heirs of heaven, from whom, as the better part, it is denominated: the church is the kingdom of heaven upon earth.

Let us go over the particulars of the exposition of the parable.

(1.) He that sows the good seed is the Son of man. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the field, the Lord of the harvest, the Sower of good seed. When he ascended on high, he gave gifts to the world; not only good ministers, but other good men. Note, Whatever good seed there is in the world, it all comes from the hand of Christ, and is of his sowing: truths preached, graces planted, souls sanctified, are good seed, and all owing to Christ. Ministers are instruments in Christ's hand to sow good seed; are employed by him and under him, and the success of their labours depends purely upon his blessing; so that it may well be said, It is Christ, and no other, that sows the good seed; he is the Son of man, one of us, that his terror might not make us afraid; the Son of man, the Mediator, and that has authority.

(2.) The field is the world; the world of mankind, a large field, capable of bringing forth good fruit; the more is it to be lamented that it brings forth so much bad fruit: the world here is the visible church, scattered all the world over, not confined to one nation. Observe, In the parable it is called his field; the world is Christ's field, for all things are delivered unto him of the Father: whatever power and interest the devil has in the world, it is usurped and unjust; when Christ comes to take possession, he comes whose right it is; it is his field, and because it is his he took care to sow it with good seed.

(3.) The good seed are the children of the kingdom, true saints. They are, [1.] The children of the kingdom; not in profession only, as the Jews were (Mat 8:12), but in sincerity; Jews inwardly, Israelites indeed, incorporated in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ the great King of the church. [2.] They are the good seed, precious as seed, Psa 126:6. The seed is the substance of the field; so the holy seed, Isa 6:13. The seed is scattered, so are the saints; dispersed, here one and there another, though in some places thicker sown than in others. The seed is that from which fruit is expected; what fruit of honour and service God has from this world he has from the saints, whom he has sown unto himself in the earth, Hos 2:23.

(4.) The tares are the children of the wicked one. Here is the character of sinners, hypocrites, and all profane and wicked people. [1.] They are the children of the devil, as a wicked one. Though they do not own his name, yet they bear his image, do his lusts, and from him they have their education; he rules over them, he works in them, Eph 2:2; Joh 8:44. [2.] They are tares in the field of this world; they do no good, they do hurt; unprofitable in themselves, and hurtful to the good seed, both by temptation and persecution: they are weeds in the garden, have the same rain, and sunshine, and soil, with the good plants, but are good for nothing: the tares are among the wheat. Note, God has so ordered it, that good and bad should be mixed together in this world, that the good may be exercised, the bad left inexcusable, and a difference made between earth and heaven.

(5.) The enemy that sowed the tares is the devil; a sworn enemy to Christ and all that is good, to the glory of the good God, and the comfort and happiness of all good men. He is an enemy to the field of the world, which he endeavours to make his own, by sowing his tares in it. Ever since he became a wicked spirit himself, he has been industrious to promote wickedness, and has made it his business, aiming therein to counterwork Christ.

Now concerning the sowing of the tares, observe in the parable,

[1.] That they were sown while men slept. Magistrates slept, who by their power, ministers slept, who by their preaching, should have prevented this mischief. Note, Satan watches all opportunities, and lays hold of all advantages, to propagate vice and profaneness. The prejudice he does to particular persons is when reason and conscience sleep, when they are off their guard; we have therefore need to be sober, and vigilant. It was in the night, for that is the sleeping time. Note, Satan rules in the darkness of this world; that gives him an opportunity to sow tares, Psa 104:20. It was while men slept; and there is no remedy but men must have some sleeping time. Note, It is as impossible for us to prevent hypocrites being in the church, as it is for the husbandman, when he is asleep, to hinder an enemy from spoiling his field.

[2.] The enemy, when he had sown the tares, went his way (Mat 13:25), that it might not be known who did it. Note, When Satan is doing the greatest mischief, he studies most to conceal himself; for his design is in danger of being spoiled if he be seen in it; and therefore, when he comes to sow tares, he transforms himself into an angel of light, 2Co 11:13, 2Co 11:14. He went his way, as if he had done no harm; such is the way of the adulterous woman, Pro 30:20. Observe, Such is the proneness of fallen man to sin, that if the enemy sow the tares, he may even go his way, they will spring up of themselves and do hurt; whereas, when good seed is sown, it must be tended, watered, and fenced, or it will come to nothing.

[3.] The tares appeared not till the blade sprung up, and brought forth fruit, Mat 13:26. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the hearts of men, which is long hid under the cloak of a plausible profession, but breaks out at last. As the good seed, so the tares, lie a great while under the clods, and at first springing up, it is hard to distinguish them; but when a trying time comes, when fruit is to be brought forth, when good is to be done that has difficulty and hazard attending it, then you will return and discern between the sincere and the hypocrite: then you may say, This is wheat, and that is tares.

[4.] The servants, when they were aware of it, complained to their master (Mat 13:27); Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? No doubt he did; whatever is amiss in the church, we are sure it is not of Christ: considering the seed which Christ sows, we may well ask, with wonder, Whence should these tares come? Note, The rise of errors, the breaking out of scandals, and the growth of profaneness, are matter of great grief to all the servants of Christ; especially to his faithful ministers, who are directed to complain of it to him whose the field is. It is sad to see such tares, such weeds, in the garden of the Lord; to see the good soil wasted, the good seed choked, and such a reflection cast on the name and honour of Christ, as if his field were no better than the field of the slothful, all grown over with thorns.

[5.] The Master was soon aware whence it was (Mat 13:28); An enemy has done this. He does not lay the blame upon the servants; they could not help it, but had done what was in their power to prevent it. Note, The ministers of Christ, that are faithful and diligent, shall not be judged of Christ, and therefore should not be reproached by men, for the mixtures of bad with good, hypocrites with the sincere, in the field of the church. It must needs be that such offences will come; and they shall not be laid to our charge, if we do our duty, though it have not the desired success. Though they sleep, if they do not love sleep; though tares be sown, if they do not sow them nor water them, nor allow of them, the blame shall not lie at their door.

[6.] The servants were very forward to have these tares rooted up. " Wilt thou that we go and do it presently?"Note, The over-hasty and inconsiderate zeal of Christ's servants, before they have consulted with their Master, is sometimes ready, with the hazard of the church, to root out all that they presume to be tares: Lord, wilt thou that we call for fire from heaven?

[7.] The Master very wisely prevented this (Mat 13:29); Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Note, It is not possible for any man infallibly to distinguish between tares and wheat, but he may be mistaken; and therefore such is the wisdom and grace of Christ, that he will rather permit the tares, than any way endanger the wheat. It is certain, scandalous offenders are to be censured, and we are to withdraw from them; those who are openly the children of the wicked one, are not to be admitted to special ordinances; yet it is possible there may be a discipline, either so mistaken in its rules, or so over-nice in the application of them, as may prove vexatious to many that are truly godly and conscientious. Great caution and moderation must be used in inflicting and continuing church censures, lest the wheat be trodden down, if not plucked up. The wisdom from above, as it is pure, so it is peaceable, and those who oppose themselves must not be cut off, but instructed, and with meekness, 2Ti 2:25. The tares, if continued under the means of grace, may become good corn; therefore have patience with them.

(6.) The harvest is the end of the world, Mat 13:39. This world will have an end; though it continue long, it will not continue always; time will shortly be swallowed up in eternity. At the end of the world, there will be a great harvest-day, a day of judgment; at harvest all is ripe and ready to be cut down: both good and bad are ripe at the great-day, Rev 6:11. It is the harvest of the earth, Rev 14:15. At harvest the reapers cut down all before them; not a field, not a corner, is left behind; so at the great day all must be judged (Rev 20:12, Rev 20:13); God has set a harvest (Hos 6:11), and it shall not fail, Gen 8:22. At harvest every man reaps as he sowed; every man's ground, and seed, and skill, and industry, will be manifested: see Gal 6:7, Gal 6:8. Then they who sowed precious seed, will come again with rejoicing (Psa 126:5, Psa 126:6), with the joy of harvest (Isa 9:3); when the sluggard, who would not plough by reason of cold, shall beg, and have nothing (Pro 20:4); shall cry, Lord, Lord, but in vain; when the harvest of those who sowed to the flesh, shall be a day of grief, and of desperate sorrow, Isa 17:11.

(7.) The reapers are the angels: they shall be employed, in the great day, in executing Christ's righteous sentences, both of approbation and condemnation, as ministers of his justice, Mat 25:31. The angels are skilful, strong, and swift, obedient servants to Christ, holy enemies to the wicked, and faithful friends to all the saints, and therefore fit to be thus employed. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and the angels will not be unpaid for their attendance; for he that soweth, and he that reapeth, shall rejoice together (Joh 4:36); that is joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God.

(8.) Hell-torments are the fire, into which the tares shall then be cast, and in which they shall be burned. At the great day a distinction will be made, and with it a vast difference; it will be a notable day indeed.

[1.] The tares will then be gathered out: The reapers (whose primary work it is to gather in the corn) shall be charged first to gather out the tares. Note, Though good and bad are together in this world undistinguished, yet at the great day they shall be parted; no tares shall then be among the wheat; no sinners among the saints: then you shall plainly discern between the righteous and the wicked, which here sometimes it is hard to do, Mal 3:18; Mal 4:1. Christ will not bear always, Psa 50:1, etc. They shall gather out of his kingdom all wicked things that offend, and all wicked persons that do iniquity: when he begins, he will make a full end. All those corrupt doctrines, worships, and practices, which have offended, have been scandals to the church, and stumbling-blocks to men's consciences, shall be condemned by the righteous Judge in that day, and consumed by the brightness of his coming; all the wood, hay, and stubble (1Co 3:12); and then woe to them that do iniquity, that make a trade of it, and persist in it; not only those in the last age of Christ's kingdom upon earth, but those in every age. Perhaps here is an allusion to Zep 1:3, I will consume the stumbling-blocks with the wicked.

[2.] They will then be bound in bundles, Mat 13:30. Sinners of the same sort will be bundled together in the great day: a bundle of atheists, a bundle of epicures, a bundle of persecutors, and a great bundle of hypocrites. Those who have been associates in sin, will be so in shame and sorrow; and it will be an aggravation of their misery, as the society of glorified saints will add to their bliss. Let us pray, as David, Lord, gather not my soul with sinners (Psa 26:9), but let it be bound in the bundle of life, with the Lord our God, 1Sa 25:29. [3.] They will be cast into a furnace of fire; such will be the end of wicked, mischievous people, that are in the church as tares in the field; they are fit for nothing but fire; to it they shall go, it is the fittest place for them. Note, Hell is a furnace of fire, kindled by the wrath of God, and kept burning by the bundles of tares cast into it, who will be ever in the consuming, but never consumed. But he slides out of the metaphor into a description of those torments that are designed to be set forth by it: There shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth; comfortless sorrow, and an incurable indignation at God, themselves, and one another, will be the endless torture of damned souls. Let us therefore, knowing these terrors of the Lord, be persuaded not to do iniquity.

(9.) Heaven is the barn into which all God's wheat shall be gathered in that harvest-day. But gather the wheat into my barn: so it is in the parable, Mat 13:30. Note, [1.] In the field of this world good people are the wheat, the most precious grain, and the valuable part of the field. [2.] This wheat shall shortly be gathered, gathered from among the tares and weeds: all gathered together in a general assembly, all the Old Testament saints, all the New Testament saints, not one missing. Gather my saints together unto me, Psa 50:5. [3.] All God's wheat shall be lodged together in God's barn: particular souls are housed at death as a shock of corn (Job 5:26), but the general in-gathering will be at the end of time: God's wheat will then be put together, and no longer scattered; there will be sheaves of corn, as well as bundles of tares: they will then be secured, and no longer exposed to wind and weather, sin and sorrow: no longer afar off, and at a great distance, in the field, but near, in the barn. Nay, heaven is a garner (Mat 3:12), in which the wheat will not only be separated from the tares of ill companions, but sifted from the chaff of their own corruptions.

In the explanation of the parable, this is gloriously represented (Mat 13:43); Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. First, It is their present honour, that God is their Father. Now are we the sons of God (1Jo 3:2); our Father in heaven is King there. Christ, when he went to heaven, went to his Father, and our Father, Joh 20:17. It is our Father's house, nay, it is our Father's palace, his throne, Rev 3:21. Secondly, The honour in reserve for them is, that they shall shine forth as the sun in that kingdom. Here they are obscure and hidden (Col 3:3), their beauty is eclipsed by their poverty, and the meanness of their outward condition; their own weaknesses and infirmities, and the reproach and disgrace cast upon them, cloud them; but then they shall shine forth as the sun from behind a dark cloud; at death they shall shine forth to themselves; at the great day they will shine forth publicly before all the world, their bodies will be made like Christ's glorious body: they shall shine by reflection, with a light borrowed from the Fountain of light; their sanctification will be perfected, and their justification published; God will own them for his children, and will produce the record of all their services and sufferings for his name: they shall shine as the sun, the most glorious of all visible beings. The glory of the saints is in the Old Testament compared to that of the firmament and the stars, but here to that of the sun; for life and immortality are brought to a much clearer light by the gospel, than under the law. Those who shine as lights in this world, that God may be glorified, shall shine as the sun in the other world, that they may be glorified. Our Saviour concludes, as before, with a demand of attention; Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. These are things which it is our happiness to hear of, and our duty to hearken to.

III. Here is the parable of the grain of mustard-seed, Mat 13:31, Mat 13:32. The scope of this parable is to show, that the beginnings of the gospel would be small, but that its latter end would greatly increase. In this way the gospel church, the kingdom of God among us, would be set up in the world; in this way the work of grace in the heart, the kingdom of God within us, would be carried on in particular persons.

Now concerning the work of the gospel, observe,

1. That it is commonly very weak and small at first, like a grain of mustard-seed, which is one of the least of all seeds. The kingdom of the Messiah, which was now in the setting up, made but a small figure; Christ and the apostles, compared with the grandees of the world, appeared like a grain of mustard-seed, the weak things of the world. In particular places, the first breaking out of the gospel light is but as the dawning of the day; and in particular souls, it is at first the day of small things, like a bruised reed. Young converts are like lambs that must be carried in his arms, Isa 40:11. There is a little faith, but there is much lacking in it (1Th 3:10), and the groanings such as cannot be uttered, they are so small; a principle of spiritual life, and some motion, but scarcely discernible.

2. That yet it is growing and coming on. Christ's kingdom strangely got ground; great accessions were made to it; nations were born at once, in spite of all the oppositions it met with from hell and earth. In the soul where grace is true it will grow really, though perhaps insensibly. A grain of mustard-seed is small, but however it is seed, and has in it a disposition to grow. Grace will be getting ground, shining more and more, Pro 4:18. Gracious habits confirmed, actings quickened, and knowledge more clear, faith more confirmed, love more inflamed; here is the seed growing.

3. That it will at last come to a great degree of strength and usefulness; when it is grown to some maturity, it becomes a tree, much larger in those countries than in ours. The church, like the vine brought out of Egypt, has taken root, and filled the earth, Psa 80:9-11. The church is like a great tree, in which the fowls of the air do lodge; God's people have recourse to it for food and rest, shade and shelter. In particular persons, the principle of grace, if true, will persevere and be perfected at last: growing grace will be strong grace, and will bring much to pass. Grown Christians must covet to be useful to others, as the mustard-seed when grown is to the birds; that those who dwell near or under their shadow may be the better for them, Hos 14:7.

IV. Here is the parable of the leaven, Mat 13:33. The scope of this is much the same with that of the foregoing parable, to show that the gospel should prevail and be successful by degrees, but silently and insensibly; the preaching of the gospel is like leaven, and works like leaven in the hearts of those who receive it.

1. A woman took this leaven; it was her work. Ministers are employed in leavening places, in leavening souls, with the gospel. The woman is the weaker vessel, and we have this treasure in such vessels.

2. The leaven was hid in three measures of meal. The heart is, as the meal, soft and pliable; it is the tender heart that is likely to profit by the word: leaven among corn unground does not work, nor does the gospel in souls unhumbled and unbroken for sin: the law grinds the heart, and then the gospel leavens it. It is three measures of meal, a great quantity, for a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. The meal must be kneaded, before it receive the leaven; our hearts, as they must be broken, so they must be moistened, and pains taken with them to prepare them for the word, that they may receive the impressions of it. The leaven must be hid in the heart (Psa 119:11), not so much for secrecy (for it will show itself) as for safety; our inward thought must be upon it, we must lay it up, as Mary laid up the sayings of Christ, Luk 2:51. When the woman hides the leaven in the meal, it is with an intention that it should communicate its taste and relish to it; so we must treasure up the word in our souls, that we may be sanctified by it, Joh 17:17.

3. The leaven thus hid in the dough, works there, it ferments; the word is quick and powerful, Heb 4:12. The leaven works speedily, so does the word, and yet gradually. What a sudden change did Elijah's mantle make upon Elisha! 1Ki 19:20. It works silently and insensibly (Mar 4:26), yet strongly and irresistibly: it does its work without noise, for so is the way of the Spirit, but does it without fail. Hide but the leaven in the dough, and all the world cannot hinder it from communicating its taste and relish to it, and yet none sees how it is done, but by degrees the whole is leavened.

(1.) Thus it was in the world. The apostles, by their preaching, hid a handful of leaven in the great mass of mankind, and it had a strange effect; it put the world into a ferment, and in a sense turned it upside down (Act 17:6), and by degrees made a wonderful change in the taste and relish of it: the savour of the gospel was manifested in every place, 2Co 2:14; Rom 15:19. It was thus effectual, not by outward force, and therefore not by any such force resistible and conquerable, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, who works, and none can hinder.

(2.) Thus it is in the heart. When the gospel comes into the soul, [1.] It works a change, not in the substance; the dough is the same, but in the quality; it makes us to savour otherwise than we have done, and other things to savour with us otherwise than they used to do, Rom 8:5. [2.] It works a universal change; it diffuses itself into all the powers and faculties of the soul, and alters the property even of the members of the body, Rom 6:13. [3.] This change is such as makes the soul to partake of the nature of the word, as the dough does of the leaven. We are delivered into it as into a mould (Rom 6:17), changed into the same image (2Co 3:18), like the impression of the seal upon the wax. The gospel savours of God, and Christ, and free grace, and another world, and these things now relish with the soul. It is a word of faith and repentance, holiness and love, and these are wrought in the soul by it. This savour is communicated insensibly, for our life is hid; but inseparably, for grace is a good part that shall never be taken away from those who have it. When the dough is leavened, then to the oven with it; trials and afflictions commonly attend this change; but thus saints are fitted to be bread for our Master's table.

Barclay: Mat 13:33

In this chapter there is nothing more significant than the sources from which Jesus drew his parables. In every case he drew them from the scenes and activities of everyday lifer. He began with things which were entirely familiar to his hearers in order to lead them to things which had never yet entered their minds. He took the parable of the sower from the farmer's field and the parable of the mustard seed from the husbandman's garden; he took the parable of the wheat and the tares from the perennial problem which confronts the farmer in his struggle with the weeds, and the parable of the drag-net from the seashore of the Sea of Galilee. He took the parable of the hidden treasure from the everyday task of digging in a field, and the parable of the pearl of great price from the world of commerce and trade. But in this parable of the leaven Jesus came nearer home than in any other because he took it from the kitchen of an ordinary house.

In Palestine bread was baked at home; three measures of meal was, as Levinson points out, just the average amount which would be needed for a baking for a fairly large family, like the family at Nazareth. Jesus took his parable of the Kingdom from something that he had often seen his mother, Mary, do. Leaven was a little piece of dough kept over from a previous baking, which had fermented in the keeping.

In Jewish language and thought leaven is almost always connected with an evil influence; the Jews connected fermentation with putrefaction and leaven stood for that which is evil (compare Mat 16:6; 1Co 5:6-8; Gal 5:9). One of the ceremonies of preparation for the Passover Feast was that every scrap of leaven had to be sought out from the house and burned. It may well be that Jesus chose this illustration of the Kingdom deliberately. There would be a certain shock in hearing the Kingdom of God compared to leaven; and the shock would arouse interest and rivet attention, as an illustration from an unusual and unexpected source always does.

The whole point of the parable lies in one thing--the transforming power of the leaven. Leaven changed the character of a whole baking. Unleavened bread is like a water biscuit, hard, dry, unappetizing and uninteresting; bread baked with leaven is soft and porous and spongy, tasty and good to eat. The introduction of the leaven causes a transformation in the dough; and the coming of the Kingdom causes a transformation in life.

Let us gather together the characteristics of this transformation.

(i) Christianity transformed life for the individual man. In 1Co 6:9-10, Paul gathers together a list of the most terrible and disgusting kinds of sinners, and then, in the next verse, there comes the tremendous statement: "And such were some of you." As Denney had it, we must never forget that the function and the power of Christ is to make bad men good. The transformation of Christianity begins in the individual life, for through Christ the victim of temptation can become the victor over it.

(ii) There are four great social directions in which Christianity transformed life. Christianity transformed life for women. The Jew in his morning prayer thanked God that he had not made him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. In Greek civilization the woman lived a life of utter seclusion, with nothing to do beyond the household tasks. K. J. Freeman writes of the life of the Greek child or young man even in the great days of Athens, "When he came home, there was no home life. His father was hardly ever in the house. His mother was a nonentity, living in the women's apartments; he probably saw little of her." In the eastern lands it was often possible to see a family on a journey. The father would be mounted on an ass; the mother would be walking, and probably bent beneath a burden. One demonstrable historical truth is that Christianity transformed life for women.

(iii) Christianity transformed life for the weak and the ill. In heathen life the weak and the ill were considered a nuisance. In Sparta a child, when he was born, was submitted to the examiners; if he was fit, he was allowed to live; if he was weakly or deformed, he was exposed to death on the mountain side. Dr. A. Rendle Short points out that the first blind asylum was founded by Thalasius, a Christian monk; the first free dispensary was founded by Apollonius, a Christian merchant; the first hospital of which there is any record was founded by Fabiola, a Christian lady. Christianity was the first faith to be interested in the broken things of life.

(iv) Christianity transformed life for the aged. Like the weak, the aged were a nuisance. Cato, the Roman writer on agriculture, gives advice to anyone who is taking over a farm: "Look over the livestock and hold a sale. Sell your oil, if the price is satisfactory, and sell the surplus of your wine and grain. Set worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, an old wagon, old tools, an old slave, a sickly slave, and whatever else is superfluous." The old, whose day's work was done, were fit for nothing else than to be discarded on the rubbish heaps of life. Christianity was the first faith to regard men as persons and not instruments capable of doing so much work.

(v) Christianity transformed life for the child. In the immediate background of Christianity, the marriage relationship had broken down, and the home was in peril. Divorce was so common that it was neither unusual nor particularly blameworthy for a woman to have a new husband every year. In such circumstances children were a disaster; and the custom of simply exposing children to death was tragically common. There is a well-known letter from a man Hilarion, who was gone off to Alexandria, to his wife Alis, whom he has left at home. He writes to her: "If--good luck to you--you bear a child, if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, throw it out." In modem civilization life is almost butt round the child; in ancient civilization the child had a very good chance of dying before it had begun to live.

Anyone who asks the question: "What has Christianity done for the world?" has delivered himself into a Christian debator's hands. There is nothing in history so unanswerably demonstrable as the transforming power of Christianity and of Christ on the individual life and on the life of society.

Barclay: Mat 13:33

There remains only one question in regard to this parable of the leaven. Almost all scholars would agree that it speaks of the transforming power of Christ and of his Kingdom in the life of the individual and of the world; but there is a difference of opinion as to how that transforming power works.

(i) It is sometimes said that the lesson of this parable is that the Kingdom works unseen. We cannot see the leaven working in the dough, any more than we can see a flower growing, but the work of the leaven is always going on. Just so, it is said, we cannot see the work of the Kingdom, but always the Kingdom is working and drawing men and the world ever nearer to God.

This, then, would be a message of encouragement. It would mean that at all times we must take the long view, that we must not compare things of the present day with last week, month, or even last year, but that we must look back down the centuries, and then we will see the steady progress of the Kingdom. As A. H. Clough had it:

"Say not, 'The struggle nought availeth;

The labour and the wounds are vain;

The enemy faints not nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.'

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase even now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And, not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look! the land is bright."

On this view the parable teaches that with Jesus Christ and his gospel a new force has been let loose in the world, and that, silently but inevitably, that force is working for righteousness in the world and God indeed is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.

(ii) But it has sometimes been said, as for instance by C. H. Dodd, that the lesson of the parable is the very opposite of this, and that, so far from being unseen, the working of the Kingdom can be plainly seen. The working of the leaven is plain for all to see. Put the leaven into the dough, and the leaven changes the dough from a passive lump into a seething, bubbling, heaving mass. Just so the working of the Kingdom is a violent and disturbing force plain for all to see. When Christianity came to Thessalonica the cry was: "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also" (Act 17:6). The action of Christianity is disruptive, disturbing, violent in its effect.

There is undeniable truth there. It is true that men crucified Jesus Christ because he disturbed all their orthodox habits and conventions; again and again it has been true that Christianity has been persecuted because it desired to take both men and society and remake them. It is abundantly true that there is nothing in this world so disturbing as Christianity; that is, in fact, the reason why so many people resent it and refuse it, and wish to eliminate it.

When we come to think of it, we do not need to choose between these two views of the parable, because they are both true. There is a sense in which the Kingdom, the power of Christ, the Spirit of God, is always working, whether or not we see that work; and there is a sense in which it is plain to see. Many an individual life is manifestly and violently changed by Christ; and at the same time there is the silent operation of the purposes of God in the long road of history.

We may put it in a picture like this. The Kingdom, the power of Christ, the Spirit of God, is like a great river, which for much of its course glides on beneath the ground unseen, but which ever and again comes to the surface in all its greatness, plain for all to see. This parable teaches both that the Kingdom is for ever working unseen, and that there are times in every individual life and in history when the work of the Kingdom is so obvious, and so manifestly powerful, that all can see it.

Constable: Mat 11:2--13:54

IV. The opposition to the King 11:2--13:53

Chapters 11-13 record Israel's rejection of her Messiah and its consequences. Opposition continued to build, but Jesus announced new revelation in view of hardened unbelief.

"The Evangelist has carefully presented the credentials of the king in relationship to His birth, His baptism, His temptation, His righteous doctrine, and His supernatural power. Israel has heard the message of the nearness of the kingdom from John the Baptist, the King Himself, and His disciples. Great miracles have authenticated the call to repentance. Now Israel must make a decision."⁴⁵²

"Thematically the three chapters (11-13) are held together by the rising tide of disappointment in and opposition to the kingdom of God that was resulting from Jesus' ministry. He was not turning out to be the kind of Messiah the people had expected."⁴⁵³

Constable: Mat 13:1-53

C. Adaptations because of Israel's rejection of Jesus 13:1-53

"The die is cast. The religious leaders have openly declared their opposition to their Messiah. The people of Israel are amazed at the power of Jesus and His speech, but they fail to recognize Him as their King. Not seeing the Messiahship of Jesus in His words and works, they have separated the fruit from the tree. Because of this opposition and spiritual apathy, the King adapts His teaching method and the doctrine concerning the coming of the kingdom to the situation."⁵¹⁷

Jesus had occasionally used parables to illustrate His teaching (e.g., 7:24-27; 9:15-17; 11:16-19; 12:43-45). Rising opposition led Him to use them more. Now He began to use parables to reveal new truth about the kingdom.⁵¹⁸ Chapter 13 contains Jesus' third major discourse in Matthew, His Parables about the Kingdom.⁵¹⁹ John and Jesus had previously announced that the kingdom was at hand. Jesus stopped saying that when Israel's rejection of Him was firm (i.e., after chapter 12). Instead He began to reveal new truth about the kingdom because of Israel's rejection of Him and His rejection of the nation. This new truth, revelation not previously given, was a mystery. The term "mystery" as it occurs in the New Testament refers to newly revealed truth. It has nothing to do with spookiness. God had previously not revealed it, but now He did.⁵²⁰

Matthew presented this discourse in a chiastic (crossing) structure.⁵²¹ This structure is common in the Old Testament and in other Jewish writings. It enhances the unity of the discourse and focuses attention on the central element as what is most important. A diagram of this structure follows.

A The introduction vv. 1-2

B The first parable to the crowds vv. 3-9

C An explanatory interlude: purpose and explanation vv. 10-23

D Three more parables to the crowd vv. 24-33

E An explanatory interlude: fulfillment and explanation vv. 34-43

D' Three parables to the disciples vv. 44-48

C' An explanatory interlude: explanation and response vv. 49-51

B' The last parable to the disciples v. 52

A' The conclusion v. 53

This structural analysis reveals that the discourse consists of two sections of four parables each, the first four to the multitudes and the last four to the disciples. In each section one parable stands out from the others. In the first group this is the first parable and in the second group it is the last one. The central section between the two groups of parables explains the function of the parables and explains one of them.

Constable: Mat 13:33

The parable of the yeast hidden in meal 13:33 (cf. Luke 13:20-21)

This parable stresses the extensive ultimate consequences of the kingdom that would be out of all proportion to its insignificant beginnings.

"Whereas the parable of the mustard seed answers the question of whether the phase of the kingdom planted by Jesus would survive, the parable of the leavening process answers how."⁵⁴⁸

Some interpreters have understood yeast as a metaphorical reference to evil.⁵⁴⁹ However not all uses of yeast in the Old Testament carry this symbolic meaning (e.g., Lev. 7:13; 23:15-18).⁵⁵⁰

This parable stresses the hidden internal change taking place in the kingdom between its inception in Jesus' ministry and its final form when the kingdom will cover the earth in the Millennium (cf. 5:13).

"The manifestation of the presence of the kingdom in some form in the Church age is clearly taught in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven . . ."⁵⁵¹

The fact that a woman put the leaven in the meal is probably an insignificant detail of the parable as is the amount of flour. Three satas of flour (about three-fifths of a bushel) is the amount of flour that a housewife baked into bread for an average family.⁵⁵²

"Practical applications of this parable to present readers can include the following. First, believers should depend on what God is doing through His Spirit in the present age. Second, Christians should be suspicious of any man-made, externally influenced institutional structures that say they are the manifestation of God's kingdom, Third, believers must be cautious about setting dates and presuming the arrival of the kingdom since the parable gives no hint as to when the permeation ends. Fourth, Jesus' followers can be confident that regardless of any current perspectives, the kingdom of God has a glorious future."⁵⁵³

College: Mat 13:1-58

MATTHEW 13

L. THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM (13:1-52)

In the discourse to follow (i.e., 13:1-53), Jesus assumes the role of a storyteller, and relates a series of parables wherein the kingdom is like what happens in the story. Oftentimes, the parables of Jesus have been interpreted in isolation from the ongoing story in which they are embedded, resulting in rather elaborate and arbitrary allegorizing of virtually every element within a given parable. While there are certainly allegorical elements in the parables, the modern reader must be careful not to impose ideas that would be completely foreign to a first-century Galilean Jewish audience. Typically, Jesus' illustrative language draws from imagery well known in ancient Judaism. Thus, given the metaphoric nature of parables, if a metaphor is to have its desired impact, the modern reader must learn to hear the parable in terms of its first century setting. Parables are not intended to merely communicate factual data, but to draw the reader into a new reality and thereby to dramatically subvert, alter, confirm, and radically transform the world of the reader.

Although Jesus has used parabolic language on other occasions (e.g., 5:25-26; 11:16-19; 12:43-45), for the first time his entire discourse consists of seven parables. The parables are united around the central theme of God's kingdom, as six out of seven parables are introduced with the words, " the kingdom of heaven is like" (13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47). The focus on " the kingdom and its fate in the world" in chapter 13 serves to explain the diverse reactions to Jesus' ministry encountered in chapters 11 and 12. In addition, Jesus' parabolic discourse dramatizes a decided shift as Jesus moves from a lakeside setting where he addresses large crowds (vv. 1-2), to a private setting in a house where his disciples are instructed privately concerning the " secrets of the kingdom" (vv. 34-36). Thus, Jesus turns from those who are " ever hearing and never understanding" and " ever seeing but never perceiving" to those who have been blessed to " see and hear" (cf. vv. 11-17). The disciples must be " instructed about the kingdom of heaven" (v. 52) so they will remain faithful in spite of adverse reactions given God's reign, and fulfill their mission to be " fishers of men" (4:19).

It is important to read the parables of chapter 13 against the background of the previous " twelve chapters of narrative about the reign." As Carter observes, " the parables of chapter 13 seem more to confirm what is already known about the 'reign of the heavens' than to reveal new insights." The illustrative language of Jesus is therefore calculated to reaffirm, clarify, and make vivid important aspects of God's reign. Thus, the parables, at this point in the story challenge the reader to rethink and to experience afresh the significance of God's kingdom. The intent is to cultivate a deeper understanding of God's active and transforming presence, and thereby to equip disciples with a vision and power for living that will enable them to endure an ongoing ministry of repudiation and suffering. Being " discipled in the kingdom of heaven" (v. 52) means having one's expectations and ongoing lifestyle continually challenged and radically altered by God's abiding presence (cf. 1:23; 28:20). Accordingly, all the parables of chapter 13 are illustrative of what happens when God's kingship impacts human lives.

1. The Parable of the Four Soils (13:1-9)

¹ That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. ² Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: " A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ He who has ears, let him hear."

13:1-2. The setting for the discourse is described both temporally and with respect to location. Jesus delivers his parabolic discourse on the same day of his heated exchange with the Pharisees (12:22-45). He has left the house where evidently his mother and brothers sought to speak to him (12:46, e[xw, exô). He now takes a position in a boat, just off shore, and begins to address a large crowd now standing on the shore. Later Jesus will leave the crowds, return to the house, and from inside the house privately instruct the disciples (vv. 34-36). The different locations and change of audiences form clear transitional brackets marking a decided shift away from speaking to the " crowds" to teaching directed exclusively to the disciples.

13:3. Jesus now assumes a form of speech where his teachings are communicated by short stories called parables (parabolhv, parabolç, lit., " cast alongside" ). The Greek term parabolç is derived from the Hebrew lvm (mâðâl, lit., " to liken to," see LXX), which can refer to a wide variety of figurative expressions (e.g., proverbs, similes, riddles, and simple stories). However, the common element is some form of comparison, where everyday events and terms familiar to the audience serve to illustrate a spiritual or transcendent reality. His purpose for teaching in parables will be explained in verses 10-17.

The first parable begins with a familiar scene: A farmer went out to sow his seed . While one may explain the seemingly careless casting of seed by claiming that in the ancient world sowing preceded plowing, it is not necessary to find realistic explanations for such details. Furthermore, recent evidence has demonstrated that there was no uniform practice of sowing always preceding plowing. Therefore, the imagery is intended to depict a farmer who sows with abandon hoping for a fruitful yield. As it turns out, the parable is not about the sower, but about the different types of soil upon which the seed falls. While the meaning and significance of the parable may be lost on the crowd, Jesus will ultimately provide his disciples with an explanation (vv. 18-23).

13:4-7. Jesus devotes considerable attention to the various types of ground upon which the seed falls and the inevitable results for the crop. Some seed fell upon the beaten path with little chance of penetrating the soil. As a result, such seed remained exposed and therefore susceptible to being eaten by birds. Other seed fell upon ground where a solid bedrock lies very close to the surface, and hence there was very little depth to the soil. The situation meant that the topsoil was too shallow to enable a sufficient root system to develop to sustain the plant. Thus, while the soil was conducive to rapid growth, it lacked sufficient depth to enable the roots to absorb sufficient moisture to withstand hot weather. The result was inevitable: the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root . The third unfavorable environment for the seed's survival is described as among thorns . Within this environment the seed germinates and survives for awhile, only to lose its struggle for life to more sturdy and robust plants which deprive it of needed nourishment.

13:8. Finally, we come to seed that happens to fall upon good soil , with the results dramatically different from the previous examples. The focus is upon the sheer productivity and varying yields of crops when the seed is planted in good soil ( a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what is sown ). While some see the numbers associated with the yield as fantastically high, others do not see the varying yields as particularly high by ancient standards. The cautionary observation by France seems appropriate: " . . . the experts differ as to what was a typical yield depending on the method of reckoning, but the point of the parable does not lie in the size of the yield, but in the variety of the fate of the seed. This is not a general description of Palestinian agriculture, but a story designed to teach a specific lesson."

13:9. With the final words, He who has ears, let him hear , Jesus indicates the importance of truly understanding the underlying reality to which this parable points. To have " ears" is to listen with a receptive spirit, open to the hidden truths contained in the parable. The reader will learn that the disciples have " ears to hear" (v. 16), and thus they will be recipients of the parable's interpretation (vv. 18-23).

2. The Purpose of the Parables (13:10-17)

¹⁰ The disciples came to him and asked, " Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

¹¹ He replied, " The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹² Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ¹³ This is why I speak to them in parables:

" Though seeing, they do not see;

though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

¹⁴ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

¹⁵ For this people's heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.' ^a

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷ For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

^a 15 Isaiah 6:9,10

13:10-12. The parabolic discourse is temporarily suspended in order to explain why parables are the most appropriate form of speech with which to address the crowds. In verse 10 the disciples ask Jesus not the meaning of the preceding parable, but why he has resorted to the use of parables, and seemingly abandoned the use of plain speech (cf. Mark 4:10). Their concern with Jesus' manner of speaking is probably indicative of their own feelings of ineptness in understanding Jesus' words (cf. v. 36). Yet, Jesus responds by assuring them that they are indeed blessed by God to have the secrets [musthvrion, mystçrion] of the kingdom disclosed (note passive devdotai, dedotai ) to them. They will be provided with insight not only into the kingdom's presence in Jesus, but also into " both faith (eschatology) and life (ethics) that together constitute the Christian existence between the Resurrection and the Parousia as it is governed by the rule of God." In contrast to the crowds who either reject the message or assume a posture of neutrality, the disciples who have basic knowledge will be given even more understanding, while the crowds only increase in their confused and darkened state of mind. Thus, the parables both conceal and reveal at the same time, depending on the heart condition of the hearer.

13:13. Jesus explains why his parabolic form of speech is appropriate when addressing the crowds: This is why I speak to them in parables . . . . Unlike Mark 4:12, Jesus does not speak to the crowds " in order to" (i{na, hina ) make them blind or deaf, but because (o{ti, hoti ) they already shut their eyes and refuse to hear, they lack the capacity to understand the message of the kingdom. The parables merely confirm the fact that they are not ready to hear the mysteries of the kingdom. As noted by Davies and Allison, " until hostility raised its ugly head," Jesus did not resort to the use of parables. The parables are therefore an appropriate means of discourse, revealing deeper mysteries of the kingdom to those who honestly seek their meaning, while to those with hardened hearts they appear as mere riddles with little communicative value.

13:14-15. To further condemn Israel's rebellion and unbelief, Jesus cites Isaiah 6:9-10 (almost verbatim from the LXX), a favorite text in the NT to explain Israel's unbelief (see John 12:40; Acts 28:26-27; Rom 11:8). There are clear topological parallels between Isaiah's prophetic commission and task and Israel's response to Jesus' divinely appointed mission. The citation continues the thought of verse 13 and makes it clear that Israel's spiritual blindness is the result of a calloused heart, not some predetermined plan of God. While their unbelief and hardened hearts certainly fall within the preview of God's sovereign will, they are nevertheless accountable for their action: they refuse to hear and have closed their eyes. The result is that in their refusal to repent they do not benefit from Jesus' saving powers. Like the generation in Isaiah's day, Israel remains a hardened people and thus stands under God's judgment.

13:16-17. In contrast to the people who fall under prophetic condemnation (vv. 13-15), the disciples are blessed to " see and hear" that which many prophets and righteous men longed to see and hear (cf. 11:4-6). They are blessed in that they experience the era of fulfillment and the presence of God's powerful reign. The privileged status of the disciples is both a gift from God and a result of their initial positive response to Jesus' message. As a result, Jesus will interpret for them the meaning of the parables, thus revealing to them the secrets of the kingdom (vv. 18-23, 36-43).

3. The Interpretation of the Parable of the Soils (13:18-23)

¹⁸" Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. ²⁰ The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. ²² The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. ²³ But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

13:18. Jesus now illustrates the blessed status of the disciples by providing them with the interpretation of his earlier parable (vv. 3-9). The explanation naturally assumes that the disciples have the capacity to understand the intent of Jesus' words (vv. 11-12). It has been customary for some scholars to analyze the parable of the soils (vv. 3-9) and its interpretation (vv. 19-23) in isolation, assuming that the somewhat allegorical interpretation is the product of the early church, not the historical Jesus. However, only prior conclusions about the complete absence of allegorization in parables, or assumptions about the early church's inappropriate use of the parable seem to undergird its alleged lack of authenticity. The fact is, the interpretation so clearly fits the parable that there is no compelling reason to dispute that the interpretation was provided by Jesus. As such, we have a somewhat rare phenomena where the storyteller informs his hearers/readers explicitly how they are to understand his words.

Jesus' interpretation of the parable makes it clear that its intent was to identify factors which influence negative and positive responses to Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom. Jesus is in fact the sower who scatters the seed (= message about the kingdom ). The central focus of the parable concerns the diverse reactions given Jesus and his message. Each of the scenes in the original parable depicting how the seed fares within various types of soil upon which it falls, is now interpreted in terms of how, given varying circumstances, people have responded to the message about the kingdom (cf. 4:23; 9:35).

13:19. Jesus first explains the meaning of the seed sown along the path . In this instance, the proclaimed word is not understood (sunivhmi, syniçmi, cf. v. 23), meaning the hearer lacks comprehension and thus fails to take appropriate action. Since the word makes no penetrating impression it is easily snatched (aJrpavzw, harpazô) away by the evil one (=birds). The failure to understand is not attributable to the proclaimer or the obscurity of the word, but to the hardhearted condition of the receptor's heart (see. vv. 13-15). No doubt the hardened Pharisaic response to Jesus comes readily to mind (cf. 9:3-4; 11:34; 12:22-45).

13:20-21. Next, Jesus discusses the fate of the seed that fell on rocky places . As was the case in the original parable (vv. 5-6), where the sown seed lodged in an environment conducive to rapid growth, so the words of Jesus are met initially by some with a favorable response. However, their joy and commitment are short-lived because like seed in shallow soil, they lack sufficient depth to sustain their spiritual lives. They have misconstrued the message about the kingdom as meaning a life without hardship and demands. Hence, at the first sign of opposition and trouble the shallow enthusiast quickly abandons faith and prior loyalties (skandalivzetai, skandalizetai ). Jesus has made it clear that persecution and physical affliction is the lot of the disciple (5:11-12; 10:21-34). Therefore, a positive response to the message of the kingdom means an unconditional commitment to follow Jesus even in the hard times, not just when conditions appear favorable.

13:22. The seed that fell among the thorns becomes representative of a disciple's constant struggle against worldly influences. Thorns are analogous to the worries of this world (cf. 6:25-33) and the seduction of riches (cf. 6:19-24). When life is crowded by worldly concerns and the pursuit of wealth, these commitments tend to stifle and eventually snuff out spiritual life. Because worry can become so commonplace, and devotion to wealth so deceptively subtle, it is essential that disciples constantly monitor the productivity of their spiritual lives.

13:23. The good soil with yields of varying amounts ( a hundred, sixty, and thirty times what was sown ) is identified as the man who hears the word and understands it (cf. v. 19). Truly understanding Jesus' words means not only intellectually grasping its content, but responding with a wholehearted allegiance and devotion. The theme of " understanding" is important in Matthew's Gospel, since it goes to the heart of what it means to be a disciple. Jesus calls the whole person (cf. 22:37) to an undivided loyalty where hearing results in doing.

4. Parable of the Weeds (13:24-30)

²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: " The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷" The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

²⁸" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.

" The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

²⁹" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'"

Jesus' second parable continues the use of agricultural metaphors in order to illustrate aspects of God's kingdom (e.g., " field," " seed," " sowing" ). Also, like the first parable (vv. 3-9), this parable is accompanied by an interpretation, reserved for the disciples in a later private setting (vv. 36-43). Both parables make it clear that although God's active reign will continue to have a powerful impact in the world, the presence of evil and hostile opposition will also continue until the consummation of God's victory in Jesus. Between the resurrection and the parousia there will always be those who respond to the message about the kingdom with hostility and seek to undermine its influence. Later Jesus will identify the " evil one" (=Satan) as behind all efforts to diminish the effectiveness of God's reign (vv. 38-39).

13:24. Jesus now returns to his discourse directed to the " crowds" (aujtoi'", autois , them ; cf. vv. 34-36), once again speaking of seed and a sower, but this time the focus is not upon the ground upon which the seed falls, but on two different kinds of seed, and on the distinction between two different sowers. The kingdom of heaven is compared to a man who sows good seed . The aorist passive wJmoiwvqh (hômoiôthç, like ) serves to indicate that " the kingdom of heaven . . . is a present reality and already has a certain history behind it." The significance is best communicated not by the translation " like" (NIV), but by the phrase " it has been the case with the kingdom of heaven as with a man . . . ." In reality it is not the man who sowed who is being compared to the kingdom of heaven, " but the situation resulting from the sowing."

13:25-26. After the man had prepared his field by sowing good seed (cf. " good soil," v. 19), he then rested from his labor. Reference to the sleeping servants intends no negative indictment of the servants, but does underscore the malicious character of the enemy who hopes to escape detection by performing his sinister act under the cover of darkness. The enemy sows seed that results in weeds , which probably refers to a troublesome weed called darnel which can only be distinguished from wheat when it fully ripens. Thus with time it becomes apparent that the once carefully prepared field has now become contaminated with weeds.

13:27. The servants address the sower, now identified as the owner (lit., " master of the house" ), and pose a question anticipating a positive response: " Sir [kuvrie, kyrie ] didn't you sow good seed in your field?" Given that only " good seed" was used by the sower, the next question logically follows: " Where then did the weeds come from?" The servants are surprised to discover the presence of weeds in a field that they know to be sowed only with " good seed."

13:28-30. But the householder promptly and accurately recognizes the hand of an enemy as responsible for the field's condition. The servants then respond with a question, which amounts to a proposal to immediately rectify the situation by uprooting the weeds from the field. The householder denies their request, citing the difficulty of separating the weeds from the wheat. The problem is not in distinguishing between the two plants, but because their root systems have become so intertwined one cannot pull up the one without damaging the other. The householder therefore proposes an alternative plan whereby the wheat and weeds are allowed to coexist until harvest time. At that time, once the plants have reached maturity, the weeds will then be gathered up and burned, while the wheat will be gathered for storage in the barns.

Although both the crowds and the disciples hear the parable, its meaning was not immediately obvious to its original hearers. Later the disciples will inquire about its meaning and Jesus will provide them with an explanation (vv. 36-42).

5. Parable of the Mustard Seed (13:31-32)

³¹ He told them another parable: " The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."

13:31-32. A third parable becomes illustrative of the kingdom by means of the imagery of sowing seed. In this instance, the point of the analogy consists in the particular type of seed that was planted, i.e,. a mustard seed . The use of a mustard seed to illustrate certain aspects of the kingdom was especially well-suited, as noted by Kingsbury: " First, although technically speaking, the mustard seed is not in reality 'the smallest of all seeds' (v. 32a), it was nevertheless proverbial among the Jews as the most minute of qualities (cf. 17:20; Luke 17:6). Second, of no other small seed did the fully grown plant attain the size of the mustard herb." Once again Jesus captures the imagination by reminding his hearers that external appearances can be deceptive. One would not naturally expect that from a tiny mustard seed would come a tree-like shrub attaining a height of ten to twelve feet, suitable for even birds to find a resting place. Yet, this remarkable natural phenomenon has its spiritual counterpart in the kingdom of God.

The parable is intended to accent both the qualities of growth and contrast. Like the mustard seed, the kingdom's humble beginnings and unpretentious character offer no visible indication of its future growth and glory, but just as there is continuity between the tiny mustard seed and the resulting " tree," so there is continuity from the seemingly inconsequential beginnings in Jesus' ministry and the future glory of God's consummating reign. Thus even though the beginnings of God's kingdom as manifested in Jesus may appear unimpressive, it is casually dismissed at one's own peril.

6. Parable of the Leaven (13:33)

³³ He told them still another parable: " The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount ^a of flour until it worked all through the dough."

^a 33 Greek three satas (probably about ¹¼2 bushel or 22 liters)

13:33. The fourth parable brings to a closure the public aspect of Jesus' parabolic discourse. Although the imagery is different, this parable is closely related to the parable of the mustard seed. The effect of a small amount of leaven on a large amount of dough makes essentially the same point as the contrast between a tiny mustard seed and the resulting shrub. Usually, leaven symbolized the influence of corrupting forces (cf. 16:6, 11-12; 1 Cor 5:6; Gal 5:9), but here its usage serves to highlight the effect even a small amount of leaven can have on a large batch of dough. As such, leaven, like a small mustard seed serves as a fitting illustration of the dynamic, permeating impact of the kingdom in the world.

The woman in the parable mixes (lit., " hides or conceals" ) a small amount of leaven in a large amount of flour (savta triva [ sata tria ]=" three measures," or roughly equivalent to forty pounds of dough; enough to feed over one hundred people). The exaggerated numbers are designed to create a powerful image of the eventual pervading influence of God's kingdom. Do not be put off by its unimpressive beginnings, for its unobtrusive transforming effect will far surpass all expectations.

7. The Purpose of Parables (13:34-35)

³⁴ Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. ³⁵ 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." ^a

^a 35 Psalm 78:2

13:34. With these words Matthew now formally brings to an end the first half of Jesus' discourse, which was primarily directed to the Jewish crowd (vv. 1-3). From now on Jesus' typical mode of speech before the crowds will be parabolic (see ejlavlei, elalei , imperfect tense, implying a habitual mode of instruction). While earlier his parabolic speech fulfilled the words of Isaiah 6:9-10, now his use of parables when speaking to the crowds fulfills Psalm 78:2.

13:35. In what way might Jesus' use of parables be said to fulfill the words of Asaph as recorded in Psalm 78:2? As with several of Matthew's citations from the OT, " fulfillment" is to be understood typologically, where certain features from an OT text are highlighted because they have certain parallels in Jesus' ministry. In Psalm 78, Asaph, who was regarded as a prophetic figure (1 Chr 25:2; 2 Chr 29:30), rehearses Israel's sacred history in terms that highlight a pattern of God's salvific involvement with his people. Asaph's language is parabolic in the sense that it intends to reveal and make clear that which may not be immediately apparent. Thus, on the one hand, while Jesus' parabolic speech functioned to conceal divine truths from the hardhearted, it also revealed God's presence in Jesus for those who have " eyes to see." It should also be observed that Jesus understands his parables as a disclosure of that which God has hidden since the creation of the world , therefore testifying to Jesus' unique role of mediating divine revelation.

8. The Interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds (13:36-43)

³⁶ Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, " Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

³⁷ He answered, " The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

⁴⁰" As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. ⁴² They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

13:36. Matthew marks a major transition as Jesus leaves the crowd and enters into the privacy of a house (see 13:1). The transition provides the setting for the rest of his parabolic discourse directed exclusively to the disciples. Although they are earlier contrasted with the crowds as having " eyes that see" and " ears that hear" (v. 16), they nevertheless need further explanation in order to understand Jesus' parable of the weeds. They are therefore not distinguished from the crowd by " their instant and intuitive understanding but by their persistence in seeking explanations." Jesus is sensitive to their deficiency and as with the parable of the soils (vv. 3-9; 18-23), Jesus provides the disciples with a private explanation of his earlier parable (vv. 24-30).

13:37-39. Jesus begins by allegorizing seven critical elements found in the previous parable. First, the Son of Man is identified as the sower of the good seed . It has been typical to highlight aspects of Jesus' earthly ministry with the designation " Son of Man" (cf. 8:20; 9:6; 11:19). The field is explicitly identified as the world not the church. As rightfully noted by Carson, " The parable does not address the church situation at all but explains how the kingdom can be present in the world while not yet wiping out all opposition." The product produced from the " good seed" are those who belong to and participate in the kingdom (= sons of the kingdom ). The weeds are identified as those who belong to and support the reign of the evil one . The devil is identified as the enemy , responsible for contaminating the field with poisonous plants. He is a rival sower whose intentions are to undermine the efforts of the Son of Man. The harvest is intended to symbolize the end of the age , meaning " the termination of the existing world order, when present history has run its course (cf. 24:3; 28:20)." Finally, the angels are represented by the harvesters and are responsible for burning the weeds and gathering the wheat into the barns (see also 16:7; 24:31; 25:41).

13:40-42. With the critical details of the parable explained, Jesus proceeds to highlight the fate of the weeds sown by the " evil one," and the ultimate reward of the righteous. The burning of the weeds at the end of the age refers to God's final judgment which effects a great separation between the ungodly and the righteous. The Son of Man (=Jesus) is accompanied by his angels in the accomplishment of the removal of everything that causes sin and all who do evil . It may appear problematic that evil people are said to be gathered out of his kingdom . Since the field is identified as the world (v. 38) not the kingdom, how can it be said that the angels will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil ? It appears that the kingdom is now idealized as encompassing the entire world. Therefore, as articulated by Hagner, " The wicked are gathered from the kingdom, not in the sense that they actually were a part of the Church (nor does the kingdom exactly equal the field/world) but in the sense that they were in the world, had existed alongside the righteous (cf. v. 30), hence were even in the visible church and are now finally distinguished and separated from them." Their fate will be a total destruction (see 7:19; 8:12; 13:41; 25:32, 41), accompanied by extreme anguish and remorse.

13:43. On the other hand, the righteous [cf. 10:41; 25:37, 46] will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father . The language has parallels with Jesus' transfiguration (cf. 17:2), and is descriptive of an existence that partakes of God's glory (cf. Dan 12:3). The fiery furnace for the wicked stands in dramatic contrast to the bliss of God's eternal kingdom. At last the wicked will be revealed for who and what they are, and the righteous will also be manifested as the true partakers of God's kingdom.

9. Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl (13:44-46)

⁴⁴" The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

⁴⁵" Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

These brief parables build on the preceding verse by highlighting the tremendous worth and glory of the kingdom. They are also linked to earlier parables " by the continuing motif of hiddenness and smallness." The two parables can be treated together since they both, by means of different imagery, stress similar themes: (1) the value of discovered objects; (2) a sacrificial investment to possess the object discovered.

13:44. It was not unusual in the ancient world to hide valuables by burying them in the ground. Once the treasure is hidden, its presence is no longer obvious to those who may pass by. But the one who happens to discover the hidden treasure takes great pain to assure that he will be able to obtain the treasure. He not only reburies the treasure, but also with great personal sacrifice he purchases the entire field in order to secure what he has found. There is no need to build an elaborate defense of the man's ethical choices, since the details of the story are not sufficient to argue one way or the other. Nonetheless, the point of the story is not the man's morality, but the joy of his discovery and the extreme measures he took to obtain what he had found. In the same way, those who discover the value and worth of the kingdom will go to great personal sacrifice for their participation.

11:45-46. Jesus reinforces the point with a second parable depicting a merchant who discovers and purchases a costly pearl. In the ancient world pearls were highly prized, being even more valuable than gold. Unlike the man in the previous parable who happens across his treasure, the merchant was in search of fine pearls , and happens to discover one especially exquisite. His actions are as decisive as the previous man in that he sells everything he owns in order to purchase this one pearl. Once one recognizes the incalculable value of the kingdom, no sacrifice is too great. Both the action of the man in the previous parable and the merchant exhibit a fundamental element of genuine discipleship, i.e., a total commitment to live under the reign of God without reservations.

10. Parable of the Dragnet (13:47-50)

⁴⁷" Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13:47-48. The seventh and final parable draws on a familiar sight along the Galilean coastline. Dragnets (saghvnh, sagçnç) were large nets with floats along the top and weights fitted to the bottom. With one side fastened to the shore, a boat would drag the net through the water in a semicircle, thus trapping fish between the shore and the net. Once the maneuver had been completed the net would be drawn to shore, then fishermen would sit on the shore, sorting the day's catch, keeping the good fish and disposing of the bad ones (cf. John 21:6-8).

11:49-50. This familiar scene becomes illustrative of the eschatological judgment of God where the righteous (= good fish ) are finally separated from the wicked (= bad fish ). Although the parable has similarities with the parable of the weeds (cf. vv. 24-30; 36-43), it does not focus on the earthly co-existence of the righteous and the wicked, but on the final act of God's end-time separation. The language of a fiery destruction mentioned in verse 42 is repeated verbatim in verse 50. However, there is no corresponding repetition of the bliss of the righteous (cf. v. 43), only the fate of the wicked is depicted. Since the parable is directed to the disciples, its message calls for vigilance and untiring commitment to the will of the Father. Not all that are attracted by the message of the kingdom exhibit genuine discipleship and are thus suitable for participation in God's eternal kingdom.

11. Trained in the Kingdom (13:51-52)

⁵¹" Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked.

" Yes," they replied.

⁵² He said to them, " Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

13:51. The parabolic discourse concludes with Jesus' question to the disciples, " Have you understood all these things?" " All these things" (tau'ta pavnta, tauta panta ) most likely refers to the entire discourse (cf. v. 34), and not just the material comprising verses 36-50. As noted earlier, " understanding" is a fundamental component of discipleship in Matthew (cf. 13:23; 15:10; 16:12; 17:13). It is not merely intellectually comprehending, but involves the entire person putting into practice what one has understood. Although the disciples answer in the affirmative that they have understood, in subsequent scenes the depth of their perception will be called into question (cf. 15:15-16; 16:9). Nonetheless, they are distinguished from the crowds as enlightened recipients of Jesus' teachings.

13:52. Jesus responds to their affirmation by underscoring what true understanding necessarily implies. A teacher (grammateuv" [ grammateus ]=" scribe" ) thoroughly trained or instructed (maqhteuqeiΙ", mathçteutheis, lit., " discipled" ) in the truths concerning the nature of the kingdom is compared to an owner of a house who provides for his family from a well-stocked storeroom, materials both old and new (cf. the portrait of a scribe in Sirach 39:1-11). The well trained " Christian scribe" who truly understands is equipped to interpret that which is old (=Old Testament) in light of ( contra NIV " the new is not added to the old" ) the new order and revelation coming to pass in Jesus. Therefore, the Old Testament continues to have relevance for the disciple, but only as it is understood in the light of Jesus' new teachings (cf. 5:17-19). Being trained in the priorities and values of the kingdom provides disciples with a hermeneutical lens through which to read and interpret Scripture. Such training is critical if the disciples are to realize their calling to become " fishers of men."

M. REJECTION AT NAZARETH (13:53-58)

The progressive drama of the story carries the motifs of opposition and misunderstanding to a high point in Jesus' rejection at Nazareth (13:53-58), followed by the execution of John the Baptist (14:1-12). As such, these two incidents bring the narrative section of 11:2-14:12 to a close and constitute the background for the evasive actions characterizing Jesus in the scenes to follow, and the decided shift of focus to his disciples (14:13-16:20).

The episodes involving Jesus' rejection at Nazareth, followed by Herod's response to Jesus' miraculous deeds in terms of his Messianic mission and transcendent status inevitably lead to misunderstanding and rejection. The reader has already encountered several scenes throughout 11:2-14:12 wherein Jesus' miraculous powers and authoritative teachings do not evoke the proper response or a correct identity assessment (cf. 11:2, 20-24; 12:24, 41-42). It is significant that two additional scenes illustrating the blindness of unbelief (13:53-14:12), are followed in the next section (14:13-16:20) by scenes illustrating the insights granted to those who have " eyes to see."

⁵³ When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. ⁵⁴ Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. " Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. ⁵⁵" Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, " Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor."

⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Jesus' rejection in a Nazareth synagogue provides a fitting illustration of people who " hear but do not hear, who have eyes but do not see" (13:13-15). It should be observed that the " failure to understand leads not to indifference but to hostility." Jesus had earlier warned John that the failure to understand his messianic activity in terms of his mission and identity put him in danger of " falling away" (see 11:2-6). Now the failure of his hometown to correctly assess his " wisdom and mighty powers" results in their being " offended by him" (ejskandalivzonto, eskandalizonto , v. 57). The reference to a prophet's being rejected by his own " household" also connects this scene with 12:46-50. It is significant that the parabolic discourse is bracketed by scenes that relativize both natural and social connections in light of a higher calling.

13:53-56. For the third time the reader is confronted with Matthew's typical phrase marking the end of a major discourse (cf. 7:28; 11:1). As is usual, when Jesus finishes a major speech there is a radical change of locations. On this occasion, Jesus returns to his hometown (=Nazareth), and begins teaching in their synagogue . Although the people in the synagogue are amazed and readily acknowledge his wisdom and miraculous powers, they are " scandalized" by him because the origin of his powers seemed incongruent with his paternity. Twice they raise the question concerning the origin of Jesus' wisdom and miraculous powers . Their question necessarily allows for only two possibilities: God or Satan (cf. 12:22-30; 21:23-27). The questions regarding Jesus' family relationships are all assumed to be true, therefore their claim to familiarity breeds only suspicion and contempt. Jesus is a mere " hometown boy" with no claim of inherited honor, social status, or familial accomplishments, therefore how can one born to a mere " woodworker" (tevktono", tektonos ) make such claims and exhibit such power? Their repudiation is based on a faulty assessment of Jesus' true paternity (cf. 3:17), therefore they found his claims intolerable.

13:57-58. Jesus responds with a proverbial saying acknowledging that the prophetic status of many true prophets have often experienced rejection in their own hometown. The validity of the saying has been verified on many occasions in the experience of Jesus' followers. It is often the case that those who claim to know someone from an early age find it difficult to accept that that same person is spiritually gifted or an insightful teacher. In Nazareth, their rejection and unbelief, with respect to Jesus' person, resulted in few miracles being performed (cf. Mark 6:5). It was not a question of power but a refusal to respond to unbelief with the exercise of the miraculous (cf. 12:38-42; 16:1-4).

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Mat 13:31-35

LIV.
THE FIRST GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES.
(Beside the Sea of Galilee.)
Subdivision E.
PARABLES OF THE MUSTARD SEED AND LEAVEN.
^aMATT. XIII. 31-35; ^bMARK IV. 30-34.

   ^a31 Another parable set he before them, saying,  ^b30 And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what parable shall we set it forth? [These questions are intended to emphasize the superior excellence of the kingdom.]  31 It ^aThe kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: ba grain of mustard seed, which, [337] when it is sown upon the earth, though aindeed bit be {ais} bless than all the seeds that are upon the earth [that is, the smallest of all the seeds that are sown in a garden], abut  ^b32 yet when it is sown, groweth up, and awhen it is grown, it is {bbecometh} greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great branches; aand becometh a tree [in Palestine it attains the height of ten feet], so that the birds of the heaven come and bcan lodge under the shadow thereof. ain the branches thereof. [This parable sets forth the smallness of the beginning of the kingdom, and the magnitude of its growth.]  33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened. [In Oriental housekeeping, yeast is not preserved in a separate form. A piece of leavened dough saved over from the last baking is added to the new dough to ferment it. Three measures contained the quantity usually taken for one baking. Leaven represents the quickness, quietness, thoroughness, and sureness with which gospel truth diffuses itself through human society. A woman is named because baking was part of her household duty.]  34 All these things spake Jesus in parables unto the multitudes;  ^b33 And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it [that is, as they had leisure or opportunity to listen];  34 and without a parable spake he not {anothing} unto them [that is, he used nothing but parables on that occasion, for both before and after this he taught without parables]:  35 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet [at Psa 78:2 which is usually attributed to Asaph, who is called a seer (2Ch 29:30). His teaching typified that of Christ], saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world. [Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in a notable manner, being the only teacher in history distinguished in any marked degree by the use of parables.] bbut privately to his own disciples he expounded all things. [338]

[FFG 337-338]

Lapide: Mat 13:1-38

1-57

CHAPTER 13

At that time, &c. Syriac, by the sea shore : When Christ, after His manner, had preached in the house, which He had hired for His dwelling in Capernaum, as I have said on c. iv. 13, He sent away the multitudes to attend to themselves and their affairs, and that He might refresh Himself and His disciples with rest and food. Bye and bye, since He knew that the multitudes were about to come to Him in such numbers that the house could not contain them, He went out to the wide, open shore of the Sea of Galilee; and there uttered the following parables.

He went up into a ship : from whence, as from a pulpit, He preached to the people assembled on the shore.

A sower went out to sow : Gr. ό σπείρων, i.e., sowing, Observe: Appositely are gospel doctrine and preaching compared to seed, and the harvest proceeding from it. For, as for the natural harvest there is need of seed, earth, sun, rain and wind, so also is there need of such things for the spiritual harvest. The seed is the word of God, or the gospel, and the preaching of it. The earth is the free will of all who hear. The sun is preventing grace, illuminating and inflaming the free will, that it may receive the Word of God so as from it to produce the fruits of charity and all virtues. The rain is grace, watering and promoting these good acts and motions of the free will. The winds are temptations which, by agitating them, cause them to take deeper root, and strengthen them. Lastly, there is need of patience, Gr. ύπομονὴ, i.e., endurance in the labours and troubles of ploughing, sowing, &c., and long waiting for the reward and fruit of the harvest.

Observe: the end and scope of this parable is, that Christ would teach that He Himself is the Sower, the preacher of the gospel upon earth, that is to say, among men, but with different results among different people. For, first, not all who hear the gospel accept it; as seed, although sown in the earth, does not everywhere strike root in the earth. 2. Not all who believe persevere in faith, but some fall away under temptation; like seed which sprouts in stony ground, quickly withers by the sun's heat. 3. Not all, who persevere in faith, bring forth the fruit of good works; just as thorns choke seed springing up well in otherwise good ground, and prevent it from bearing fruit. 4. These things happen, not through the fault of the seed, i.e., of the doctrine, but of the earth. It is the fault of the hearers, and that in various ways. It is partly on account of the rocks, partly on account of the thorns. The rock is the flesh, the thorns are the world, the highway is the habit of a worldly and licentious life, where the birds of the air, that is the devils, like most eager and voracious devourers of souls, snatch away the doctrine that has been preached, from the mind and memory, whilst they draw off those who are by the wayside, i.e., men who are given up to the customs and business of the world, as well as those who are wandering, who are slothful and curious, from considering and penetrating into the doctrine heard, to their accustomed vanities. 5. The seed in the good ground is that which those receive in a good heart, who begin to ruminate upon it, and profit by it; they are in the best way, who apply themselves with all their might, to arrive at perfection in virtue. 6. Some seed bears less fruit, some greater, some the greatest. That is on account either of the greater sowing, i.e., preaching and illumination of spiritual things, and the assistance of grace, or on account of greater efforts and co-operation of free will with grace. This is the sum of the whole parable, from which it is easy to understand it in all its parts. I will handle them briefly, one by one.

Moraliter : Let the preacher with Christ, who came forth from the house, even from heaven, impelled by the force of love, to the earth, go forth from the house of contemplation into the field of preaching, that what he has drank from God in prayer, he may pour forth upon the people, and preach, not so much by words, as by the example of a holy life. Again, he invokes God that what he speaks in the ear, God may speak in the heart.

And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, namely, on the path or boundary, conterminous with the field, which is constantly worn and trodden down by the feet of passengers, and is therefore unsuitable for the reception of seed, and exposes it naked, to be carried off by the birds. We see a gradation here, for from the unsuitable ground for seed, He rises gradually to the less unsuitable, to the more suitable, and the most suitable. The most unsuitable earth for seed is that by the wayside. The less suitable is the rocky ground. The more fit is the good ground which produces thorns. The most fit is that which is entirely good, rich, moist earth. Moreover, the way is a mind worn, and dried up by evil thoughts. Such a mind does not receive the doctrine of the gospel, which is contrary to its lusts; it does not perceive, nor understand it, because it is wholly intent upon fleshly allurements. Whence, says the Gloss, such are those, who neither are pricked by preaching, nor begin to do well.

But other fell on stony ground, &c. This seed could not strike deep root, therefore it began to germinate and spring up before the proper time. For that which is quickly produced, quickly perishes. He adds the cause.

When the sun was risen, they were scorched, Gr. ε̉καυματίσθη, i.e., were burnt up, both seeds and germs, by the burning heat of the sun. And because they had no root, they withered away. They had but a little earth, which was succeeded by the rock. Hence, partly from want of moisture, partly by the burning rays of the sun, they were dried up. The rock in this place, says Rabanus, means the hardness of an insolent mind, in which there is no deep mildness of an obedient soul. Whence, such are only pleased by the sweetness of the word, which they hear, and of heavenly promises for a short time; but they strike not the root of desire unto salvation. Therefore by the heat of the sun i.e., the fury of persecution, are they burnt up, through impatience, because their mind does not firmly cleave to the word of God, and they lose the greenness of faith, says the Interlinear. S. Chrysostom says, "With regard to souls, that which is rock, may become good ground, that which is wayside, not trodden down; and the thorns may be destroyed. Christ was speaking to all, even as if He were providing for the future, how He might declare what I ought to do, and have not done. Hereby He teaches His disciples not to be slothful."

But other fell among thorns, &c., i.e., in land producing thorns. And they grew, Gr. α̉νέβησαν, i.e., they ascended, i.e., they grew more quickly than the good seed, which rises slowly, and by degrees. For tares sprig up easily, wheat with difficulty. Therefore the tares choked the wheat just as it was coming into ear. The tares did this, both because they drew away the moisture and nourishment to their own roots: as well as because they deprived them of air and room to grow.

But other fell on good ground, &c. (Arab.) For one a hundred, for one sixty, and for another thirty. Good ground, if it be well cultivated, for one grain produces a hundred; other ground, less rich, sixty; other, more sterile, thirty. The good ground is a faithful and devoted conscience.

Observe, only the fourth part of the seed, namely, that which fell on the good ground, produced fruit; the three other divisions of the seed perished. Thus, but few profit by the word of preaching. By far the greater number who hear the word bring forth no fruit.

He that hath ears of hearing (Greek) let him hear. Christ makes use of this expression when the subject is obscure and symbolical, or when he would arouse the attention of his hearers. Ears to hear : He speaks of one who hears diligently the words of Christ, in order that he may receive them, and ruminate upon them, and obey them. For many heard Christ out of curiosity, for the sake of listening to something new. Such had not ears for hearing. So, even now, there are many who hear sermons for the sake of their eloquence—not that they may amend their lives.

And the disciples, &c. They meant to say, the uninstructed multitudes do not receive parabolic and symbolic discourses. Why, then, dost thou not speak to them in plain words, that they may understand them?

He answered and said, &c. (Arab), ye have been endowed with the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, and they have not been endowed. The reason why Christ spake to the multitude in parables was, because many among them were as yet unfitted for receiving the heavenly doctrine of the Gospel; and some, indeed, did not believe—yea, some derided. The scribes also reviled Christ, and accounted Him for a false prophet. Wherefore they had not ears of hearing such as Christ required. Christ, therefore, urges them to take hearing ears, and examine carefully His parables, and ask from Him the meaning of them, that thus they may make themselves fitted to receive the preaching of the Gospel. This if they would do, He promises clearly to expound what He speaks in parables.

Moreover, Christ indicates that this capability of receiving the Word cannot be obtained by our own power, but must be humbly asked of God. For this is the gift of God, which He gave to the disciples of Christ, and did not give to the rest, but left them in their blindness. It is as though He said, "Yours, 0 ye Apostles, is this grace and happiness, that God has given you faith in Me, and that, for this reason, I clearly tell you of mysteries, whilst I speak to others only in parables. For faith is the gift of God. Do ye, therefore, render perpetual thanks to God for this, and pray for others, that God would give them ears of hearing, as He has given you. For then will I explain My parables to them, as I shall explain them to you." Whence Mark has (Mar 4:11.), To them which are without, all things are done in parables. That is, to the unbelieving who are outside of faith and of the Church, all things are spoken and done by Me, parabolically, i.e., obscurely, by symbols and enigmas, that they may not despise and cavil at them, for as Bede says, "Not only the things which the Lord spoke, but also the things which He did, were parables," i.e., signs of mysteries, hidden from the unbelieving Jews, according to the words, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine." Mark adds, that seeing they may see, and not perceive, &c. He means, they are blinded and obstinate, and thus they persevere in their blindness, and will not accept the light of truth, which I offer them. For this blindness is the punishment of past sins, which they have committed. All this will be more plain from what follows.

Observe: the word that, as Mark says, that seeing they way see, and not perceive, does not signify cause and intention, but consequence and effect. For Christ, in speaking parabolically, did not intend absolutely to blind them, but only to permit what was the consequence of His parables—namely, that the Jews, being blinded with envy and lust, although they saw so many miracles of Christ, and heard His heavenly wisdom, yet would not believe, nor understand what they saw and heard, but would be as though they had neither seen nor heard.

For he that hath, &c.; Arabic, And he who has anything, it shalt be given and added, &c. The sentence is a species of proverb, as Salmeron and others say. It is most true: for to the rich things are given, from the poor there is always taking away. Similarly, God heaps upon His faithful and elect people (such as the Apostles were) new graces and benefits day by day, so that they abound in virtue and holiness: but from the unbelieving, the ungrateful, and the unworthy, He gradually takes away His gifts, both of nature and grace.

The meaning is: 1. He who has faith, to Him shall be given the knowledge of the mysteries of God's kingdom; for these cannot be known without faith. He, therefore, who hath not faith, from him shall be taken away the good which he hath. As though He said, To you, 0 ye Apostles, because ye believe in Me as the Messiah, it is given to hear the mysteries of God and of Heaven, by means ot which ye are every day advanced more and more in hope and the love of God. But from the Scribes, who will not believe in Me, God will take away the little knowledge which they do possess of heavenly things. Yea, he will deprive them of Church, kingdom, priesthood, and country; and, as profane and perfidious, they will wander in misery over the whole earth. Thus SS. Jerome and Hilary and Euthym. explain.

2. They who have ears of hearing, who come to Me with sincere affection, with a pure desire of faith and truth, to them I will clearly reveal celestial verities ; and I will assist them in the path of virtue, by which they may arrive at the kingdom of God. But they who have not this pure desire of the truth, but indulge in their own lusts and errors—as ye do, 0 ye Jews and Scribes—from them shall be taken away, by degrees, that little knowledge of Divine things which they do possess, and they shall become wholly blinded. Therefore, to you, 0 ye Jews, I, Christ, speak not clearly, but darkly in parables. As Theophylact says, "For he who hath a small spark of goodness, and does not stir it up by means of the Spirit and spiritual things must of necessity have it extinguished."

3. S. Augustine (lib. 1, de Doctr. Christ. c. 1) explains the word have to mean use, and applies it to preachers. Thus, the preacher who has doctrine—i.e., who uses the doctrine given him by God, and diligently preaches it, and communicates it to others;—doctrine and words, which he may speak and preach, will never fail him, for God will suggest them. But if anyone does not make use of doctrine, he will gradually forget it and lose it. In the same manner, the word have means to use in c. xxv. 29. Thus we find by experience that zealous preachers, the more they preach, the more they abound in word and spirit; like fountains, from which however much water flows, just as much do they always receive.

Therefore I speak unto them, &c. Behold how Christ here plainly declares the reasons why He spoke to the Jews and Pharisees in parables. It was because they had been previously unwilling to hear, i.e., to understand, obey, and believe Christ when He spake plainly of repentance and the way to the kingdom of Heaven. They deserved, therefore, that Christ should speak to them obscurely and by parables. For He taught at Capernaum—where were rich merchants, who trusted in their riches; where also were Scribes and Pharisees; these men despised, yea even derided and blasphemed, Christ's heavenly doctrine concerning contempt of riches, humility, poverty, and penance. Wherefore, Christ purposely betook Himself to parables, which (forasmuch as they did not understand them) they could not deride. Therefore He spake unto them in parables; not because they were absolutely reprobate, but because they were unworthy and ungrateful. Thus SS. Hilary, Chrysostom, and Bede. Nevertheless, I confess there were intermingled with this multitude of unbelieving Jews many who were desirous of hearing Christ for the sake of salvation; but because they were mixed up with the unbelieving, who were Christ's enemies, it was given to them to hear only in parables; that by them, even when they did not understand them, they might at least conceive admiration and reverence for Christ, which would at length lead them on to a better position. Yea, as S. Chrysostom says, to all the Scribes and Pharisees, unworthy and obstinate as they were, Christ spake in parables, with this intention and this end in view—that He might instil into them a sincere desire of searching and believing in Christ, and that having suffered a temporary obscurity in parables which they did not comprehend, they might the more eagerly desire Christ, the true light, and ask of Him the explanation of the parables. This is hinted at in Mark (iv. 33).

And with many parables He spake the word unto them, as they were able to bear it, that (namely) they who were able to understand and receive them, might receive them; but they who could not, might be stimulated to search out the meaning.

For this people's heart is waxed gross, &c. He cites Isaiah (Isa 6:9-10), where instead of make fat, our translation has, blind thou—i.e., thou shalt blind (Chaldean, infatuate ) the heart of this people. The Hebrew is השמן, hashmen, i.e., make gross, or fat their heart, and make heavy their ears. Where observe that this blinding, making gross and hardening, is spoken of God deserting and leaving in his blindness the man who is made blind and hardened; as well as of the man who, of his own free will, blinds, makes gross, and hardens himself, by cleaving to his darkness and his sins, and shutting his eyes to the Divine light and the doctrine of Christ. Where the LXX (which the Vulgate follows) reads with different points, huscheman, and translate with a clearer meaning—the heart of this people has been made gross, namely, directly by themselves, indirectly by God; especially because the preceding words signify that they had not been so much blinded by God as by their own covetousness, pride, malice, hatred and envy against Christ. See what I have said on Isaiah vi., where I have expounded the passage at length.

But blessed are your eyes, for they see (Arabic, see through ), &c. Eyes and ears of the mind as well as of the body. Blessed are ye, 0 ye Apostles, because ye receive the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, both with the exterior eyes and ears of the body, and the interior ears and eyes of the soul. With the eyes of the body ye behold My sacred actions and miracles: but, what is of far more consequence, with the eyes and ears of your minds, enlightened by God, ye believe and understand the same. This do not the Jews: for the soul, equally with the body, has its own eyes and ears—yea, the soul is all eye or ear.

Verily, I say unto you, that many prophels, &c. For, as Christ said (Joh 8:56), "Abraham rejoiced to see My day; he saw it and was glad." Here is the voice and prayer of Jacob: "I have waited for Thy salvation, 0 Lord." (Gen. xlix. 18). Then also Isa 45:8. "Drop down dew, ye heavens from above, and let the clouds rain the righteous one. Let the earth open and bring forth the Saviour." (Vulg.) There was the same feeling and desire to all the patriarchs, all the prophets, all the saints of the Old Testament—namely, to see and hear Messiah, the Redeemer, Teacher, and Saviour of the world.

It is said that S. Augustine had three wishes: the first to see Christ speaking in the flesh; the second to behold Rome in the splendour of an imperial triumph; the third, to hear Paul thundering forth in his preaching. Many have the same wish at this present time.

Hear ye therefore, &c. Cometh the evil one, Gr. ό πονηρός, that is, the devil. S. Luke (Luk 8:12) gives this more clearly, The seed is the Word of God. Those by the wayside are they that hear: then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe aid be saved.

Appositely is the word of God, or the gospel, and the preaching of it compared to the sowing of seed. 1. Because as the word from the mouth of the preacher, so is seed scattered by the hand of the sower. 2. As the word is received by the ear and the heart of the hearer, so is seed received into the bosom of the earth, that it may produce fruit. 3. As seed is the parent and origin of all corn, so is the word of God the parent of all good works. 4. As the earth without seed produces only nettles, tares and thorns, so also does the mind of man without the word of God produce nothing but what is vain and noxious. 5. As seed, in order that it may fructify, must be sown in ground neither hard nor stony, dry or thorny, but in moist or good earth, so also the word of God ought to be received in tender, pure hearts, and inclined to piety, that it may bring forth spiritual fruit: this is what James says (Jam 1:21), "receive with meekness the engrafted word."

Again, Palladius ( l 1 de re Rust. Tit. 35) suggests a remedy to prevent seeds being destroyed by moles, mice, ants, &c., that the seeds should be previously steeped in bitter substances. So also Pliny says that chick-peas keep caterpillars from herbs, and adds, "if the seed of herbs be steeped in the juice of wormwood, it will keep the herbs from all noxious animals." In like manner, in order that we may keep the seed of God's word in our hearts, untouched by the gnawing of pleasures, it must be macerated by sobriety, fasting, and other austerities, for these preserve the mind from the corruption of fleshly delights.

6. As the earth ought to be ploughed, manured, harrowed, that the seed may germinate, so also ought the heart of man to be cleared, and cultivated by laborious acts of penance, mortification and other virtues, that the word of God may produce fruit in it. This is what Isaiah says (xxxii. 20.) "Blessed are ye which sow beside all waters, sending forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass." See what is there said. 7. In order that seed may germinate, it requires the rain and the sun; so also that the word of God may strike root in the soul, it ought to be watered by grace, and warmed by heavenly love. This is what Isaiah says ( Isa l61:11), "For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth: so the LORD GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." This is effected by the word of the Gospel scattered by Christ and His Apostles. 8. As seed that is sown in the earth must decay, burst and die, that it may be fruitful: so also that the word may fructify in the heart it must be, as it were, resolved, bruised, and die by meditation; and it must likewise bruise and mortify the heart itself, according to that saying of Christ (Joh 12:24.) "Verily, verily, I say unto, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Thus likewise must the faithful soul suffer many adversities before it can bring forth fruit unto God. 9. The seed must first strike root in the earth, then spring up in stalks and branches, next bud into flowers, and lastly, produce fruit from them; so also must the word of God first be rooted in the soul, then bring forth the germs of good thoughts, and the flowers of good desires, that it may at length produce the fruit of good works. 10. The entire power of a tree or plant is in the seed: for from it the plant and all its parts and members, which it possesses in an analogous manner to the limbs of men and animals, proceed. Wherefore many think that seeds have souls, as Aristotle hints ( l. 2. de gener. anim. c. 1.) For when seed is cast into the earth, by and bye, as though it were living, it produces living germs. In like manner the whole force of virtue and perfection, whereby a man becomes spiritual, holy, and perfect, is contained in the word of God, as it were in seed. And this, unfolding itself and germinating in the mind produces all virtuous actions. 11. Different seeds produce different fruits; as the seed of a pear tree produces pears; the seed of wheat, wheat; the seed of barley produces barley, and so on. Thus different sentences of the Gospel bring forth different affections in the soul. The precepts of humility bring forth humility, the precepts of repentance, repentance. 12. As there is a father and a mother of every child, as for the production of fruit, there must be the earth and the seed; so in like manner, for good works there must be the concurrence of the word of God with that which is internal, i.e., the free will of man, which must co-operate with the word of God. But this must be in such manner that the will must derive all its power of producing spiritual works from the word and grace of God, in order that they may be pleasing unto God, and may merit eternal life. ( Conr. Trident. sess. 6.) In like manner the fruit derives liberty, or that it should be a free work and not compulsory nor done of necessity, from free will. For the interior word, which God speaks in the soul, stirring it up and strengthening it for acts of penance, charity, religion, &c., is nothing else but the grace of God itself, illuminating the understanding, and strengthening the affection, or the will, and inflaming it to the Divine works of virtue. This interior word, or grace, God is wont to add to the external word of preaching, What therefore the preacher speaks outwardly in the ear, God must speak inwardly in the heart if it is to bear fruit.

In fine, as from the better seed, and the more excellent land is produced better fruit, for example, better wheat, better barley, so in like manner from the more powerful preaching, and the grace of God, and the more fervent co-operation of free will are produced more excellent acts of virtue, and more heroic works. Hear what Pliny says ( 1. 24. 18.) He prescribes the following rules for sowing. 1. Let the sowing in moist places be performed quickly, the reason is that the seed may not putrefy with the wet: more slowly in dry ground, that the rain may follow, lest it should lie too long, and not be able to germinate. 2. It is part of the art of sowing to scatter the seed evenly. The hand ought to correspond with the step, and always with the right foot. 3. The seed must not be transferred from cold places to warm, not from ground where it ripens quickly to ground where it ripens late. 4. Sow abundantly in rich soil, more sparingly in poor soil. 5. This precept should be observed, do not exhaust your crops; for as Columella says, it is evident that crops will become exhausted by sowing the land too frequently with them. All these things are mystically adapted by preachers for sowing the Gospel.

And understandeth it not, does not perceive the meaning of the Word of God; because some other occupation, desire, or care, or the devil himself, distracts the mind to think of other things. This is he who is sown by the wayside. The heart of such a man is signified by that portion of the ground which is by the wayside, or the path itself. For as seed failing in the way, or by the side of the way, is rejected by the hard and trodden ground, and is snatched up by the birds; so, in like manner, the seed of the Word of God is not received into a heart which has become hardened by a habit of sin, but is immediately carried away by the devil impelling the heart to its accustomed sins. Such an one, therefore, cannot really be compared to ground at all, but to a way ; he has the name and character, not of a hearer, but of a despiser of the Word of God.

Now the inaptitude for seed of land trodden down in a way may be removed, if it be cultivated by the plough and the mattock; and if a hedge be placed so as to exclude those who tread it down. Thus, likewise, the unfitness of a heart that is hardened by habits of vice may be taken away by compunction, which may cut and mollify the hardness of the heart: and if it be broken by the mattock of continence which weakens vicious desires, and brings them into subjection to right reason and the law of God.

But hath no root in himself, &c. This is the second condition of those who receive the Word. It is better than that condition of ground which preceded; for this is ground sufficiently soft for the seed to be received, and to sprout, though it is only for a short time. The meaning therefore is, The heart of that hearer who hears the Word of God, and with joy receives it in his mind, meditates upon it, and approves of it—according to those words of the Psalmist, "The statutes of the Lord are right, and rejoice the heart"—is like the seed sown on stony ground. This seed quickly springs up, that is, in pious affection for the faith, and other works of religion. But because there is only little earth in the heart, and much rock—that is, because there is more of a depraved habit in a heart that has become hardened by pleasures than of a disposition to piety—this seed of God's Word is unable to take deep root in such a heart. It is temporary, i.e., it is not constant in the faith, but only believes for a little time, as the Arabic translates. It perceives the Word of God to be opposed to its lusts and vices; so that, like hard and rocky ground, it rejects it. Whence Luke says (viii. 14), These are they who for a time believe, and in time of temptation fall away; i.e., from the Word and faith of God, or, certainly, from His law, which faith declares is to be followed. Wherefore, when tribulation arises from private persons, or public persecutions which tend to deprive them of fife, or the riches and pleasures which they love; and when this is in consequence of the Word and faith of God, immediately they are scandalized, or as the Syriac translates, they are offended, and fall away, or apostatize from the profession of the faith. S. Gregory gives an example ( Hom. 15 in Evang.): "The rocky ground had no moisture, because it did not bring what it had caused to sprout to the fruit of perseverance. For many persons, when they hear the Word against avarice, hate the same avarice, and praise contempt of all things; but by-and-by, when the mind sees what it desires, it forgets what it praised. Many, when they hear the Word against luxury, not only do not desire to perpetrate fleshly pollutions, but are even ashamed of what they have perpetrated; but as soon as the fair appearance of the flesh is present to their eyes, the mind is carried away, and they are as though they had never made resolutions against those desires. For often we have compunction for our faults, and yet, after weeping, return to the same faults."

But that which is sown among thorns, &c. This is the third sort or condition of ground receiving seed, far better than the second condition, in as much as thorns offer less hindrance than rocks to seeds to germinate. This ground then denotes the heart of a hearer, which is beset with riches and worldly cares, as it were thorns. These destroy and choke the growing, seed of the word of God, before it can bring forth the ripe fruit of virtue. Observe: riches are aptly compared to thorns, because like thorns they distract, prick, and torment the mind so that it is not pleasing to a rich man to think often of Divine things.

Hear S. Jerome: "To me it seems that the words spoken literally to Adam, Among thorns and thistles thou shalt eat thy bread, signify mystically, that whosoever shall give himself up to the pleasures and cares of this world, shall eat heavenly bread and the true food, among thorns."

And S. Gregory ( Hom. 15 . in Evang.): "Who would ever believe me if I wished to interpret thorns to mean riches, especially since the former prick, the latter give pleasure? And yet riches are thorns, because they lacerate the mind with the punctures of their thoughts, and when they draw to sin they inflict as it were a bloody wound."

Care of the world, i.e ., of things temporal, such as the care of a wife or family. Such things tear the mind, i.e., distract, trouble, and wound it. But on the other hand the care of salvation and of things divine causes the mind to be collected, calm, sound and flourishing. Hear S. Gregory, The cares of the world choke, because they strangle the throat of the mind with importunate thoughts: and because they will not suffer good desires to enter the mind, they as it were cut off the breath of life. We must observe also that there are two things which Christ joins to riches, namely cares and pleasures: because in truth the mind is oppressed by care, and by abundance it becomes dissolute.

Deceitfulness, i.e. the seduction of riches. Riches are deceitful, because they draw away the mind from God and salvation, to vain and hurtful wealth, which is often a cause of many sins and of damnation, when it is acquired by all sorts of means. They are deceitful therefore, because they promise and perform not. They promise joy and pleasure, but instead they often hurry men into the eternal pains of hell.

Hear what S. Gregory says, "riches are deceitful because they cannot long abide with us, and because they do not drive out the poverty of our souls. Those only are the true riches which enrich us with virtues. If therefore, brethren beloved, ye desire to be rich, strive for the heavenly kingdom. If ye love the glory of dignities, hasten to be enrolled in the senate of the Angels, which is above."

That which is sown in the good ground, &c. "The good ground," says S. Thomas ( in Catena ex Remigio ): "The good ground is the faithful conscience of the elect, or the mind of the saints, which receives the Word of God with joy and desire and devotion of heart, and manfully keeps it in prosperity and adversity, and leads it on to the future, whence it follows, 'and brings forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirtyfold.'"

Understandeth it, &c. i.e., considers it in his mind, ruminates upon it, penetrates it, proves, tastes, retains it. The fruit is that both of good works as well as of their corresponding reward and glory in Heaven. Whence Luke adds, with patience, Gr. ε̉ν ύπομονη̃, i.e, with long-suffering, after the manner of a husbandman patiently awaiting, after his sowing, the fruit and heavenly harvest of his labours and good works. "The good ground," says S. Gregory, "brings forth fruit through patience. The grapes are trodden by the heels of men, and flow into wine-juice; olives are expressed by beatings, and leave their lees, and produce the fatness of olive oil; by the threshing of the floor the grain is separated from the chaff, and when winnowed is carried into the granary, and so on." Hence S. Bonaventura says, that a good hearer of God's Word gives himself up entirely to it, together with all the faculties of his soul namely, his understanding, his wiill or affection, and his memory. He serves the Word of God with his understanding and will, because he receives it in an honest and good heart: with his memory, because he retains the word: with his powers of working and endurance, because he brings forth fruit with patience.

And brings forth some an hundredfold, &c. "We must observe," says S. Jerome, "that like as in the bad ground there were three different sorts—namely, by the wayside, the rocky, and the thorny places—so in the good ground there is a threefold diversity. And in the one as well as in the other, it is not the substance which is changed, but the will; and so it is the heart of the unbelieving as well as of the believing which receives the seed."

Moreover, the greatest fruit of God's Word, as it were the greatest fruit of seed is a hundredfold, as if from a single grain a harvest of a hundred grains were gathered, as was Isaac's case (Gen 26:12). The medium fruit is called sixtyfold; the lowest thirtyfold. A definite number is put for an indefinite; otherwise He might have added, brings forth some fortyfold, some twenty fold, and so on. Whence, in opposition to Jovinian and Calvin, the inequality of merit and consequently of the reward, of good works in Heaven is rightly proved. So S. Chrysostom ( Hom. 45), S. Augustine ( de S. Virgin. c. 46), Nazianzen (Orat. 28), and others. For the Fathers, however Calvin may deride and exclaim, apply these words especially to diverse states. 1. S. Jerome, on this passage ( lib. 1, contra Jovin ), and S. Athanasius ( Epist. ad Ammon.), and others assign the hundredfold fruit to virgins; the sixtyfold to widows; the thirtyfold to those who live in honest and holy wedlock.

2. S. Cyprian ( l. de Hab. Virg.) and S. Augustine ( l. 1, de quest. Evang. quest. 9, tom 4) assign the hundredfold to martyrs, the sixty to virgins, the thirtyfold to those who are married. Hear what S. Augustine says: "I assert that the hundredfold belongs to martyrs, on account of their holiness of life, or contempt of death; the sixty fold to virgins, on account of interior quiet, because they do not need to fight against fleshly habits—for rest is wont to be granted to soldiers who are past sixty years of age; the thirtyfold to the married, because thirty is the age of warriors—for those have a sharper conflict, that they may not be overcome of lust."

3. Euthymius and Theophylact assign the thirtyfold to beginners, the sixty to those who have made some progress, the hundredfold to the perfect. So also Nazianzen ( Orat. 28.) When a man proceeds, saith he, from thirty to sixty, he finishes with a hundred, as Isaac did (Gen. xxvi.) And he sings the Psalms of Degrees, going from strength to strength, and placing the Ascensions in his heart (Ps. 84.)

Another parable put He forth, &c. The Syriac adds, enigmatically. This means it is done in the kingdom of Heaven in the same way that it is done in a field—when a man sows his seed, and his enemy sows tares over it. Wherefore Mark has (iv. 26.) So is the kingdom of God, as if a man cast seed into the earth, and while men slept, &c. For the whole parable is compared with the whole of the things signified, not part with part: for otherwise the sower would not be like to a kingdom but to a king, the King of Heaven.

Whilst men slept, &c. That is to say by night, whilst men were sleeping, his enemy came unknown to everyone. He was envious of the prosperous crops of his rival, and in order to ruin them, he sowed tares among them. The expression, whilst men slept, adds to the elegance of the parable: for those who are envious are accustomed to frame such plots against those who sleep.

Symbolically, S. Jerome and S. Augustine understand this sleeping to mean negligence and carelessness on the part of bishops and pastors of the Church. Or they understand it of the death of the Apostles, on which the heretics took occasion to sow the tares of their heresies and wickednesses. Hence let pastors learn to watch over their flocks. "The life of mortals is a watch." For as Augustine says, "To sleep more than to watch is the life of dormice rather than of men."

Tares, the Hebrew Gospel reads, הרולים charulim i.e., nettles, thistles. The word in Greek is zizania, a word peculiar to the Gospels, unknown to Cicero and Demosthenes, and signifying every kind of worthless and noxious weed. All impurity in seed is called zizania, as S. Augustine says. Tertullian ( de prescript. hæret. c. 31) interprets zizania to mean wild oats. "In the parable," he says, "The Lord first sowed his good seed, and it was afterwards that the devil sowed the spurious seed of his barren crop." Whence he gathers that the fact of heresy being later in time is a mark of falsehood. Hence too ( l. de arima c 16.) he calls the sower of tares "the nocturnal interpolator of evil seed."

Zizania then, or tares are whatsoever is injurious to the crops, or inimical to wheat, as darnel, for instance. Hear Pliny ( l 18. c. 17.) "I should reckon darnel and thistles and thorns and burrs, no less than brambles, among the diseases of the crops rather than among the pests of the ground." Some are of opinion that zizania is a Syriac word. Others derive it from the Chaldee zyz, an appearance, a figure. For it has the appearance of nourishing corn, but is not. The Germans call zizania, droncacert, because it makes people drunk: it also gives vertigo and stupefaction to those who eat it. Hence zizania signifies mystically heretics and sinners, especially those who corrupt others by word or example, as SS. Augustine, Chrysostom, and Gregory teach. For zizania injure the wheat, and choke and kill it, because they draw away nourishment from it, and so as it were corrupt and strangle the wheat. This is Christ's second parable of the tares, by which He tacitly rebukes the Scribes and Pharisees, His adversaries, who sowed the tares of their false accusations over the seed of the Word of God, i.e., His preaching of the Gospel, by saying that Jesus was opposed to Moses, that He had a familiar spirit, and so on; by which they inferred that Jesus was not the Messiah, but a magician and an impostor. By this means they turned away the people from Him and His Gospel, and choked and destroyed the good seeds and desires of faith and piety which Christ had scattered in their hearts. Therefore they were tares, i.e., the evil seed of the devil.

When the blade was sprung up, &c. For the first sprouts of zizania and of wheat are alike, so that one cannot be discerned from the other; but when they are grown up, they are easily distinguished.

Servants of the householder, &c. Lest ye root up the wheat also it them. For the tares are intertwined and interwoven among the roots of the wheat, so that if you were to pull up the former, you must root up the latter also. This parable Christ will expound, verse 31.

The kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, &c. Instead of the birds of the heaven lodge in the branches of it the Arabic has they are overshadowed by its branches. This is Christ's third parable, the occasion and cause of which S. Chrysostom gives as follows: "Because the Lord had said that of the seed three parts perish, and one is preserved, and again of that which is preserved, there is great loss on account of the tares which are sown above it, lest people should say, who then and how many will believe? he removes this fear by the parable of the grain of mustard seed, and therefore it is said, Another parable put He forth unto them, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, &c."

You will enquire in the first place, what it is which is here compared to the kingdom of Heaven, and likened to a grain of mustard seed? 1. S. Hilary understands it of Christ Himself. He says, "The Lord compares Himself to a grain of mustard seed, which is very sharp and the least of all seeds, and whose virtue and power are increased by bruising and pressure. After this grain had been sown in the field, when it was taken by the people and delivered to death, as though in a field by a sort of sowing, there was the burial of its body, it grew above the measure of all herbs, and exceeded the glory of all the prophets. For like a herb the preaching of the prophets was given to Israel as being sick: but now in the branches of the tree, raised from the ground on high, the birds of the air dwell: by these we understand the Apostles, lifted up by the power of Christ, and they overshadow the world with their branches. To them the Gentiles flew for the hope of life; and when they are vexed with whirlwinds, that is by the blasts of the devil, they rest as in the branches of a tree." In like manner S. Gregory ( lib. 19 Moral. c. 11.) expounds this whole parable, "Christ Himself is the grain of mustard seed, who was planted in the sepulchre of the garden, and rose again a mighty tree. He was but a grain when He died; a tree when He rose again. A grain through lowliness of the flesh; a tree by the power of His majesty. A grain, because we saw Him, and there was no comeliness; but a tree because He was fairer than the children of men. The branches of this tree are sacred preachers. And let us see how widely they are spread. For what is spoken concerning them? Their sound is gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world. The birds rest in their branches, because holy souls who lift up themselves from earthly thoughts by the wings, as it were, of virtues are refreshed after the fatigue of this life by their words and their consolations." You will say, how can Christ be called the kingdom of Heaven, when He is not the kingdom, but its King? It is replied: as a king is as it were the head in a kingdom, so a kingdom is as the body of a king. Wherefore a king represents the whole state or kingdom. Hence according to the rule of Ticonius, often in Scripture what belongs to the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ, is attributed to Christ, and vice versa.

2. More plainly and aptly, the kingdom of Heaven and the grain of mustard seed are the Church, especially the Primitive Church.

You will enquire, (2). Why the Gospel is compared to a grain of mustard seed, and what are the resemblances between the two things? I answer, the first is that Christ by this parable intends to signify the immense power and fruitfulness of Evangelical preaching, insomuch that what had a very small beginning with Christ, and by a few Apostles, diffused itself over the whole world. For a grain of mustard seed is less than all seeds, i.e., the least of all seeds; as the Syriac and Arabic have it. The Greek is μικρότερον πάντων σπερμάτων, i.e., less than all seeds, meaning very little. This must be understood according to the common usage of speech, by which we call what is very little, or one of very small things, the least ; for otherwise to speak precisely, poppy seed, and the seed of rue, and of some other herbs, is less than mustard seed. Thus the preaching of the Gospel by Christ and the Apostles was at first very circumscribed.

2. A grain of mustard seed, especially in Syria, grows into a tree, so that birds dwell— Syriac, build their nests— in its branches. Thus the Gospel grew, and filled the whole world, so that the birds of Heaven, i.e., men lofty in knowledge and understanding as well as kings and princes dwelt in its branches. (See Dan 4:9 and Dan 4:19). Some understand by the birds, the angels, because they have wings, and are very swift. Hear S. Augustine ( Serm. 33 de Sanc.). "Peter is a branch; Paul is a branch; blessed Laurence, whose festal day we are celebrating, is a branch. All the Apostles and martyrs of the Saviour are branches; and if anyone will bravely lay hold of them, they will escape being drowned in the waves of the world. He who dwells under their shadow shall not feel the fire of hell, and shall be secure from the storm of the tempest of the devil, and from being burnt up in the day of judgment."

3. And chiefly by mustard is denoted the igneous force and efficacy of the Gospel. "Pythagoras," says Pliny ( l. 20, c. 22), "considered that mustard holds the chief place amongst those things whose force is borne upward; since there is nothing which more thoroughly penetrates the nose and the brain." A grain of mustard refers to the fervour of faith, says S. Augustine.

4. Mustard seed must be bruised; for when it is bruised it emits its igneous force and flavour. Thus the preaching of the Gospel was as it were, bruised by a thousand oppressions and persecutions, which the Apostles suffered; and then it breathed forth its igneous force and strength.

5. Mustard seed, as Pliny says, is sharp and biting. It draws tears, purges away phlegm and cerebral secretions; it is masticated for toothache; when bruised and mixed with vinegar it is applied to the stings of scorpions and the bites of snakes; it is an antidote to the poison of fungi; it is beneficial for the breast and lungs; it is useful against epilepsy, dropsy, asthma, lethargy, and many other diseases. Thus the Gospel expels poisons, that is sins, by the emetic of confession; it is sharp and biting, because it teaches penance and the cross; it excites the tears of compunction; it is medicine for all the faculties of the soul, and especially it dries up concupiscence, and animates to virtue. "The bitterness of its words is the medicine of souls," says S. Augustine.

6. Mustard seed by its sharpness seasons food, and renders it palatable. So also the Gospel renders palatable everything which is hard and difficult by means of the example of Christ, and by the hope of future glory which it promises.

S. Augustine says, "A grain of mustard seed is great, not in appearance, but in virtue. At first appearance it seems small, worthless, despised, not possessing savour, nor odour, nor sweetness; but when it is bruised, it sheds abroad its odour and exhales nourishment of a fiery taste. It is so inflamed with the fervour of heat that there might be enclosed in it so much fire, by which men could (especially in the winter-time) drive away cold, and warm themselves inwardly." After this he applies the qualities of mustard to the Gospel and the Christian faith, thus: "Thus too the Christian faith, at first sight, appears small and worthless, not manifesting its power, not carrying any semblance of pride, neither furnishing grace. But as soon as it begins to be bruised by divers temptations, immediately it manifests its vigour, it indicates its sharpness, it breathes the warmth of belief in the Lord, and is possessed with so great ardour of divine fire, that both itself is hot and it compels those who participate to be fervent also. As the two disciples said in the Gospel, when the Lord spoke with them after His Passion, "Did not our hearts burn within us by the way, while the Lord Jesus opened to us the Scriptures?" A grain of mustard, then, warms the inward members of our body, but the power of faith burns up the sins of our heart. The one indeed takes away piercing cold; the other expels the devil's frost of transgressions. A grain of mustard, I say, purges away corporeal humours, but faith puts an end to the flux of lusts. By the one, medicine is gained for the head; but by faith our spiritual Head, Christ the Lord, is often refreshed. Moreover, we enjoy the sacred odour of faith, according to the analogy of mustard seed, as the blessed Apostle saith, "We are a sweet savour of Christ unto God."

Tropologically ; All these things may be applied to a faithful soul, and especially to an Apostle, and to a suffering Christian, or to a martyr. Wherefore the Church adapts this parable to S. Laurence, as the Gospel for his festival. As S. Augustine says, in the work already cited, "We may compare the holy martyr Laurence to a grain of mustard seed; for he, being bruised by various sufferings, deserved to become fragrant throughout the whole world by the grace of his martyrdom. He, when he was in the body, was humble, unknown, and held in low estimation; but after he had been bruised, torn, and burnt he diffused the odour of his nobleness in the churches in all the world. Rightly, therefore, is the comparison applied to him. For Laurence, when he suffers, is inflamed. The fervour of its attrition moves the one; Laurence breathes forth fire in his manifold tribulations. Mustard, I say, is cooked in a small vessel; Laurence is roasted on the gridiron by the fiery flame. Blessed Laurence the martyr was burnt outwardly by the flames of the raging tyrant, but he was inflamed inwardly by the far greater fire of the love of Christ." The Arabians have a proverb—"A grain of pepper is more powerful than many large gourds;" because if it be bruised it emits a fiery force, and makes itself felt in everyone's nostrils. You may say the same of a grain of mustard. A believer, therefore, should be a grain of pepper or mustard, and breathe everywhere, and upon all, a divine fire, and so pepper all men, and make them like himself, zealous that is, and ardent in the love of God.

Another parable, &c. This is Christ's fourth parable, of leaven, by which (as by the former parable) He shows the power and efficacy of the preaching of the Gospel. As S. Chrysostom says, "Like as leaven communicates its own virtue to a great quantity of meal, so shall ye, 0 ye Apostles, transforn the whole world." S. Chrysostom observes, with regard to the word hid : "Thus also ye, when ye shall be subjected to your persecutors, shall overcome them. And as leaven indeed is buried but not destroyed, but by degrees transforms everything to its own state; so shall it happen with your preaching. Do not ye, therefore, fear because I said, Many troubles shall happen unto you; for by this means shall ye shine, and shall overcome all." You will ask why Christ compares the Gospel to leaven? I reply, because leaven is a portion of the meal that has become a little sour, which takes place through fermentation. Hear how Pliny describes the manner in which leaven is made ( l 18, c. 11): "Now" (because formerly it was made in another way, as he had related a little before) "leaven is made of the meal itself, which is first kneaded before salt is added, after the manner of pottage, and left until it becomes a little sour. Commonly, indeed, they do not warm it, but only make use of what has been kept from the day before. And evidently it is the nature of heat to cause fermentation; as of bodies that are nourished with fermented bread to become stronger. Thus it was, that among our ancestors the greatest healthiness was attributed to the heaviest wheat."

Again, leaven, although it be small in bulk, with its heat moistens the whole mass of dough; and as it were effects a change in its entire substance. It makes it palatable and digestible, so that it becomes wholesome bread for nourishing, sustaining and strengthening man. In like manner the Gospel by means of a few Apostles, who suffered many tribulations, converts the whole world to itself and makes the heart of each to be warmed with the love of God. The woman who kneads is the Church, or the power and wisdom of God says S. Augustine.

Tropologically : S. Augustine says, "Christ calls love leaven, because it excites to warmth. The woman he calls wisdom. By the three measures of meal we may understand either these three things in man—the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind; or the three degrees of fruit-bearing, an hundred, sixty, and thirty fold; or the three sorts of men, represented by Noah, Daniel and Job." ( l 1. q. q. Evang. q. 12.) Rabanus adds, "He says until the whole was leavened: because charity being hid in our minds ought to grow there until it transmutes the whole mind into its own perfection: that which is begun here, is perfected hereafter."

S. Ambrose says, that like as leaven is disseminated through the whole mass of the meal, being as it were broken up; "so Christ was broken, torn and dissolved by His various sufferings: and His moisture, that is His precious Blood was poured out for our salvation, that it might by mingling itself with the whole human race, consolidate that race, which lay scattered abroad." See also S. Chrysostom, who says among other things, "If twelve men leavened nearly all the meal of the world, consider diligently in your minds, how great must be our wickedness and sloth, who, although we are so many, are not able to convert the remnant of the Gentiles, when we ought to be sufficient for a thousand worlds." S. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, was wont to weep over the same thing. His was the saying, "That formerly priests of gold celebrated in chalices of wood, but now wooden priests celebrate in golden chalices."

Three measures : a measure was equal in quality to a bath which is a liquid measure, containing an Italian bushel, or as S. Jerome and Josephus say, a bushel and a half. The measure contained three Attic bushels.

These three measures are the quarters of the world, Asia, Africa, Europe. These were designated by the three sons of Noah. For the posterity of Shem inhabited Asia; the posterity of Ham, Africa; and of Japhet, Europe. So Cæsarius, brother of S. Gregory Nazianzen. ( Dial. 4.)

Symbolically ; S. Hilary says, the grace of the Gospel was hid in the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets; now it hath appeared in the faith, hope and love of the Holy Trinity, that what the Law constituted, and the Prophets announced, the same might be fulfilled by the advent of the Gospels. Or as others say, that it might be confirmed by the threefold work of God, viz. of creation, redemption and glorification.

Allegorically : S. Bernard, ( l. 5. de Consider.) says the Blessed Virgin joined and united in her womb the three natures of Christ, namely soul, body and divinity to the one Hypostasis of the Word.

All these things spake Jesus in parables, meaning in a parabolical manner: things kept secret, Heb. הידות chidoth, i.e. enigmas, as the Chaldee trans. and S. Jerome (Psa 78:2.). The Arabic has, I will speak things hidden before the foundation of the world. Christ cites the psalm of David, Psa 78:2  (lxxviii. 2), who, according to the letter, through the whole psalm, celebrates God's benefits to the Synagogue, i.e., the people of Israel, from the beginning, i.e. from their going forth out of Egypt under Moses their leader, until David's own time, in order that he might stir up the people to be grateful to God, and to love and worship Him. But mystically, says S. Jerome, David was there a type of Christ, who celebrates the benefits granted by God through Himself to His Church, and before-time hid. These things were concerning the promised land in heaven, mysteries declared by parables. Observe that the Hebrew word for parables is mashal, which signifies any weighty and famous saying, such a one as predominates over others. For mashal means to rule: thus it came to signify what was obscure and recondite, whether it were an enigma, an allegory, a parable, or a sentence properly so called. Therefore the sentences in that seventy-eighth Psalm are not properly parables, but only weighty sentences. But here there are like weighty sentences and parables properly so called. Thus this verse of the Psalm applies to Christ in both its meanings, but to David only one of them. For in Scripture many things are spoken which are more suitable to the things signified by the allegory, than to the allegory itself and its literal meaning.

When the multitudes were sent away, &c., ... declare unto us the parable of the tares. For this seemed more obscure than the others, and to contain severer threats.

The field is the world, &c. The field is the world, not the Church; for by the tares of this field many understand heretics, who are not in the Church, especially when they are public and manifest.

Children of the kingdom : These are faithful, righteous, and persevering in justice, and therefore elected by God to be heirs of the kingdom of Heaven. Whence, in verse 43, they are called the righteous. These are the sons of the Heavenly Father, "which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (Joh 1:13).

Observe: the righteous are here called seed, because although the seed which Christ sows is the Word of God, spoken as well outwardly by the lips, as inwardly in the heart by grace; nevertheless, because the fruit of this seed is the conversion of the faithful, and their justification, therefore the righteous also are called seed, i.e., the fruit of the seed, and the harvest.

But the tares, &c. Gr. υίοὶ του̃ πονηρου̃, i.e., the says of that wicked, namely the devil : thus the Syriac and Arabic. Therefore they themselves are evil, for the offspring follow their father. As the sons of God are good and divine, so are the sons of the devil wicked and diabolical.

Observe: by tares and children of the wicked one, some understand heretics, because they are the most injurious kind of tares, inasmuch as they choke and destroy the faithful and faith from their foundation. So S. Chrysostom, Euthymius, and S. Augustine (4 quest. in Matth. q. 11) who, however, retracts ( l. 2 Retract. c. 27) and teaches from S. Cyprian, that tares denote all the wicked in the Church. SS. Gregory, Ambrose, and Theophylact teach the same. For all wicked persons, by their evil life, hurt the faithful and the Church, as tares injure wheat, and choke it. Falsely then from this passage ( verse 29), where Christ forbids these tares to be plucked up, and subjoins, Let both grow together, the Innovators infer that heretics are not to be punished and extirpated. For by parity of reasoning they might conclude that murderers and thieves must not be punished; for they too are tares. And I say that Christ does not here absolutely forbid these tares to be plucked up, but says that no one must attempt to root them all up together; nor at a time when they came to be distinguished from the wheat; or when there is danger of pulling up the wheat at the same time with them. But all this does not apply when anyone is a manifest heretic, especially if he teaches and infects others with his heresy. For such a one does more harm to the Church than a murderer, for the one only kills the body, but the other the soul. See 1 Cor. v. 13, Gal. v. 12, where the Apostle commands impious persons, especially false teachers, to be taken away and extirpated. Thus Origen and S. Augustine—the latter indeed was at first of opinion that heretics ought not to be put to death, yea, that they ought not even to be compelled to resume the faith, which they have professed in baptism. But afterwards, which he had been taught by experience how perverse and obstinate heretics are, he changed his opinion and taught the contrary. He says, "I had not yet learnt either what

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

By Way of Introduction

The passing years do not make it any plainer who actually wrote our Greek Matthew. Papias records, as quoted by Eusebius, that Matthew wrote the Logia of Jesus in Hebrew (Aramaic). Is our present Matthew a translation of the Aramaic Logia along with Mark and other sources as most modern scholars think? If so, was the writer the Apostle Matthew or some other disciple? There is at present no way to reach a clear decision in the light of the known facts. There is no real reason why the Apostle Matthew could not have written both the Aramaic Logia and our Greek Matthew, unless one is unwilling to believe that he would make use of Mark’s work on a par with his own. But Mark’s book rests primarily on the preaching of Simon Peter. Scholfield has recently (1927) published An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel . We know quite too little of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels to say dogmatically that the Apostle Matthew was not in any real sense the author.

If the book is genuine, as I believe, the date becomes a matter of interest. Here again there is nothing absolutely decisive save that it is later than the Gospel according to Mark which it apparently uses. If Mark is given an early date, between a.d. 50 to 60, then Matthew’s book may be between 60 and 70, though many would place it between 70 and 80. It is not certain whether Luke wrote after Matthew or not, though that is quite possible. There is no definite use of Matthew by Luke that has been shown. One guess is as good as another and each decides by his own predilections. My own guess is that a.d. 60 is as good as any.

In the Gospel itself we find Matthew the publican (Mat_9:9; Mat_10:3) though Mark (Mar_2:14) and Luke (Luk_5:27) call him Levi the publican. Evidently therefore he had two names like John Mark. It is significant that Jesus called this man from so disreputable a business to follow him. He was apparently not a disciple of John the Baptist. He was specially chosen by Jesus to be one of the Twelve Apostles, a business man called into the ministry as was true of the fishermen James and John, Andrew and Simon. In the lists of the Apostles he comes either seventh or eighth. There is nothing definite told about him in the Gospels apart from the circle of the Twelve after the feast which he gave to his fellow publicans in honor of Jesus.

Matthew was in the habit of keeping accounts and it is quite possible that he took notes of the sayings of Jesus as he heard them. At any rate he gives much attention to the teachings of Jesus as, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount in chapters Matthew 5-7, the parables in Matthew 13, the denunciation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, the great eschatological discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. As a publican in Galilee he was not a narrow Jew and so we do not expect a book prejudiced in favor of the Jews and against the Gentiles. He does seem to show that Jesus is the Messiah of Jewish expectation and hope and so makes frequent quotations from the Old Testament by way of confirmation and illustration. There is no narrow nationalism in Matthew. Jesus is both the Messiah of the Jews and the Saviour of the world.

There are ten parables in Matthew not in the other Gospels: The Tares, the Hid Treasure, the Net, the Pearl of Great Price, the Unmerciful Servant, the Labourers in the Vineyard, the Two Sons, the Marriage of the King’s Son, the Ten Virgins, the Talents. The only miracles in Matthew alone are the Two Blind Men, the Coin in the Mouth of the Fish. But Matthew gives the narrative of the Birth of Jesus from the standpoint of Joseph while Luke tells that wonderful story from the standpoint of Mary. There are details of the Death and Resurrection given by Matthew alone.

The book follows the same general chronological plan as that in Mark, but with various groups like the miracles in Matthew 8 and 9, the parables in Matthew 13.

The style is free from Hebraisms and has few individual peculiarities. The author is fond of the phrase the kingdom of heaven and pictures Jesus as the Son of man, but also as the Son of God. He sometimes abbreviates Mark’s statements and sometimes expands them to be more precise.

Plummer shows the broad general plan of both Mark and Matthew to be the same as follows:

Introduction to the Gospel Mar_1:1-13 Matthew 3:1-4:11. Ministry in Galilee Mark 1:14-6:13 Matthew 4:12-13:58. Ministry in the Neighborhood Mark 6:14-9:50 Matthew 14:1-18:35. Journey through Perea to Jerusalem Mark 10:1-52 Matthew 19:1-20:34. Last week in Jerusalem Mark 11:1-16:8 Matthew 21:1-28:8. The Gospel of Matthew comes first in the New Testament, though it is not so in all the Greek manuscripts. Because of its position it is the book most widely read in the New Testament and has exerted the greatest influence on the world. The book deserves this influence though it is later in date than Mark, not so beautiful as Luke, nor so profound as John. Yet it is a wonderful book and gives a just and adequate portraiture of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. The author probably wrote primarily to persuade Jews that Jesus is the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes as pictured in the Old Testament. It is thus a proper introduction to the New Testament story in comparison with the Old Testament prophecy.

The Title

The Textus Receptus has " The Holy Gospel according to Matthew" ( to kata Matthaion hagion Euaggelion ), though the Elzevirs omit " holy," not agreeing here with Stephanus, Griesbach, and Scholz. Only minuscules (cursive Greek manuscripts) and all late have the adjective. Other minuscules and nine uncials including W (the Washington Codex of the fifth century), C of the fifth century (the palimpsest manuscript) and Delta of the ninth together with most Latin manuscripts have simply " Gospel according to Matthew" ( Euaggelion kata Matthaion ). But Aleph and B the two oldest and best Greek uncials of the fourth century have only " According to Matthew" ( Kata Maththaion ) (note double th) and the Greek uncial D of the fifth or sixth century follows Aleph and B as do some of the earliest Old Latin manuscripts and the Curetonian Syriac. It is clear, therefore, that the earliest form of the title was simply " According to Matthew." It may be doubted if Matthew (or the author, if not Matthew) had any title at all. The use of " according to" makes it plain that the meaning is not " the Gospel of Matthew," but the Gospel as given by Matthew, secundum Matthaeum , to distinguish the report by Matthew from that by Mark, by Luke, by John. Least of all is there any authority in the manuscripts for saying " Saint Matthew," a Roman Catholic practice observed by some Protestants.

The word Gospel ( Euaggelion ) comes to mean good news in Greek, though originally a reward for good tidings as in Homer’s Odyssey XIV. 152 and in 2Ki_4:10. In the New Testament it is the good news of salvation through Christ. The English word Gospel probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon Godspell, story or narrative of God, the life of Christ. It was early confused with the Anglo-Saxon godspell, good story, which seems like a translation of the Greek euaggelion . But primarily the English word means the God story as seen in Christ which is the best news that the world has ever had. One thinks at once of the use of " word" ( Logos ) in Joh_1:1, Joh_1:14. So then it is, according to the Greek, not the Good News of Matthew, but the Good News of God, brought to us in Christ the Word, the Son of God, the Image of the Father, the Message of the Father. We are to study this story first as presented by Matthew. The message is God’s and it is as fresh to us today in Matthew’s record as when he first wrote it.

JFB: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE author of this Gospel was a publican or tax gatherer, residing at Capernaum, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. As to his identity with the "Levi" of the second and third Gospels, and other particulars, see on Mat 9:9. Hardly anything is known of his apostolic labors. That, after preaching to his countrymen in Palestine, he went to the East, is the general testimony of antiquity; but the precise scene or scenes of his ministry cannot be determined. That he died a natural death may be concluded from the belief of the best-informed of the Fathers--that of the apostles only three, James the Greater, Peter, and Paul, suffered martyrdom. That the first Gospel was written by this apostle is the testimony of all antiquity.

For the date of this Gospel we have only internal evidence, and that far from decisive. Accordingly, opinion is much divided. That it was the first issued of all the Gospels was universally believed. Hence, although in the order of the Gospels, those by the two apostles were placed first in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Latin version, while in all the Greek manuscripts, with scarcely an exception, the order is the same as in our Bibles, the Gospel according to Matthew is "in every case" placed first. And as this Gospel is of all the four the one which bears the most evident marks of having been prepared and constructed with a special view to the Jews--who certainly first required a written Gospel, and would be the first to make use of it--there can be no doubt that it was issued before any of the others. That it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem is equally certain; for as HUG observes [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316, FOSDICK'S translation], when he reports our Lord's prophecy of that awful event, on coming to the warning about "the abomination of desolation" which they should "see standing in the holy place," he interposes (contrary to his invariable practice, which is to relate without remark) a call to his readers to read intelligently--"Whoso readeth, let him understand" (Mat 24:15) --a call to attend to the divine signal for flight which could be intended only for those who lived before the event. But how long before that event this Gospel was written is not so clear. Some internal evidences seem to imply a very early date. Since the Jewish Christians were, for five or six years, exposed to persecution from their own countrymen--until the Jews, being persecuted by the Romans, had to look to themselves--it is not likely (it is argued) that they should be left so long without some written Gospel to reassure and sustain them, and Matthew's Gospel was eminently fitted for that purpose. But the digests to which Luke refers in his Introduction (see on Luk 1:1) would be sufficient for a time, especially as the living voice of the "eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word" was yet sounding abroad. Other considerations in favor of a very early date--such as the tender way in which the author seems studiously to speak of Herod Antipas, as if still reigning, and his writing of Pilate apparently as if still in power--seem to have no foundation in fact, and cannot therefore be made the ground of reasoning as to the date of this Gospel. Its Hebraic structure and hue, though they prove, as we think, that this Gospel must have been published at a period considerably anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem, are no evidence in favor of so early a date as A.D. 37 or 38--according to some of the Fathers, and, of the moderns, TILLEMONT, TOWNSON, OWEN, BIRKS, TREGELLES. On the other hand, the date suggested by the statement of IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.1], that Matthew put forth his Gospel while Peter and Paul were at Rome preaching and founding the Church--or after A.D. 60--though probably the majority of critics are in favor of it, would seem rather too late, especially as the second and third Gospels, which were doubtless published, as well as this one, before the destruction of Jerusalem, had still to be issued. Certainly, such statements as the following, "Wherefore that field is called the field of blood unto this day" (Mat 27:8); "And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day" (Mat 28:15), bespeak a date considerably later than the events recorded. We incline, therefore, to a date intermediate between the earlier and the later dates assigned to this Gospel, without pretending to greater precision.

We have adverted to the strikingly Jewish character and coloring of this Gospel. The facts which it selects, the points to which it gives prominence, the cast of thought and phraseology, all bespeak the Jewish point of view from which it was written and to which it was directed. This has been noticed from the beginning, and is universally acknowledged. It is of the greatest consequence to the right interpretation of it; but the tendency among some even of the best of the Germans to infer, from this special design of the first Gospel, a certain laxity on the part of the Evangelist in the treatment of his facts, must be guarded against.

But by far the most interesting and important point connected with this Gospel is the language in which it was written. It is believed by a formidable number of critics that this Gospel was originally written in what is loosely called Hebrew, but more correctly Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic, the native tongue of the country at the time of our Lord; and that the Greek Matthew which we now possess is a translation of that work, either by the Evangelist himself or some unknown hand. The evidence on which this opinion is grounded is wholly external, but it has been deemed conclusive by GROTIUS, MICHAELIS (and his translator), MARSH, TOWNSON, CAMPBELL, OLSHAUSEN, CRESWELL, MEYER, EBRARD, LANGE, DAVIDSON, CURETON, TREGELLES, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, &c. The evidence referred to cannot be given here, but will be found, with remarks on its unsatisfactory character, in the Introduction to the Gospels prefixed to our larger Commentary, pp. 28-31.

But how stand the facts as to our Greek Gospel? We have not a title of historical evidence that it is a translation, either by Matthew himself or anyone else. All antiquity refers to it as the work of Matthew the publican and apostle, just as the other Gospels are ascribed to their respective authors. This Greek Gospel was from the first received by the Church as an integral part of the one quadriform Gospel. And while the Fathers often advert to the two Gospels which we have from apostles, and the two which we have from men not apostles--in order to show that as that of Mark leans so entirely on Peter, and that of Luke on Paul, these are really no less apostolical than the other two--though we attach less weight to this circumstance than they did, we cannot but think it striking that, in thus speaking, they never drop a hint that the full apostolic authority of the Greek Matthew had ever been questioned on the ground of its not being the original. Further, not a trace can be discovered in this Gospel itself of its being a translation. MICHAELIS tried to detect, and fancied that he had succeeded in detecting, one or two such. Other Germans since, and DAVIDSON and CURETON among ourselves, have made the same attempt. But the entire failure of all such attempts is now generally admitted, and candid advocates of a Hebrew original are quite ready to own that none such are to be found, and that but for external testimony no one would have imagined that the Greek was not the original. This they regard as showing how perfectly the translation has been executed; but those who know best what translating from one language into another is will be the readiest to own that this is tantamount to giving up the question. This Gospel proclaims its own originality in a number of striking points; such as its manner of quoting from the Old Testament, and its phraseology in some peculiar cases. But the close verbal coincidences of our Greek Matthew with the next two Gospels must not be quite passed over. There are but two possible ways of explaining this. Either the translator, sacrificing verbal fidelity in his version, intentionally conformed certain parts of his author's work to the second and third Gospels--in which case it can hardly be called Matthew's Gospel at all--or our Greek Matthew is itself the original.

Moved by these considerations, some advocates of a Hebrew original have adopted the theory of a double original; the external testimony, they think, requiring us to believe in a Hebrew original, while internal evidence is decisive in favor of the originality of the Greek. This theory is espoused by GUERICKS, OLSHAUSEN, THIERSCH, TOWNSON, TREGELLES, &c. But, besides that this looks too like an artificial theory, invented to solve a difficulty, it is utterly void of historical support. There is not a vestige of testimony to support it in Christian antiquity. This ought to be decisive against it.

It remains, then, that our Greek Matthew is the original of that Gospel, and that no other original ever existed. It is greatly to the credit of DEAN ALFORD, that after maintaining, in the first edition of his Greek Testament the theory of a Hebrew original, he thus expresses himself in the second and subsequent editions: "On the whole, then, I find myself constrained to abandon the view maintained in my first edition, and to adopt that of a Greek original."

One argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reliance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Greek language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine when Matthew published his Gospel to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, for their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settlement of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential element. There are extremes on both sides of it. The old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but Syro-Chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of HUG (in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 326, &c.) and ROBERTS ("Discussions of the Gospels," &c., pp. 25, &c.). For ourselves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is that there is no ground to believe that Greek was so little understood in Palestine as to make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that language--so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we think of the number of digests or short narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history which we know from Luke (Luk 1:1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully, and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement until the publican-apostle should leisurely draw up the first of the four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was the language in which the entire quadriform Gospel was to be for all time enshrined. The following among others hold to this view of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew: ERASMUS, CALVIN, BEZA, LIGHTFOOT, WETSTEIN, LARDNER, HUG, FRITZSCHE, CREDNER, DE WETTE, STUART, DA COSTA, FAIRBAIRN, ROBERTS.

On two other questions regarding this Gospel it would have been desirable to say something, had not our available space been already exhausted: The characteristics, both in language and matter, by which it is distinguished from the other three, and its relation to the second and third Gospels. On the latter of these topics--whether one or more of the Evangelists made use of the materials of the other Gospels, and, if so, which of the Evangelists drew from which--the opinions are just as numerous as the possibilities of the case, every conceivable way of it having one or more who plead for it. The most popular opinion until recently--and perhaps the most popular still--is that the second Evangelist availed himself more or less of the materials of the first Gospel, and the third of the materials of both the first and second Gospels. Here we can but state our own belief, that each of the first three Evangelists wrote independently of both the others; while the fourth, familiar with the first three, wrote to supplement them, and, even where he travels along the same line, wrote quite independently of them. This judgment we express, with all deference for those who think otherwise, as the result of a close study of each of the Gospels in immediate juxtaposition and comparison with the others. On the former of the two topics noticed, the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Gospels have been handled most closely and ably by CREDNER [Einleitung (Introduction to the New Testament)], of whose results a good summary will be found in DAVIDSON'S Introduction to the New Testament. The other peculiarities of the Gospels have been most felicitously and beautifully brought out by DA COSTA in his Four Witnesses, to which we must simply refer the reader, though it contains a few things in which we cannot concur.

JFB: Matthew (Outline)

• GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. ( = Luke 3:23-38). (Mat. 1:1-17)
• BIRTH OF CHRIST. (Mat 1:18-25)
• VISIT OF THE MAGI TO JERUSALEM AND BETHLEHEM. (Mat 2:1-12)
• THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT--THE MASSACRE AT BETHLEHEM--THE RETURN OF JOSEPH AND MARY WITH THE BABE, AFTER HEROD'S DEATH, AND THEIR SETTLEMENT AT NAZARETH. ( = Luk 2:39). (Mat 2:13-23)
• PREACHING AND MINISTRY OF JOHN. ( = Mar 1:1-8; Luke 3:1-18). (Mat 3:1-12)
• BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER. ( = Mar 1:9-11; Luk 3:21-22; Joh 1:31-34). (Mat 3:13-17)
• TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. ( = Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13). (Mat 4:1-11)
• CHRIST BEGINS HIS GALILEAN MINISTRY--CALLING OF PETER AND ANDREW, JAMES AND JOHN--HIS FIRST GALILEAN CIRCUIT. ( = Mar 1:14-20, Mar 1:35-39; Luk 4:14-15). (Mat 4:12-25)
• THE BEATITUDES, AND THEIR BEARING UPON THE WORLD. (Mat. 5:1-16)
• IDENTITY OF THESE PRINCIPLES WITH THOSE OF THE ANCIENT ECONOMY; IN CONTRAST WITH THE REIGNING TRADITIONAL TEACHING. (Mat. 5:17-48)
• FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--ITS UNOSTENTATIOUSNESS. (Mat. 6:1-18)
• CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM--HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS AND FILIAL CONFIDENCE. (Mat. 6:19-34)
• MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLEMENTARY COUNSELS. (Mat 7:1-12)
• CONCLUSION AND EFFECT OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (Mat. 7:13-29)
• HEALING OF A LEPER. ( = Mar 1:40-45; Luk 5:12-16). (Mat 8:1-4) When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
• INCIDENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF DISCIPLESHIP. ( = Luk 9:57-62). (Mat 8:18-22) And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
• MATTHEW'S CALL AND FEAST. ( = Mar 2:14-17; Luk 5:27-32). (Mat 9:9-13)
• TWO BLIND MEN AND A DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED. (Mat 9:27-34)
• THIRD GALILEAN CIRCUIT--MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Mat. 9:35-10:5)
• MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. ( = Mar 6:7-13; Luk 9:1-6). (Mat 10:1-5)
• THE TWELVE RECEIVE THEIR INSTRUCTIONS. (Mat. 10:5-42)
• THE IMPRISONED BAPTIST'S MESSAGE TO HIS MASTER--THE REPLY, AND DISCOURSE, ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE MESSENGERS, REGARDING JOHN AND HIS MISSION. ( = Luke 7:18-35). (Mat. 11:1-19)
• OUTBURST OF FEELING SUGGESTED TO THE MIND OF JESUS BY THE RESULT OF HIS LABORS IN GALILEE. (Mat 11:20-30) Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.
• PLUCKING CORN EARS ON THE SABBATH DAY. ( = Mar 2:23-28; Luk 6:1-5). (Mat 12:1-8)
• THE HEALING OF A WITHERED HAND ON THE SABBATH DAY AND RETIREMENT OF JESUS TO AVOID DANGER. ( = Mar 3:1-12; Luk 6:6-11). (Mat 12:9-21)
• A BLIND AND DUMB DEMONIAC HEALED AND REPLY TO THE MALIGNANT EXPLANATION PUT UPON IT. ( = Mar 3:20-30; Luk 11:14-23). (Mat. 12:22-37)
• A SIGN DEMANDED AND THE REPLY--HIS MOTHER AND BRETHREN SEEK TO SPEAK WITH HIM, AND THE ANSWER. ( = Luk 11:16, Luk 11:24-36; Mar 3:31-35; Luk 8:19-21). (Mat 12:38-50)
• JESUS TEACHES BY PARABLES. ( = Mark 4:1-34; Luk 8:4-18; Luk 13:18-20). (Mat. 13:1-52) The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the seaside.
• HOW JESUS WAS REGARDED BY HIS RELATIVES. ( = Mar 6:1-6; Luk 4:16-30). (Mat 13:53-58) And it came to pass, that, when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence.
• HEROD THINKS JESUS A RESURRECTION OF THE MURDERED BAPTIST--ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH. ( = Mark 6:14-29; Luk 9:7-9). (Mat 14:1-12)
• JESUS CROSSES TO THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE LAKE WALKING ON THE SEA--INCIDENTS ON LANDING. ( = Mar 6:45; Joh 6:15-24). (Mat 14:22-26)
• DISCOURSE ON CEREMONIAL POLLUTION. ( = Mar 7:1, Mar 7:23). (Mat. 15:1-20)
• THE WOMAN OF CANAAN AND HER DAUGHTER. (Mat 15:21-28)
• PETER'S NOBLE CONFESSION OF CHRIST AND THE BENEDICTION PRONOUNCED UPON HIM--CHRIST'S FIRST EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS APPROACHING SUFFERINGS, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION--HIS REBUKE OF PETER AND WARNING TO ALL THE TWELVE. ( = Mar 8:27; Mar 9:1; Luk 9:18-27). (Mat. 16:13-28)
• HEALING OF A DEMONIAC BOY--SECOND EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT BY OUR LORD OF HIS APPROACHING DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ( = Mark 9:14-32; Luk 9:37-45). (Mat 17:14-23)
• THE TRIBUTE MONEY. (Mat 17:24-27)
• FURTHER TEACHING ON THE SAME SUBJECT INCLUDING THE PARABLE OF THE UNMERCIFUL DEBTOR. (Mat. 18:10-35)
• FINAL DEPARTURE FROM GALILEE--DIVORCE. ( = Mar 10:1-12; Luk 9:51). (Mat 19:1-12)
• PARABLE OF THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. (Mat. 20:1-16)
• THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED AND THE REPLY--THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN. ( = Mark 11:27-12:12; Luke 20:1-19). (Mat. 21:23-46)
• PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. (Mat 22:1-14)
• DENUNCIATION OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES--LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM, AND FAREWELL TO THE TEMPLE. ( = Mar 12:38-40; Luk 20:45-47). (Mat. 23:1-39)
• PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. (Mat 25:1-13)
• PARABLE OF THE TALENTS. (Mat. 25:14-30)
• THE LAST JUDGMENT. (Mat. 25:31-46)
• JESUS LED AWAY TO PILATE--REMORSE AND SUICIDE OF JUDAS. ( = Mar 15:1; Luk 23:1; Joh 18:28). (Mat 27:1-10)
• GLORIOUS ANGELIC ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, THAT CHRIST IS RISEN--HIS APPEARANCE TO THE WOMEN--THE GUARDS BRIBED TO GIVE A FALSE ACCOUNT OF THE RESURRECTION. ( = Mar 16:1-8; Luk 24:1-8; Joh 20:1). (Mat 28:1-15)
• JESUS MEETS WITH THE DISCIPLES ON A MOUNTAIN IN GALILEE AND GIVES FORTH THE GREAT COMMISSION. (Mat 28:16-20)
• SIGNS AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS--HE IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS, AND BURIED--THE SEPULCHRE IS GUARDED. ( = Mar 15:38-47; Luk 23:47-56; Joh 19:31-42). (Mat. 27:51-66)

TSK: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, being one of the twelve apostles, and early called to the apostleship, and from the time of his call a constant attendant on our Saviour, was perfectly well qualified to write fully the history of his life. He relates what he saw and heard. " He is eminently distinguished for the distinctness and particularity with which he has related many of our Lord’s discourses and moral instructions. Of these his sermon on the mount, his charge to the apostles, his illustrations of the nature of his kingdom, and his prophecy on mount Olivet, are examples. He has also wonderfully united simplicity and energy in relating the replies of his Master to the cavils of his adversaries." " There is not," as Dr. A. Clarke justly remarks, " one truth or doctrine, in the whole oracles of God, which is not taught in this Evangelist. The outlines of the whole spiritual system are here correctly laid down. even Paul himself has added nothing. He has amplified and illustrated the truths contained in this Gospel - under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, neither he, nor any of the other apostles, have brought to light one truth, the prototype of which has not been found in the words and acts of our blessed Lord as related by Matthew."

TSK: Matthew 13 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Mat 13:1, The parable of the sower and the seed; Mat 13:18, the exposition of it; Mat 13:24, The parable of the tares; Mat 13:31, of the mustard seed; Mat 13:33, of the leaven; Mat 13:36, exposition of the parable of the tares; Mat 13:44, The parable of the hidden treasure; Mat 13:45, of the pearl; Mat 13:47, of the drag net cast into the sea; Mat 13:53, Christ is contemned of his own countrymen.

Poole: Matthew 13 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 13

MHCC: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Matthew, surnamed Levi, before his conversion was a publican, or tax-gatherer under the Romans at Capernaum. He is generally allowed to have written his Gospel before any other of the evangelists. The contents of this Gospel, and the evidence of ancient writers, show that it was written primarily for the use of the Jewish nation. The fulfilment of prophecy was regarded by the Jews as strong evidence, therefore this is especially dwelt upon by St. Matthew. Here are particularly selected such parts of our Saviour's history and discourses as were best suited to awaken the Jewish nation to a sense of their sins; to remove their erroneous expectations of an earthly kingdom; to abate their pride and self-conceit; to teach them the spiritual nature and extent of the gospel; and to prepare them for the admission of the Gentiles into the church.

MHCC: Matthew 13 (Chapter Introduction)

(v. 1-23) The parable of the sower.

(Mat 13:24-30; Mat 13:36-43) The parable of the tares.

(Mat 13:31-35) The parables of the mustard-seed and the leaven.

(Mat 13:44-52) The parables of the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, the net cast into the sea, and the householder.

(Mat 13:53-58) Jesus is again rejected at Nazareth.

Matthew Henry: Matthew (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. Matthew

We have now before us, I. The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; so this second part of the holy Bible is entitled: The new covenant; so it might as well be rendered; the word signifies both. But, when it is (as here) spoken of as Christ's act and deed, it is most properly rendered a testament, for he is the testator, and it becomes of force by his death (Heb 9:16, Heb 9:17); nor is there, as in covenants, a previous treaty between the parties, but what is granted, though an estate upon condition, is owing to the will, the free-will, the good-will, of the Testator. All the grace contained in this book is owing to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour; and, unless we consent to him as our Lord, we cannot expect any benefit by him as our Saviour. This is called a new testament, to distinguish it from that which was given by Moses, and was not antiquated; and to signify that it should be always new, and should never wax old, and grow out of date. These books contain, not only a full discovery of that grace which has appeared to all men, bringing salvation, but a legal instrument by which it is conveyed to, and settled upon, all believers. How carefully do we preserve, and with what attention and pleasure do we read, the last will and testament of a friend, who has therein left us a fair estate, and, with it, high expressions of his love to us! How precious then should this testament of our blessed Saviour be to us, which secures to us all his unsearchable riches! It is his testament; for though, as is usual, it was written by others (we have nothing upon record that was of Christ's own writing), yet he dictated it; and the night before he died, in the institution of his supper, he signed, sealed, and published it, in the presence of twelve witnesses. For, though these books were not written for some years after, for the benefit of posterity, in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial, yet the New Testament of our Lord Jesus was settled, confirmed, and declared, from the time of his death, as a nuncupative will, with which these records exactly agree. The things which St. Luke wrote were things which were most surely believed, and therefore well known, before he wrote them; but, when they were written, the oral tradition was superseded and set aside, and these writings were the repository of that New Testament. This is intimated by the title which is prefixed to many Greek Copies, Tē kainēs Diathēkēs Hapanta - The whole of the New Testament, or all the things of it. In it is declared the whole counsel of God concerning our salvation, Act 20:27. As the law of the Lord is perfect, so is the gospel of Christ, and nothing is to be added to it. We have it all, and are to look for no more.

II. We have before us The Four Gospels. Gospel signifies good news, or glad tidings; and this history of Christ's coming into the world to save sinners is, without doubt, the best news that ever came from heaven to earth; the angel gave it this title (Luk 2:10), Euagnelizomai humin - I bring you good tidings; I bring the gospel to you. And the prophet foretold it, Isa 52:7; Isa 61:1. It is there foretold that in the days of the messiah good tidings should be preached. Gospel is an old Saxon word; it is God's spell or word; and God is so called because he is good, Deus optimus - God most excellent, and therefore it may be a good spell, or word. If we take spell in its more proper signification for a charm ( carmen ), and take that in a good sense, for what is moving and affecting, which is apt lenire dolorem - to calm the spirits, or to raise them in admiration or love, as that which is very amiable we call charming, it is applicable to the gospel; for in it the charmer charmeth wisely, though to deaf adders, Psa 58:4, Psa 58:5. Nor (one would think) can any charms be so powerful as those of the beauty and love of our Redeemer. The whole New Testament is the gospel. St. Paul calls it his gospel, because he was one of the preachers of it. Oh that we may each of us make it ours by our cordial acceptance of it and subjection to it! But the four books which contain the history of the Redeemer we commonly call the four gospels, and the inspired penmen of them evangelists, or gospel-writers; not, however, very properly, because that title belongs to a particular order of ministers, that were assistants to the apostles (Eph 4:11): He gave some apostles, and some evangelists. It was requisite that the doctrine of Christ should be interwoven with, and founded upon, the narrative of his birth, life, miracles, death, and resurrection; for then it appears in its clearest and strongest light. As in nature, so in grace, the most happy discoveries are those which take rise from the certain representations of matters of fact. Natural history is the best philosophy; and so is the sacred history, both of the Old and New Testament, the most proper and grateful vehicle of sacred truth. These four gospels were early and constantly received by the primitive church, and read in Christian assemblies, as appears by the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who lived little more than a hundred years after the ascension of Christ; they declared that neither more nor fewer than four were received by the church. A Harmony of these four evangelists was compiled by Tatian about that time, which he called, To dia tessarōn - The Gospel out of the four. In the third and fourth centuries there were gospels forged by divers sects, and published, one under the name of St. Peter, another of St. Thomas, another of St. Philip, etc. But they were never owned by the church, nor was any credit given to them, as the learned Dr. Whitby shows. And he gives this good reason why we should adhere to these written records, because, whatever the pretences of tradition may be, it is not sufficient to preserve things with any certainty, as appears by experience. For, whereas Christ said and did many memorable things, which were not written (Joh 20:30; Joh 21:25), tradition has not preserved any one of them to us, but all is lost except what was written; that therefore is what we must abide by; and blessed by God that we have it to abide by; it is the sure word of history.

III. We have before us the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The penman was by birth a Jew, by calling a publican, till Christ commanded his attendance, and then he left the receipt of custom, to follow him, and was one of those that accompanied him all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that he was taken up, Act 1:21, Act 1:22. He was therefore a competent witness of what he has here recorded. He is said to have written this history about eight years after Christ's ascension. Many of the ancients say that he wrote it in the Hebrew or Syriac language; but the tradition is sufficiently disproved by Dr. Whitby. Doubtless, it was written in Greek, as the other parts of the New Testament were; not in that language which was peculiar to the Jews, whose church and state were near a period, but in that which was common to the world, and in which the knowledge of Christ would be most effectually transmitted to the nations of the earth; yet it is probable that there might be an edition of it in Hebrew, published by St. Matthew himself, at the same time that he wrote it in Greek; the former for the Jews, the latter for the Gentiles, when he left Judea, to preach among the Gentiles. Let us bless God that we have it, and have it in a language we understand.

Matthew Henry: Matthew 13 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter, we have, I. The favour which Christ did to his countrymen in preaching the kingdom of heaven to them (Mat 13:1-2). He preached to them in parables, and here gives the reason why he chose that way of instructing (Mat 13:10-17). And the evangelist gives another reason (Mat 13:34, Mat 13:35). There are eight parables recorded in this chapter, which are designed to represent the kingdom of heaven, the method of planting the gospel kingdom in the world, and of its growth and success. The great truths and laws of that kingdom are in other scriptures laid down plainly, and without parables: but some circumstances of its beginning and progress are here laid open in parables. 1. Here is one parable to show what are the great hindrances of people's profiting by the word of the gospel, and in how many it comes short of its end, through their own folly, and that is the parable of the four sorts of ground, delivered (Mat 13:3-9). and expounded (Mat 13:18-23). 2. Here are two parables intended to show that there would be a mixture of good and bad in the gospel church, which would continue till the great separation between them in the judgment day: the parable of the tares put forth (Mat 13:24-30), and expounded at the request of the disciples (Mat 13:36-43); and that of the net cast into the sea (Mat 13:47-50). 3. Here are two parables intended to show that the gospel church should be very small at first, but that in process of time it should become a considerable body: that of the grain of mustard-seed (Mat 13:31, Mat 13:32), and that of the leaven (Mat 13:33). 4. Here are two parables intended to show that those who expect salvation by the gospel must be willing to venture all, and quit all, in the prospect of it, and that they shall be no losers by the bargain; that of the treasure hid in the field (Mat 13:44), and that of the pearl of great price (Mat 13:45, Mat 13:46). 5. Here is one parable intended for direction to the disciples, to make use of the instructions he had given them for the benefit of others; and that is the parable of the good householder (Mat 13:51, Mat 13:52). II. The contempt which his countrymen put upon him on account of the meanness of his parentage (Mat 13:53-58).

Barclay: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT MATTHEW

The Synoptic Gospels

Matthew, Mark and Luke are usually known as the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic comes from two Greek words which mean to see together and literally means able to be seen together. The reason for that name is this. These three gospels each give an account of the same events in Jesusife. There are in each of them additions and omissions; but broadly speaking their material is the same and their arrangement is the same. It is therefore possible to set them down in parallel columns, and so to compare the one with the other.

When that is done, it is quite clear that there is the closest possible relationship between them. If we, for instance, compare the story of the feeding of the five thousand (Mat_14:12-21; Mar_6:30-44; Luk_9:10-17) we find exactly the same story told in almost exactly the same words.

Another instance is the story of the healing of the man who was sick with the palsy (Mat_9:1-8; Mar_2:1-12; Luk_5:17-26). These three accounts are so similar that even a little parenthesis--"he then said to the paralytic"--occurs in all three as a parenthesis in exactly the same place. The correspondence between the three gospels is so close that we are bound to come to the conclusion either that all three are drawing their material from a common source, or that two of them must be based on the third.

The Earliest Gospel

When we examine the matter more closely we see that there is every reason for believing that Mark must have been the first of the gospels to be written, and that the other two, Matthew and Luke, are using Mark as a basis.

Mark can be divided into 105 sections. Of these sections 93 occur in Matthew and 81 in Luke. Of Mark105 sections there are only 4 which do not occur either in Matthew or in Luke.

Mark has 661 verses: Matthew has 1,068 verses: Luke has 1,149 verses. Matthew reproduces no fewer than 606 of Markverses; and Luke reproduces 320. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce Luke reproduces 31; so there are only 24 verses in the whole of Mark which are not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke.

It is not only the substance of the verses which is reproduced; the very words are reproduced. Matthew uses 51 per cent of Markwords; and Luke uses 53 per cent.

Both Matthew and Luke as a general rule follow Markorder of events. Occasionally either Matthew or Luke differs from Mark; but they never both differ against him; always at least one of them follows Markorder.

Improvements On Mark

Since Matthew and Luke are both much longer than Mark, it might just possibly be suggested that Mark is a summary of Matthew and Luke; but there is one other set of facts which show that Mark is earlier. It is the custom of Matthew and Luke to improve and to polish Mark, if we may put it so. Let us take some instances.

Sometimes Mark seems to limit the power of Jesus; at least an ill-disposed critic might try to prove that he was doing so. Here are three accounts of the same incident:

Mar_1:34: And he healed many who were sick with various

diseases, and cast out many demons;

Mat_8:16: And he cast out the spirits with a word, and

healed all who were sick;

Luk_4:40: And he laid his hands on every one of them, and

healed them.

Let us take other three similar examples:

Mar_3:10: For he had healed many;

Mat_12:15: And he healed them all;

Luk_6:19: and healed them all.

Matthew and Luke both change Markmany into all so that there may be no suggestion of any limitation of the power of Jesus Christ.

There is a very similar change in the account of the events of Jesusisit to Nazareth. Let us compare the account of Mark and of Matthew.

Mk 6:5-6: And he could do no mighty work there... and

he marvelled because of their unbelief;

Mat_13:58: And he did not do many mighty works there,

because of their unbelief.

Matthew shrinks from saying that Jesus could not do any mighty works; and changes the form of the expression accordingly.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke leave out little touches in Mark in case they could be taken to belittle Jesus. Matthew and Luke omit three statements in Mark.

Mar_3:5: "He looked around at them with anger, grieved

at their hardness of heart."

Mar_3:21: And when his friends heard it, they went out to

seize him: for they said, He is beside himself;

Mar_10:14: He was indignant.

Matthew and Luke hesitate to attribute human emotions of anger and grief to Jesus, and shudder to think that anyone should even have suggested that Jesus was mad.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke slightly alter things in Mark to get rid of statements which might seem to show the apostles in a bad light. We take but one instance, from the occasion on which James and John sought to ensure themselves of the highest places in the coming Kingdom. Let us compare the introduction to that story in Mark and in Matthew.

Mar_10:35: James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came

forward to him, and said to him...

Mat_20:20: Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came

up to him, with her sons, and kneeling before him,

she asked him for something.

Matthew hesitates to ascribe motives of ambition directly to the two apostles, and so he ascribes them to their mother.

All this makes it clear that Mark is the earliest of the gospels. Mark gives a simple, vivid, direct narrative; but Matthew and Luke have already begun to be affected by doctrinal and theological considerations which make them much more careful of what they say.

The Teaching Of Jesus

We have seen that Matthew has 1,068 verses; and that Luke has 1,149 verses; and that between them they reproduce 582 of Markverses. That means that in Matthew and Luke there is much more material than Mark supplies. When we examine that material we find that more than 200 verses of it are almost identical. For instance such passages as Luk_6:41-42 and Mat_7:1, Mat_7:5; Luk_10:21-22 and Mat_11:25-27; Luk_3:7-9 and Mat_3:7-10 are almost exactly the same.

But here we notice a difference. The material which Matthew and Luke drew from Mark was almost entirely material dealing with the events of Jesusife; but these 200 additional verses common to Matthew and Luke tell us, not what Jesus did, but what Jesus said. Clearly in these verses Matthew and Luke are drawing from a common source-book of the sayings of Jesus.

That book does not now exist; but to it scholars have given the letter Q which stands for Quelle, which is the German word for "source." In its day it must have been an extraordinarily important book, for it was the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus.

MatthewPlace In The Gospel Tradition

It is here that we come to Matthew the apostle. Scholars are agreed that the first gospel as it stands does not come directly from the hand of Matthew. One who had himself been an eye-witness of the life of Christ would not have needed to use Mark as a source-book for the life of Jesus in the way Matthew does. But one of the earliest Church historians, a man called Papias, gives us this intensely important piece of information:

"Matthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue."

So, then, we can believe that it was none other than Matthew who wrote that book which was the source from which all men must draw, if they wished to know what Jesus taught. And it was because so much of that source-book is incorporated in the first gospel that Matthewname was attached to it. We must be for ever grateful to Matthew, when we remember that it is to him that we owe the Sermon on the Mount and nearly all we know about the teaching of Jesus. Broadly speaking, to Mark we owe our knowledge of the events of Jesusife; to Matthew we owe our knowledge of the substance of Jesuseaching.

Matthew The Taxgatherer

About Matthew himself we know very little. We read of his call in Mat_9:9. We know that he was a taxgatherer and that he must therefore have been a bitterly hated man, for the Jews hated the members of their own race who had entered the civil service of their conquerors. Matthew would be regarded as nothing better than a quisling.

But there was one gift which Matthew would possess. Most of the disciples were fishermen. They would have little skill and little practice in putting words together on paper; but Matthew would be an expert in that. When Jesus called Matthew, as he sat at the receipt of custom, Matthew rose up and followed him and left everything behind him except one thing--his pen. And Matthew nobly used his literary skill to become the first man ever to compile an account of the teaching of Jesus.

The Gospel Of The Jews

Let us now look at the chief characteristics of Matthewgospel so that we may watch for them as we read it.

First and foremost, Matthew is the gospel which was written for the Jews. It was written by a Jew in order to convince Jews.

One of the great objects of Matthew is to demonstrate that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus, and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. It has one phrase which runs through it like an ever-recurring theme--"This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet." That phrase occurs in the gospel as often as 16 times. Jesusirth and Jesusame are the fulfillment of prophecy (Mat_1:21-23); so are the flight to Egypt (Mat_2:14-15); the slaughter of the children (Mat_2:16-18); Josephsettlement in Nazareth and Jesuspbringing there (Mat_2:23); Jesusse of parables (Mat_13:34-35); the triumphal entry (Mat_21:3-5); the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Mat_27:9); the casting of lots for Jesusarments as he hung on the Cross (Mat_27:35). It is Matthewprimary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfillment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesusife was foreshadowed in the prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah.

The main interest of Matthew is in the Jews. Their conversion is especially near and dear to the heart of its writer. When the Syro-Phoenician woman seeks his help, Jesusirst answer is: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_15:24). When Jesus sends out the Twelve on the task of evangelization, his instruction is: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mat_10:5-6). Yet it is not to be thought that this gospel by any means excludes the Gentiles. Many are to come from the east and the west to sit down in the kingdom of God (Mat_8:11). The gospel is to be preached to the whole world (Mat_24:14). And it is Matthew which gives us the marching orders of the Church: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Mat_28:19). It is clear that Matthewfirst interest is in the Jews, but that it foresees the day when an nations will be gathered in.

The Jewishness of Matthew is also seen in its attitude to the Law. Jesus did not come to destroy, but to fulfil the Law. The least part of the Law will not pass away. Men must not be taught to break the Law. The righteousness of the Christian must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_5:17-20). Matthew was written by one who knew and loved the Law, and who saw that even the Law has its place in the Christian economy.

Once again there is an apparent paradox in the attitude of Matthew to the Scribes and Pharisees. They are given a very special authority: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moseseat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you" (Mat_23:2). But at the same time there is no gospel which so sternly and consistently condemns them.

Right at the beginning there is John the Baptistsavage denunciation of them as a brood of vipers (Mat_3:7-12). They complain that Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mat_9:11). They ascribe the power of Jesus, not to God, but to the prince of devils (Mat_12:24). They plot to destroy him (Mat_12:14). The disciples are warned against the leaven, the evil teaching, of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_16:12). They are like evil plants doomed to be rooted up (Mat_15:13). They are quite unable to read the signs of the times (Mat_16:3). They are the murderers of the prophets (Mat_21:41). There is no chapter of condemnation in the whole New Testament like Matt 23 , which is condemnation not of what the Scribes and the Pharisees teach, but of what they are. He condemns them for falling so far short of their own teaching, and far below the ideal of what they ought to be.

There are certain other special interests in Matthew. Matthew is especially interested in the Church. It is in fact the only one of the Synoptic Gospels which uses the word Church at all. Only Matthew introduces the passage about the Church after Peterconfession at Caesarea Philippi (Mat_16:13-23; compare Mar_8:27-33; Luk_9:18-22). Only Matthew says that disputes are to be settled by the Church (Mat_18:17). By the time Matthew came to be written the Church had become a great organization and institution; and indeed the dominant factor in the life of the Christian.

Matthew has a specially strong apocalyptic interest. That is to say, Matthew has a specially strong interest in all that Jesus said about his own Second Coming, about the end of the world, and about the judgment. Matt 24 gives us a fuller account of Jesus pocalyptic discourse than any of the other gospels. Matthew alone has the parables of the talents (Mat_25:14-30); the wise and the foolish virgins (Mat_25:1-13); and the sheep and the goats (Mat_25:31-46). Matthew has a special interest in the last things and in judgment.

But we have not yet come to the greatest of all the characteristics of Matthew. It is supremely the teaching gospel.

We have already seen that the apostle Matthew was responsible for the first collection and the first handbook of the teaching of Jesus. Matthew was the great systematizer. It was his habit to gather together in one place all that he knew about the teaching of Jesus on any given subject. The result is that in Matthew we find five great blocks in which the teaching of Jesus is collected and systematized. All these sections have to do with the Kingdom of God. They are as follows:

(a) The Sermon on the Mount, or The Law of the Kingdom (Matt 5-7).

(b) The Duties of the Leaders of the Kingdom (Matt 10 )

(c) The Parables of the Kingdom (Matt 13 ).

(d) Greatness and Forgiveness in the Kingdom (Matt 18 ).

(e) The Coming of the King (Matt 24-25).

Matthew does more than collect and systematize. It must be remembered that Matthew was writing in an age when printing had not been invented, when books were few and far between because they had to be hand-written. In an age like that, comparatively few people could possess a book; and, therefore, if they wished to know and to use the teaching and the story of Jesus, they had to carry them in their memories.

Matthew therefore always arranges things in a way that is easy for the reader to memorize. He arranges things in threes and sevens. There are three messages to Joseph; three denials of Peter; three questions of Pilate; seven parables of the Kingdom in Matt 13; seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matt 23.

The genealogy of Jesus with which the gospel begins is a good example of this. The genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David. In Hebrew there are no figures; when figures are necessary the letters of the alphabet stand for the figures. In Hebrew there are no written vowels. The Hebrew letters for David are D-W-D; if these letters be taken as figures and not as letters, they add up to 14; and the genealogy consists of three groups of names, and in each group there are 14 names. Matthew does everything possible to arrange the teaching of Jesus in such a way that people will be able to assimilate and to remember it.

Every teacher owes a debt of gratitude to Matthew, for Matthew wrote what is above all the teachergospel.

Matthew has one final characteristic. Matthewdominating idea is that of Jesus as King. He writes to demonstrate the royalty of Jesus.

Right at the beginning the genealogy is to prove that Jesus is the Son of David (Mat_1:1-17). The title, Son of David, is used oftener in Matthew than in any other gospel (Mat_15:22; Mat_21:9; Mat_21:15). The wise men come looking for him who is King of the Jews (Mat_2:2). The triumphal entry is a deliberately dramatized claim to be King (Mat_21:1-11). Before Pilate, Jesus deliberately accepts the name of King (Mat_27:11). Even on the Cross the title of King is affixed, even if it be in mockery, over his head (Mat_27:37). In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew shows us Jesus quoting the Law and five times abrogating it with a regal: "But I say to you..." (Mat_5:21, Mat_5:27, Mat_5:34, Mat_5:38, Mat_5:43). The final claim of Jesus is: "All authority has been given to me" (Mat_28:18).

Matthewpicture of Jesus is of the man born to be King. Jesus walks through his pages as if in the purple and gold of royalty.

FURTHER READING

W. C. Allen, St. Matthew (ICC; G)

J. C. Fenton, The Gospel of St. Matthew (PC; E)

F. V. Filson, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (ACB; E)

A. H. McNeile, St Matthew (MmC; G)

A. Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (E)

T. H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew (MC; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (TC; E)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

PC: Pelican New Testament Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Matthew 13 (Chapter Introduction)

Many Things In Parables (Mat_13:1-58)

Matthew 13 is a very important chapter in the pattern of the gospel.

(i) It shows a definite turning-point in the ministry of Jesus. At the beginning of his ministry we find him teaching in the synagogues; but now we find him teaching on the seashore. The change is very significant. It was not that the door of the synagogue was as yet finally shut to him, but it was closing. Even yet in the synagogue he would find a welcome from the common people; but the official leaders of Jewish orthodoxy were now in open opposition to him. When he entered a synagogue now, it would not be to find only an eager crowd of listeners; it would be also to find a bleak-eyed company of Scribes and Pharisees and elders weighing and sifting every word to find a charge against him, and watching every action to turn it into an accusation.

It is one of the supreme tragedies that Jesus was banished from the Church of his day; but that could not stop him from bringing his invitation to men; for when the doors of the synagogue were closed against him, he took to the temple of the open air, and taught men in the village streets, and on the roads, and by the lake-side, and in their own homes. The man who has a real message to deliver, and a real desire to deliver it, will always find a way of giving it to men.

(ii) The great interest of this chapter is that here we see Jesus beginning to use to the full his characteristic method of teaching in parables. Even before this he had used a way of teaching which had the germ of the parable in it. The simile of the salt and the light (Mat_5:13-16), the picture of the birds and the lilies (Mat_6:26-30), the story of the wise and the foolish builder (Mat_7:24-27), the illustration of the garments and the wine-skins (Mat_9:16-17), the picture of the children playing in the market-place (Mat_11:16-17) are all embryo parables. They are truth in pictures.

But it is in this chapter that we find Jesus' way of using parables fully developed and at its most vivid. As someone has said, "Whatever else is true of Jesus, it is certainly true that he was one of the world's supreme masters of the short story." Before we begin to study these parables in detail, let us ask why Jesus used this method and what are the great teaching advantages which it offers.

(a) The parable always makes truth concrete. There are very few people who can grasp and understand abstract ideas; most people think in pictures. We could for long enough try to put into words what beauty is, and at the end of it no one would be very much the wiser; but if we can point at someone and say, "That is a beautiful person," no more description is needed. We might try for long enough to define goodness and in the end leave no clear idea of goodness in people's minds; but everyone recognizes a good person and good deed when he sees them. In order to be understood, every great word must become flesh, every great idea must take form and shape in a person; and the first great quality of a parable is that it makes truth into a picture which all men can see and understand.

(b) It has been said that all great teaching begins from the here and now in order to get to the there and then. If a man wishes to teach people about things which they do not understand, he must begin from things which they do understand. The parable begins with material which every man understands because it is within his own experience, and from that it leads him on to things which he does not understand, and opens his eyes to things which he has faded to see. The parable opens a man's mind and eyes by beginning from where he is and leading him on to where he ought to be.

(c) The great teaching virtue of the parable is that it compels interest. The surest way to interest people is to tell them stories. The parable puts truth in the form of a story; the simplest definition of a parable is in fact that it is "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." People will not listen, and their attention cannot be retained, unless they are interested; with simple people it is stories which awaken and maintain interest, and the parable is a story.

(d) The parable has the great virtue that it enables and compels a man to discover truth for himself It does not do a man's thinking for him; it says, "Here is a story. What is the truth in it? What does it mean for you? Think it out for yourself".

There are some things which a man cannot be told; he must discover them for himself. Walter Pater once said that you cannot tell a man the truth; you can only put him into a position in which he can discover it for himself. Unless we discover truth for ourselves, it remains a second-hand and external thing; and further, unless we discover truth for ourselves, we will almost certainly forget it quickly. The parable, by compelling a man to draw his own conclusions and to do his own thinking, at one and the same time makes truth real to him and fixes it in his memory.

(e) The other side of that is that the parable conceals truth from those who are either too lazy to think or too blinded by prejudice to see. It puts the responsibility fairly and squarely on the individual. It reveals truth to him who desires truth; it conceals truth from him who does not wish to see the truth.

(f) One final thing must be remembered. The parable, as Jesus used it, was spoken; it was not read. Its impact had to be immediate, not the result of long study with commentaries and dictionaries. It made truth flash upon a man as the lightning suddenly illuminates a pitch-dark night. In our study of the parables that means two things for us.

First, it means that we must amass every possible detail about the background of life in Palestine, so that the parable will strike us as it did those who heard it for the first time. We must think and study and imagine ourselves back into the minds of those who were listening to Jesus.

Second, it means that generally speaking a parable will have only one point. A parable is not an allegory; an allegory is a story in which every possible detail has an inner meaning; but an allegory has to be read and studied; a parable is heard. We must be very careful not to make allegories of the parables and to remember that they were designed to make one stabbing truth flash out at a man the moment he heard it.

The Sower Went Out To Sow (Mat_13:1-9; Mat_13:18-23)

The Word And The Hearer (Mat_13:1-9; Mat_13:18-23 Continued)

No Despair (Mat_13:1-9; Mat_13:18-23 Continued)

The Truth And The Listener (Mat_13:10-17; Mat_13:34; Mat_13:35)

Life's Stern Law (Mat_13:10-17; Mat_13:34; Mat_13:35 Continued)

Man's Blindness And God's Purpose (Mat_13:10-17; Mat_13:34; Mat_13:35 Continued)

The Act Of An Enemy (Mat_13:24-30; Mat_13:36-43)

The Small Beginning (Mat_13:31-32)

The Transforming Power Of Christ (Mat_13:33)

The Working Of The Leaven (Mat_13:33 Continued)

All In The Day's Work (Mat_13:44)

The Precious Pearl (Mat_13:45-46)

The Catch And The Separation (Mat_13:47-50)

Old Gifts Used In A New Way (Mat_13:51-52)

The Barrier Of Unbelief (Mat_13:53-58)

Constable: Matthew (Book Introduction)

Introduction

The Synoptic Problem

The synoptic problem is intrinsic to all study of the Gospels, especially the first three. The word "synoptic" comes from two Greek words, syn and opsesthai, meaning "to see together." Essentially the synoptic problem involves all the difficulties that arise because of the similarities and differences between the Gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have received the title "Synoptic Gospels" because they present the life and ministry of Jesus Christ similarly. The content and purpose of John's Gospel are sufficiently distinct to put it in a class by itself. It is not one of the so-called Synoptic Gospels.

Part of the synoptic problem is the sources the Holy Spirit led the evangelists to use in producing their Gospels. There is internal evidence (within the individual Gospels themselves) that the writers used source materials as they wrote. The most obvious example of this is the Old Testament passages to which each one referred directly or indirectly. Since Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus Christ many of their statements represent eyewitness accounts of what happened. Likewise Mark had close connections with Peter, and Luke was an intimate associate of Paul as well as a careful historian (Luke 1:1-4). Information that the writers obtained verbally (oral tradition) and in writing (documents) undoubtedly played a part in what they wrote. Perhaps the evangelists also received special revelations from the Lord before and or when they wrote their Gospels.

Some scholars have devoted much time and attention to the study of the other sources the evangelists may have used. They are the "source critics" and their work constitutes "source criticism." Because source criticism and its development are so crucial to Gospel studies, a brief introduction to this subject follows.

In 1776 and 1779 two posthumously published essays by A. E. Lessing became known in which he argued for a single written source for the Synoptic Gospels. He called this source the Gospel of the Nazarenes, and he believed its writer had composed it in the Aramaic language. To him one original source best explained the parallels and differences between the Synoptics. This idea of an original source or primal Gospel caught the interest of many other scholars. Some of them believed there was a written source, but others held it was an oral source.

As one might expect, the idea of two or more sources occurred to some scholars as the best solution to the synoptic problem.¹ Some favored the view that Mark was one of the primal sources because over 90% of the material in Mark also appears in Matthew and or Luke. Some posited another primary source "Q," an abbreviation of the German word for source, quelle. It supposedly contained the material in Matthew and Luke that does not appear in Mark.

Gradually source criticism gave way to form criticism. The form critics concentrated on the process involved in transmitting what Jesus said and did to the primary sources. They assumed that the process of transmitting this information followed patterns of oral communication that are typical in primitive societies.² Typically oral communication has certain characteristic effects on stories. It tends to shorten narratives, to retain names, to balance teaching, and to elaborate on stories about miracles, to name a few results. The critics also adopted other criteria from secular philology to assess the accuracy of statements in the Gospels. For example, they viewed as distinctive to Jesus only what was dissimilar to what Palestinian Jews or early Christians might have said. Given the critics' view of inspiration it is easy to see how most of them concluded that the Gospels in their present form do not accurately represent what Jesus said and did. However some conservative scholars used the same literary method but held a much higher view of the Gospels.³

The next wave of critical opinion, redaction criticism, hit the Christian world shortly after World War II.⁴ Redaction critics generally accept the tenets of source and form criticism. However they also believe that the Gospel evangelists altered the traditions they received to make their own theological emphases. They viewed the writers not simply as compilers of the church's oral traditions but as theologians who adapted the material for their own purposes. They viewed the present Gospels as containing both traditional material and edited material. Obviously there is a good aspect and a bad aspect to this view. Positively it recognizes the individual evangelist's distinctive purpose for writing. Negatively it permits an interpretation of the Gospel that allows for historical error and even deliberate distortion. Redaction scholars have been more or less liberal depending on their view of Scripture generally. Redaction critics also characteristically show more interest in the early Christian community out of which the Gospels came and the beliefs of that community than they do in Jesus' historical context. Their interpretations of the early Christian community vary greatly as one would expect. In recent years the trend in critical scholarship has been conservative, to recognize more rather than less Gospel material as having a historical basis.

Some knowledge of the history of Gospel criticism is helpful to the serious student who wants to understand the text. Questions of the historical background out of which the evangelists wrote, their individual purposes, and what they simply recorded and what they commented on all affect interpretation. Consequently the conservative expositor can profit somewhat from the studies of scholars who concern themselves with these questions primarily.⁵

Most critics have concluded that one source the writers used was one or more of the other Gospels. Currently most source critics believe that Matthew and Luke drew information from Mark's Gospel. Mark's accounts are generally longer than those of Matthew and Luke suggesting that Matthew and Luke condensed Mark. To them it seems more probable that they condensed him than that he elaborated on them. There is no direct evidence, however, that one evangelist used another as a source. Since they were either personally disciples of Christ or very close to eyewitnesses of His activities, they may not have needed to consult an earlier Gospel.

Most source critics also believe that the unique material in each Gospel goes back to Q. This may initially appear to be a document constructed out of thin air. However the early church father Papias (80-155 A.D.) may have referred to the existence of such a source. Eusebius, the fourth century church historian, wrote that Papias had written, "Matthew composed the logia [sayings? Gospel?] in the hebraidi [Hebrew? Aramaic?] dialekto [dialect? language? style?]."⁶ This is an important statement for several reasons, but here note that Papias referred to Matthew's logia. This may be a reference to Matthew's Gospel, but many source critics believe it refers to a primal document that became a source for one or more of our Gospels. Most of them do not believe Matthew wrote Q. They see in Papias' statement support for the idea that primal documents such as Matthew's logia were available as sources, and they conclude that Q was the most important one.

Another major aspect of the synoptic problem is the order in which the Gospels appeared as finished products. This issue has obvious connections with the question of the sources the Gospel writers may have used.

Until after the Reformation, almost all Christians believed that Matthew wrote his Gospel before Mark and Luke wrote theirs; they held Matthean priority. From studying the similarities and differences between the Synoptics, some source critics concluded that Matthew and Luke came into existence before Mark. They viewed Mark as a condensation of the other two.⁷ However the majority of source critics today believe that Mark was the first Gospel and that Matthew and Luke wrote later. As explained above, they hold this view because they believe it is more probable that Matthew and Luke drew from and condensed Mark than that Mark expanded on Matthew and Luke.

Since source criticism is highly speculative many conservative expositors today continue to lean toward Matthean priority. We do so because there is no solid evidence to contradict this traditional view that Christians held almost consistently for the church's first 17 centuries.

While the game of deducing which Gospel came first and who drew from whom appeals to many students, these issues are essentially academic ones. They have little to do with the meaning of the text. Consequently I do not plan to discuss them further but will refer interested student to the vast body of literature that is available. I will, however, deal with problems involving the harmonization of the Gospel accounts at the appropriate places in the exposition that follows. The Bible expositor's basic concern is not the nature and history of the stories in the text but their primary significance in their contexts.

". . . it is this writer's opinion that there is no evidence to postulate a tradition of literary dependence among the Gospels. The dependence is rather a parallel dependence on the actual events which occurred."⁸

A much more helpful critical approach to the study of the Bible is literary criticism, the current wave of interest. This approach analyses the text in terms of its literary structure, emphases, and unique features. It seeks to understand the text as a piece of literature by examining how the writer wrote it.

Writer

External evidence strongly supports the Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. The earliest copies of the Gospel we have begin "KATA MATTHAION" ("according to Matthew"). Several early church fathers referred to Matthew as the writer including Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen.⁹ Papias' use of the term logia to describe Matthew's work, cited above, is not a clear attestation to Matthean authorship of the first Gospel. Since Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and one of the 12 Apostles, his work carried great influence and enjoyed much prestige from its first appearance. We might expect a more prominent disciple such as Peter or James to have written it. The fact that the early church accepted it as from Matthew further strengthens the likelihood that he indeed wrote it.

Internal evidence of Matthean authorship is also strong. As a tax collector for Rome, Matthew would have had to be able to write capably. His profession forced him to keep accurate and detailed records which skill he put to good use in composing his Gospel. There are more references to money and to more different kinds of money in this Gospel than in any of the others.¹⁰ Matthew humbly referred to himself as a tax collector, a profession with objectionable connotations in his culture, whereas the other Gospel writers simply called him Matthew. Matthew called his feast for Jesus a dinner (Matt. 9:9-10), but Luke referred to it as a great banquet (Luke 5:29). All these details confirm the testimony of the early church fathers.

Language

Papias' statement, cited above, refers to a writing by Matthew in the hebraidi dialekto (the Hebrew or possibly Aramaic language or dialect). This may not be a reference to Matthew's Gospel. Four other church fathers mentioned that Matthew wrote in Aramaic and that translations followed in Greek: Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.), Origen (185-254 A.D.), Eusebius (4th century), and Jerome (6th century).¹¹ However they may have been referring to something other than our first Gospel. These references have led many scholars to conclude that Matthew composed his Gospel in Aramaic and that someone else, or he himself, later translated it into Greek. This is the normal meaning of the fathers' statements. If Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, it is difficult to explain why he sometimes, but not always, quoted from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. The Hebrew Old Testament would have been the normal text for a Hebrew or Aramaic author to use. A Greek translator might have used the LXX (Septuagint) to save himself some work, but if he did so why did he not use it consistently? Matthew's Greek Gospel contains many Aramaic words. This solution also raises some questions concerning the reliability and inerrancy of the Greek Gospel that has come down to us.

There are several possible solutions to the problem of the language of Matthew's Gospel.¹² The best seems to be that Matthew wrote a Hebrew document that God did not inspire that is no longer extant. He also composed an inspired Greek Gospel that has come down to us in the New Testament. Many competent scholars believe that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Greek. They do so mainly because of his Greek.¹³

Date and Place of Composition

Dating Matthew's Gospel is difficult for many reasons even if one believes in Matthean priority. The first extra-biblical reference to it occurs in the writings of Ignatius (c. 110-115 A.D.).¹⁴ However Matthew's references to Jerusalem and the Sadducees point to a date of compositions before 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. His references to Jerusalem assume its existence (e.g., 4:5; 27:53). Matthew recorded more warnings about the Sadducees than all the other New Testament writers combined, but after 70 A.D. they no longer existed as a significant authority in Israel.¹⁵ Consequently Matthew probably wrote before 70 A.D.

References in the text to the customs of the Jews continuing "to this day" (27:8; 28:15) imply that some time had elapsed between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the composition of the Gospel. Since Jesus died in 33 A.D. Matthew may have composed his Gospel perhaps a decade or more later. A date between 40 and 70 A.D. is very probable.¹⁶

Since Matthew lived and worked in Palestine we would assume that he wrote while living there. There is no evidence that excludes this possibility. Nevertheless scholars love to speculate. Other sites they have suggested include Antioch of Syria (because Ignatius was bishop of Antioch), Alexandria, Edessa, Syria, Tyre, and Caesarea Maratima. These are all guesses.

Distinctive Features

Compared with the other Gospels Matthew's is distinctively Jewish. He used parallelism as did many to the Old Testament writers, and his thought patterns and general style are typically Hebrew.¹⁷ Matthew's vocabulary (e.g., kingdom of heaven, holy city, righteousness, etc.) and subject matter (the Law, defilement, the sabbath, Messiah, etc.) are also distinctively Jewish. Matthew referred to the Old Testament 129 times, more than any other evangelist.¹⁸ Usually he did so to prove a point to his readers. The genealogy in chapter 1 traces Jesus' ancestry back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. Matthew gave prominent attention to Peter, the apostle to the Jews.¹⁹ The writer also referred to many Jewish customs without explaining them evidently because he believed most of his original readers would not need an explanation.

Another distinctive emphasis in Matthew is Jesus' teaching ministry. No other Gospel contains as many of Jesus' discourses and instructions. These include the Sermon on the Mount, the instruction of the disciples, the parables of the kingdom, the denunciation of Israel's leaders, and the Olivet Discourse.²⁰

Audience and Purposes

Several church fathers (i.e., Irenaeus, Origen, and Eusebius) stated what we might suppose from the distinctively Jewish emphases of this book, namely that Matthew wrote his Gospel primarily for his fellow Jews.²¹

He wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for a specific purpose or, more accurately, specific purposes. He did not state these purposes concisely as John did in his Gospel (John 20:30-31). Nevertheless they are clear from his content and his emphases.

"Matthew has a twofold purpose in writing his Gospel. Primarily he penned this Gospel to prove Jesus is the Messiah, but he also wrote it to explain God's kingdom program to his readers. One goal directly involves the other. Nevertheless, they are distinct."²²

"Matthew's purpose obviously was to demonstrate that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, that He fulfilled the requirements of being the promised King who would be a descendant of David, and that His life and ministry fully support the conclusion that He is the prophesied Messiah of Israel. . . .

"As a whole, the gospel is not properly designated as only an apologetic for the Christian faith. Rather, it was designed to explain to the Jews, who had expected the Messiah when He came to be a conquering king, why instead Christ suffered and died, and why there was the resulting postponement of His triumph to His second coming."²³

Matthew presented three aspects to God's kingdom program. First, Jesus presented Himself to the Jews as the king that God had promised in the Old Testament. Second, Israel's leaders rejected Jesus as their king. This resulted in the postponement, not the cancellation, of the messianic kingdom that God had promised Israel. Third, because of Israel's rejection Jesus is now building His church in anticipation of His return to establish the promised messianic kingdom on the earth.

There are at least three wider purposes that Matthew undoubtedly hoped to fulfill with his Gospel. First, he wanted to instruct Christians and non-Christians concerning the person and work of Jesus.²⁴ Second, he wanted to provide an apologetic to aid his Jewish brethren in witnessing to other Jews about Christ. Third, he wanted to encourage all Christians to witness for Christ boldly and faithfully. It is interesting that Matthew is the only Gospel writer to use the Greek verb matheteuo, "to disciple" (13:52; 27:57; 28:19; cf. Acts 14:21 for its only other occurrence in the New Testament). This fact shows his concern for making disciples of Christ.²⁵

Carson identified nine major themes in Matthew. They are Christology, prophecy and fulfillment, law, church, eschatology, Jewish leaders, mission, miracles, and the disciples' understanding and faith.²⁶

Plan and Structure

Matthew often grouped his material into sections so that three, five, six, or seven events, miracles, sayings, or parables appear together.²⁷ Jewish writers typically did this to help their readers remember what they had written. The presence of this technique reveals Matthew's didactic (instructional) intent. Furthermore it indicates that his arrangement of material was somewhat topical rather than strictly chronological. Generally chapters 1-4 are in chronological order, chapters 5-13 are topical, and chapters 14-28 are again chronological.²⁸

Not only Matthew but the other Gospel writers as well present the life of Jesus Christ in three major stages. These stages are His presentation to the people, their consideration of His claims, and their rejection and its consequences.

A key phrase in Matthew's Gospel enables us to note the major movements in the writer's thought. It is the phrase "and it came about that when Jesus had finished" (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). This phrase always occurs at the end of one of Jesus' addresses. An address therefore concludes each major section of the Gospel, and it is climactic. Matthew evidently used the narrative sections to introduce Jesus' discourses, which he regarded as specially important in his book. Mark, on the other hand, gave more detailed information concerning the narrative material in his Gospel. In addition to each major section, there is a prologue and an epilogue to the Gospel according to Matthew.

Message²⁹

The four Gospels are foundational to Christianity because they record the life of Jesus Christ and His teachings. Each of the four Gospels fulfills a unique purpose. They are not simply four versions of the life of Jesus. If one wants to study the life of Jesus Christ, the best way to do that is with a harmony of the Gospels that correlates all the data chronologically. However if one wants to study only one of the Gospel accounts, then one needs to pay attention to the uniqueness of that Gospel. The unique material, what the writer included and excluded, reveals the purpose for which he wrote and the points he wanted to stress.

What is the unique message of Matthew's Gospel? How does it differ from the other three Gospels? What specific emphasis was Matthew wanting his readers to gain as they read his record of Jesus' life and ministry? I would put it this way.

Matthew wanted his readers to do what John the Baptist and Jesus called the people of their day to do, namely "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This was the message of the King to His people and the message of the King's herald as he called the King's people to prepare for the King's coming.

This is not the final message of Christianity, but it is the message that Matthew wanted us to understand. When John the Baptist and Jesus originally issued this call, they faced a situation that is different from the situation we face today. They called the people of their day to trust in and follow Jesus because the messianic kingdom was immediately at hand. If the Jews had responded, Jesus would have established His kingdom immediately. He would have died on the cross, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, ushered in the Tribulation, returned, and established His kingdom.

The messianic kingdom is at hand for you and me in a different sense. Jesus Christ has died and risen from the dead. The Tribulation is still future, but following those seven years Jesus will return and establish His messianic kingdom on earth. The commission that Jesus has given us as His disciples is essentially to prepare people for the King's return. To do this we must go into all the world and herald the gospel to everyone. We must call them to trust in and follow the King as His disciples.

Essentially the message of Matthew is "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The proper response to this message is, "Repent." Let us look first at the message and then at the proper response. Note three things about the message.

First, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" is the statement of a fact. The subject of this statement is the kingdom. The kingdom is the theme of Matthew's Gospel. The word "kingdom" occurs about 50 times in Matthew. Since "kingdom" is such a prominent theme it is not surprising to discover that this Gospel presents Jesus as the great King.

Matthew presents the kingship of Jesus. Kingship involves the fact that Jesus is the great King that the Old Testament prophets predicted would come and rule over all the earth in Israel's golden age. It points to the universal sovereignty of God's Son who would rule over all mankind. He was to be a Son of David who would also rule over Israel. The second smaller sphere of sovereignty lies within the first larger sphere.

The word "kingdom" refers to the realm over which the King reigns. This is usually what we think of when we think of Jesus' messianic kingdom, the sphere over which He will rule. However, it is important that we not stress the sphere to the detriment of the sovereignty with which He will rule. Both ideas are essential to the concept of the kingdom that Matthew presents, sphere and sovereignty.

The little used phrase in Matthew's Gospel "kingdom of God" stresses the fact that it is God who rules. The King is God, and He will reign over all of His creation eventually. The kingdom belongs to God and it will extend over all that God sovereignly controls.

Matthew of all the Gospel evangelists was the only one to use the phrase "kingdom of heaven." John the Baptist nor Jesus ever explained this phrase. Their audiences knew what they meant by it. Ever since God gave His great promises to Abraham the Jews knew what the kingdom of heaven meant. It meant God's rule over His people who lived on the earth. As time passed, God gave the Israelites more information about His rule over them. He told them that He would provide a descendant of David who would be their King. This king would rule over the Israelites who would live in the Promised Land. His rule would include the whole earth, however, and the Gentiles too would live under His authority. The kingdom of heaven that the Old Testament predicted was an earthly kingdom over which God would rule through His Son. It would not just be God's rule over His people from heaven. When the Jews in Jesus' day heard John the Baptist and Jesus calling them to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand, what did they think? They understood that the earthly messianic kingdom predicted in the Old Testament was very near. They needed to get ready for it by making some changes.

The simple meaning of "kingdom of heaven" then is God's establishment of heaven's order on earth. Every created being and every human authority would be in subjection to God. God would overturn everyone and everything that did not recognize His authority. It is the establishment of divine order on earth. It is the supremacy of God's will over human affairs. The establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth then is the hope of humanity, and it will only transpire as people submit to God's King. It is impossible for people to bring in this kingdom. Only God can bring it in. People just need to get ready because it is coming.

Second, Matthew's Gospel interprets the kingdom. It does not just affirm the coming of the kingdom, but it also explains the order of the kingdom. Specifically it reveals the principle of the kingdom, the practice of the kingdom, and the purpose of the kingdom.

The principle of the kingdom is righteousness. This is one of the major themes in Matthew. Righteousness in Matthew refers to righteous conduct, righteousness in practice rather than positional righteousness. Righteousness is necessary to enter the kingdom and to serve in the kingdom under the King. The words of the King in Matthew constitute the law of the kingdom. They proclaim the principle of righteousness.

The practice of the kingdom is peace. Peace is another major theme in Matthew. When you think of the Sermon on the Mount you may think of these two major themes: righteousness and peace. The kingdom would come not by going to war with Rome and defeating it. It would come by peaceful submission to the King, Jesus. These two approaches to inaugurating the kingdom contrast starkly as we think of Jesus hanging on the cross between two insurrectionists. They tried to establish the kingdom the way most people in Israel thought it would come, by violence. Jesus, on the other hand, submitted to His Father's will, and even though He died He ratified the covenant by which the kingdom will come by dying. He secured the kingdom. Jesus' example of peaceful submission to God's will is to be the model for His disciples. Greatness in the kingdom does not come by self-assertion but by self-sacrifice. The greatest in the kingdom will be the servant of all. The works of the King in Matthew demonstrate the powers of the kingdom moving toward peace.

The purpose of the kingdom is joy. God will establish His kingdom on earth to bring great joy to mankind. This will be the time of greatest fruitfulness and abundance in earth's history. God's will has always been to bless mankind. It is by rebelling against God that man loses his joy. The essence of joy is intimate fellowship with God. This intimate fellowship will be a reality during the kingdom to a greater extent than ever before in history. The will of the King in Matthew is to bless mankind. The Beatitudes express this purpose very clearly (cf. 5:3-12).

Third, Matthew's Gospel stresses the method by which the King will administer the kingdom. It is a three-fold method.

In the first five books of the Old Testament, the Law or Torah, God revealed the need for a high priest to offer a final sacrifice for mankind to God. The last part of Matthew's Gospel, the passion narrative, presents Jesus as the Great High Priest who offered that perfect sacrifice.

In the second part of the Old Testament, the historical books, the great need and expectation is a king who will rule over Israel and the nations in righteousness. The first part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as that long expected King, Messiah.

In the last part of the Old Testament, the prophets, we see the great need for a prophet who could bring God's complete revelation to mankind. The middle part of Matthew's Gospel presents Jesus as the prophet who would surpass Moses and bring God's final revelation to mankind.

God will administer His kingdom on earth through this Person who as King has all authority, as Prophet reveals God's final word of truth, and as Priest has dealt with sin finally. God's administration of His kingdom is in the hands of a King who is the great High Priest and the completely faithful Prophet.

The central teaching of Matthew's Gospel then concerns the kingdom of heaven. The needed response to this Gospel is, "Repent."

In our day Christians differ in their understanding of the meaning of repentance. This difference arises because there are two Greek verbs each of which means, "to repent." One of these is metamelomai. When it occurs, it usually describes an active change. The other word is metanoeo. When it occurs, it usually describes a contemplative change. Consequently when we read "repent" or "repentance" in our English Bibles, we have to ask ourselves whether a change of behavior is in view primarily or a change of mind. Historically the Roman Catholic Church has favored an active interpretation of the nature of repentance whereas Protestants have favored a contemplative interpretation. Catholics say repentance involves a change of behavior while Protestants say it involves a change of thinking essentially. One interpretation stresses the need for a sense of sorrow, and the other stresses the need for a sense of awareness.

The word John the Baptist and Jesus used when they called their hearers to repentance was metanoeo. We could translate it, "Think again." They were calling their hearers to consider the implications of the imminency of the messianic kingdom.

Consideration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand would result in a conviction of sin and a sense of sorrow. These are the inevitable consequences of considering these things. Conviction of a need to change is the consequence of genuine repentance.

Consideration leads to conviction, and conviction leads to conversion. Conversion describes turning from rebellion to submission, from self to the Savior. In relation to the coming kingdom it involves becoming humble and childlike rather than proud and independent. It involves placing confidence in Jesus rather than in self for salvation.

To summarize, we can think of the kind of repenting that John the Baptist, Jesus, and later Jesus' disciples were calling on their hearers to demonstrate as involving consideration, conviction, and conversion. Repentance begins with consideration of the facts. Awareness of these facts brings conviction of personal need. Feeling these personal needs leads to conversion or a turning from what is bad to what is good.

Now let us combine "repent" with "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew's Gospel calls the reader to consider the kingdom and the King. This should produce the conviction that one is not ready for such a kingdom nor is one ready to face such a King. Then we should submit our lives to the rule of the King and the standards of the kingdom.

Matthew's Gospel proclaims the kingdom. It interprets the kingdom as righteousness, peace, and joy. It reveals that a perfect King who is a perfect prophet and a perfect priest will administer the kingdom. It finally appeals to mankind to repent in view of these realities: to consider, to feel conviction, and to turn in conversion. As readers of this Gospel, we need to get ready, to think again, because the kingdom of heaven is coming.

The church now has the task of calling the world to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The church is Jesus' disciples collectively. The King is coming back to rule and to reign. People need to prepare for that reality. The church's job is to spread the good news of the King and the kingdom to those who have very different ideas about the ultimate ruler and the real utopia. We face the same problem that Jesus did in His day. Therefore Matthew's Gospel is a great resource for us as we seek to carry out the commission that the King has given us.

Individually we have a responsibility to consider the King and the kingdom, to gain conviction by what we consider, and to change our behavior. Our repentance should involve submission to the King's authority and preparation for kingdom service. We submit to the King's authority as we observe all that He has commanded us. We prepare for kingdom service as we faithfully persevere in the work He has given us to do rather than pursuing our own personal agendas. We can do this joyfully because we have the promise of the King's presence with us and the enablement of His authority behind us (28:18, 20).

Constable: Matthew (Outline)

Outline

I. The introduction of the King 1:1-4:11

A. The King's genealogy 1:1-17

B. The King's birth 1:18-25

C. The King's childhood 2:1-23

1. The prophecy about Bethlehem 2:1-12

2. The prophecies about Egypt 2:13-18

3. The prophecies about Nazareth 2:19-23

D. The King's preparation 3:1-4:11

1. Jesus' forerunner 3:1-12

2. Jesus' baptism 3:13-17

3. Jesus' temptation 4:1-11

II. The authority of the King 4:12-7:29

A. The beginning of Jesus' ministry 4:12-25

1. The setting of Jesus' ministry 4:12-16

2. Jesus' essential message 4:17

3. The call of four disciples 4:18-22

4. A summary of Jesus' ministry 4:23-25

B. Jesus' revelations concerning participation in His kingdom 5:1-7:29

1. The setting of the Sermon on the Mount 5:1-2

2. The subjects of Jesus' kingdom 5:3-16

3. The importance of true righteousness 5:17-7:12

4. The false alternatives 7:13-27

5. The response of the audience 7:28-29

III. The manifestation of the King 8:1-11:1

A. Demonstrations of the King's power 8:1-9:34

1. Jesus' ability to heal 8:1-17

2. Jesus' authority over His disciples 8:18-22

3. Jesus' supernatural power 8:23-9:8

4. Jesus' authority over His critics 9:9-17

5. Jesus' ability to restore 9:18-34

B. Declarations of the King's presence 9:35-11:1

1. Jesus' compassion 9:35-38

2. Jesus' commissioning of 12 disciples 10:1-4

3. Jesus' charge concerning His apostles' mission 10:5-42

4. Jesus' continuation of His work 11:1

IV. The opposition to the King 11:2-13:53

A. Evidences of Israel's opposition to Jesus 11:2-30

1. Questions from the King's forerunner 11:2-19

2. Indifference to the King's message 11:20-24

3. The King's invitation to the repentant 11:25-30

B. Specific instances of Israel's rejection of Jesus ch. 12

1. Conflict over Sabbath observance 12:1-21

2. Conflict over Jesus' power 12:22-37

3. Conflict over Jesus' sign 12:38-45

4. Conflict over Jesus' kin 12:46-50

C. Adaptations because of Israel's rejection of Jesus 13:1-53

1. The setting 13:1-3a

2. Parables addressed to the multitudes 13:3b-33

3. The function of these parables 13:34-43

4. Parables addressed to the disciples 13:44-52

5. The departure 13:53

V. The reactions of the King 13:54-19:2

A. Opposition, instruction, and healing 13:54-16:12

1. The opposition of the Nazarenes and Romans 13:54-14:12

2. The withdrawal to Bethsaida 14:13-33

3. The public ministry at Gennesaret 14:34-36

4. The opposition of the Pharisees and scribes 15:1-20

5. The withdrawal to Tyre and Sidon 15:21-28

6. The public ministry to Gentiles 15:29-39

7. The opposition of the Pharisees and Sadducees 16:1-12

B. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Galilee 16:13-19:2

1. Instruction about the King's person 16:13-17

2. Instruction about the King's program 16:18-17:13

3. Instruction about the King's principles 17:14-27

4. Instruction about the King's personal representatives ch. 18

5. The transition from Galilee to Judea 19:1-2

VI. The official presentation and rejection of the King 19:3-25:46

A. Jesus' instruction of His disciples around Judea 19:3-20:34

1. Instruction about marriage 19:3-12

2. Instruction about childlikeness 19:13-15

3. Instruction about wealth 19:16-20:16

4. Instruction about Jesus' passion 20:17-19

5. Instruction about serving 20:20-28

6. An illustration of illumination 20:29-34

B. Jesus' presentation of Himself to Israel as her King 21:1-17

1. Jesus' preparation for the presentation 21:1-7

2. Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem 21:8-11

3. Jesus' entrance into the temple 21:12-17

C. Israel's rejection of her King 21:18-22:46

1. The sign of Jesus' rejection of Israel 21:18-22

2. Rejection by the chief priests and the elders 21:23-22:14

3. Rejection by the Pharisees and the Herodians 22:15-22

4. Rejection by the Sadducees 22:23-33

5. Rejection by the Pharisees 22:34-46

D. The King's rejection of Israel ch. 23

1. Jesus' admonition of the multitudes and His disciples 23:1-12

2. Jesus' indictment of the scribes and the Pharisees 23:13-36

3. Jesus' lamentation over Jerusalem 23:37-39

E. The King's revelations concerning the future chs. 24-25

1. The setting of the Olivet Discourse 24:1-3

2. Jesus' warning about deception 24:4-6

3. Jesus' general description of the future 24:7-14

4. The abomination of desolation 24:15-22

5. The second coming of the King 24:23-31

6. The responsibilities of disciples 24:32-25:30

7. The King's judgment of the nations 25:31-46

VII. The crucifixion and resurrection of the King chs. 26-28

A. The King's crucifixion chs. 26-27

1. Preparations for Jesus' crucifixion 26:1-46

2. The arrest of Jesus 26:47-56

3. The trials of Jesus 26:57-27:26

4. The crucifixion of Jesus 27:27-56

5. The burial of Jesus 27:57-66

B. The King's resurrection ch. 28

1. The empty tomb 28:1-7

2. Jesus' appearance to the women 28:8-10

3. The attempted cover-up 28:11-15

4. The King's final instructions to His disciples 28:16-20

Constable: Matthew

Matthew

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Matthew (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW

INTRODUCTION.

THIS and other titles, with the names of those that wrote the Gospels, are not the words of the Evangelists themselves. The Scripture itself nowhere teacheth us, which books or writings are to be received as true and canonical Scriptures. It is only by the channel of unwritten traditions , and by the testimony and authority of the Catholic Church, that we know and believe that this gospel, for example of St. Matthew, with all contained in it, and that the other books and parts of the Old or New Testament, are of divine authority, or written by divine inspiration; which made St. Augustine say, I should not believe the gospel, were I not moved thereunto by the authority of the Catholic Church: Ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me Ecclesiæ Catholicæ commoveret auctoritas. ( Lib. con. Epist. Manichæi, quam vocant fundamenti. tom. viii. chap. 5, p. 154. A. Ed. Ben.) (Witham)

S. MATTHEW, author of the gospel that we have under his name, was a Galilean, the son of Alpheus, a Jew, and a tax-gatherer; he was known also by the name of Levi. His vocation happened in the second year of the public ministry of Christ; who, soon after forming the college of his apostles, adopted him into that holy family of the spiritual princes and founders of his Church. Before his departure from Judea, to preach the gospel to distant countries, he yielded to the solicitations of the faithful; and about the eighth year after our Saviour's resurrection, the forty-first of the vulgar era, he began to write his gospel: i.e., the good tidings of salvation to man, through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Of the hagiographers, St. Matthew was the first in the New, as Moses was the first in the Old Testament. And as Moses opened his work with the generation of the heavens and the earth, so St. Matthew begins with the generation of Him, who, in the fullness of time, took upon himself our human nature, to free us from the curse we had brought upon ourselves, and under which the whole creation was groaning. (Haydock) ---This holy apostle, after having reaped a great harvest of souls in Judea, preached the faith to the barbarous nations of the East. He was much devoted to heavenly contemplation, and led an austere life; for he eat no flesh, satisfying nature with herbs, roots, seeds, and berries, as Clement of Alexanderia assures us, Pædag. lib. ii. chap. 1. St. Ambrose says, that God opened to him the country of the Persians. Rufinus and Socrates tell us, that he carried the gospel into Ethiopia, meaning probably the southern or eastern parts of Asia. St. Paulinus informs us, that he ended his course in Parthia; and Venantius Fortunatus says, by martyrdom.--- See Butler's Saints' Lives, Sept. 21 st.

Gill: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO MATTHEW

The subject of this book, and indeed of all the writings of the New Testament, is the Gospel. The Greek word ευαγγελιον signifies a joyful message, good news, glad tidings of good things; such as Christ was anointed to preach, the Angels brought to the shepherds, and the Evangelists, Apostles, and Ministers of Christ published to the world. Isa 61:1. And such is the account given by this inspired writer, of the incarnation, life, actions, ministry, miracles, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ; whereby peace and reconciliation, pardon and righteousness, atonement and redemption, life and salvation, are obtained for lost, perishing sinners. The Jews, to whom the message of grace was first sent, and among whom the Gospel was first preached, having despised and rejected it; they and their posterity, in allusion to the word "Evangelion", most wickedly and blasphemously call the whole New Testament, און גליון or וצן גליון "Aven Gilion" ^a, a "revelation", or "volume of iniquity and vanity"; but "blessed are the people that know the joyful sound", see Psa 89:15. The writer of this Gospel, Matthew, who also was called Levi in Luk 5:27 was by occupation a publican, or tax-gatherer, and was in his employ when Christ called him by his grace. He was one of the twelve Apostles sent forth by Christ to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, Mat 10:3 and was honoured to be the first of the writers of the New Testament, and to be the first publisher therein of the good news of the incarnate Saviour; and was a wonderful instance of the rich and sovereign grace of God. Though he was employed in collecting the Roman tax, yet he was of Jewish extract; as appears from his being called the son of Alphaeus, Mar 2:14 and from his name Matthew Levi; for as the latter, so the former is an Hebrew name. The Jews say ^b one of the disciples of Jesus was called yatm, Matthai or Matthew: his name signifies a "gift" or "given"; he was one of those the Father had given to Christ, and was kept by him, when the son of perdition was lost, Joh 17:6. It may not be improper to inquire in what language this Gospel was written. The ancient Christian writers were generally of opinion, that Matthew wrote it in Hebrew; Papias and ^c Pantaenus were of this mind, as also Irenaeus ^d, Origen ^e Eusebius ^f, Athanasius ^g, Epiphanius ^h, and Jerom ⁱ; and it is asserted in the titles of the Arabic and Persic versions, and at the end of the Syriac version of this Gospel, that it was written in that language; and this opinion is espoused by Grotius and Hammond, though justly exploded by others; for what has been published by Munster, Mercer, Hutter, and Robertson, are translations, made by themselves or others, and of no antiquity: and since Hebrew and Syriac words are interpreted in this Gospel, see Mat 1:23 which would not have been done, had it been written in either language; and since Matthew generally follows the Septuagint version in the passages cited by him out of the Old Testament; and since the Hebrew language was not generally known at that time to the common people, only to the learned; for the law and the prophets, when read in the synagogues in that language, required an interpreter; and since the Greek tongue was the language more commonly spoken, and the rest of the Evangelists wrote in Greek, and the Gospel was designed for the Gentiles as well as the Jews; it is most reasonable to conclude that this Gospel also was wrote in Greek; whereby that ancient prophecy was fulfilled, at least in part, "God shall enlarge" or "persuade Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem", Gen 9:27 the Gospel being published in the language of Japheth, the Greek language, which the Jews, the posterity of Shem, now understood; agreeably to which the Palmudic writers interpret the prophecy; says ^k Bar Kaphra, mentioning the above words,

"They shall speak tpy lv wnwvlb in the language of Japheth, in the tents of Shem;''

or,

"the words of the law shall be spoken in the language of Japheth, in the midst of the tents of Shem ^l.''

R. Jochanan ^m explains them thus:

"tpy lv wyrbr "the words of Japheth" shall be in the tents of Shem; and says R. Chiya ben Aba, the sense of it is, The beauty of Japheth shall be in the tents of Shem.''

Which the gloss interprets thus:

"The beauty of Japheth is the language of Javan, or the Greek language, which language is more beautiful than that of any other of the sons of Japheth.''

The time when this Gospel was written is said ⁿ by some to be in the eighth or ninth, by others, in the fifteenth year after the ascension of Christ, when the Evangelist had received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, among which was the gift of tongues; and when the promise of Christ had been made good to him, Joh 14:26.

College: Matthew (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION

It may surprise the modern reader to realize that for the first two centuries of the Christian era, Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the most popular of the Gospel accounts. Not only was Matthew's text the most frequently quoted NT book among second century Christians, in virtually all textual witnesses and canonical lists Matthew is placed first.

Several factors may have contributed to the premier position assigned Matthew's Gospel. Certainly its comprehensive detail and the systematic structuring of ethical and pastoral material contributed to the Gospel's favored place in the church. In addition, the Gospel's popularity was undoubtedly based upon its explicit Jewish tendencies that enabled the church to affirm its Jewish roots while at the same time distancing the Christian movement from the synagogue. In short, both in form and content, Matthew's Gospel provided second century Christianity with an eminently practical and useful compendium of what was foundational to the Christian faith.

The priority and dominance extended Matthew's Gospel prevailed as the consensus for roughly 1700 years, until the early decades of the nineteenth century. With the development of an historical consciousness, and the refinement of literary methodology, questions of historical reliability and Synoptic relationships dominated post-Enlightenment Gospel research. While the chronological priority of Matthew was not immediately challenged, the privileged position given Matthew began to erode as scholarship presupposed that Gospel composition demanded a movement from the "more primitive" to the "more advanced." Mark's size, inferior quality, and seemingly "primitive theology," suggested to many that it was Mark not Matthew that should be regarded as the oldest Gospel, and hence the most reliable for a reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus. As a result, Matthew was gradually dismissed by many (esp. German scholarship), as a secondary development, being permeated by late and legendary additions (e.g., birth and infancy stories), representing more church tradition than a factual record of the life and teachings of Jesus.

The emerging nineteenth century consensus of the secondary character of Matthew received its most substantial endorsement in 1863 from H.J. Holtzmann, who argued that Mark wrote first and was used independently by Matthew and Luke. While subsequent defenders of Marcan priority have supplemented the theory with additional sources (e.g., Q, L, and M) to explain Synoptic relationships, the hypothesis that Mark is the earliest of the Gospel narratives has remained the dominant scholarly opinion for the past 100 years.

The initial result of the emergence of Mark as the pivotal document to explain Synoptic relationships was a decline of interest in Matthew in the early decades of this century. It was to Mark, rather than Matthew that scholarship turned either to find raw materials from which to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, or to penetrate to the earliest form of the tradition in order to elucidate the possible factors within the Christian communities that generated the rise and preservation of certain text-forms (Form Criticism). As long as the scholarly agenda was preoccupied with penetrating behind the Gospels to isolate sources or to reconstruct early Christian communities, Matthew's Gospel would remain only of secondary interest.

Graham Stanton singles out the date of 1945 as marking a new phase in Matthean studies. The first two decades after 1945 witness a number of studies addressing Matthean themes or sections of the Gospel that begin to call attention to the editorial skills and theological concerns of the Gospel's author. The shift to an emphasis on the role of the evangelist in his selection, arrangement, and modification of the material he received, brought renewed interest in Matthew as an effective communicator and sophisticated theologian (Redaction Criticism). However, such an assessment was ultimately grounded in the hypothesis of Marcan priority and the subsequent evaluation of how Matthew used Mark as his primary literary source. The result has been an exegetical method overly preoccupied with slight literary deviations from Mark, with little sensitivity to the interconnected sequence of events, and their contribution to the whole Gospel.

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of studies on Matthew, with many books and articles concerned to elucidate Matthew's Gospel as a "unified narrative" or "story" told by a competent story-teller who organizes his thought into a coherent sequence of events. The new concern for the Gospels as literary masterpieces demands that the reader be attentive to how Matthew develops his themes and focuses his account on a retelling of the story of Jesus in a way that does not merely rehearse the past, but speaks meaningfully as a guide for Christian discipleship.

Rather than reading Matthew through the lens of other Gospels or a hypothetical reconstruction of the evangelist's sources, priority has shifted to the whole Gospel as a unified coherent narrative. It follows that whatever written or oral sources the evangelist may have had access to, the writer has so shaped his composition that it has a life of its own, discernable only by attention to the structure of the parts and their contribution to the whole.

In order to read and appreciate Matthew's story of Jesus one must be attentive to the codes and conventions that govern the literary and social context of the first century. A coherent reading of any document demands an awareness of the literary rules that govern the various types of literature. Knowing the general category of literary genre of a text enables the reader to know what types of questions can legitimately be asked of the material. For example, if one is reading poetry, questions of factual accuracy or scientific precision may not be the most relevant inquiry for ascertaining a text's meaning. Knowing the genre of a writing enables one's understanding to be informed by the features and intentions that characterize the writing, and not by our modern expectations and concerns we may impose upon the text.

While Matthew's Gospel has certain affinities with the literary genres of biography and historiography, the Gospel is not strictly an historical biography. No Gospel writer was driven by an impulse simply to record the facts of what happened with strict chronological precision. In fact, one need only to read the Gospels side by side to see the freedom and creative manner with which each writer communicated his message. The authors have selected, arranged, and interpreted events, characters, and settings in the best way to communicate with their respective audiences. The result is four unique accounts of Jesus' life and teachings told from a particular "point of view," informed both by the primary events and the theological concerns and needs of the expanding church.

Matthew's Gospel builds reflectively upon the primary events to capture the significance of what happened in story form. An appreciation of the literary and communicative skills of the author enables one to recognize in the dramatic sequence of events a carefully constructed "plot." In this way the storyteller communicates his values and theological commitment and seeks to persuade the reader to accept his perspective.

COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL

Some issues and questions that may be extremely important for understanding one category of literature may contribute little to the understanding of another. For example, an informed interpretation of Paul's letters necessitates a reconstruction of the world that produced the text. The modern reader would need to know as much as possible about the author, destination of the letter, and the factors that gave rise to the text. The letter itself will constitute a prime source for acquiring such information.

However, when one approaches Gospel narratives with the same concerns the matter is complicated by the lack of information afforded by the text. The anonymity of the Gospels, alongside their silence concerning the place, time, and circumstances that may have generated their writings, necessitates that such historical inquiries be answered in terms of probability. What this means is that there is no direct access, via the text, to the historical author or primary recipients of his document. The difficulty is centered in the fact that the text is not primarily designed to function as a "window" through which to gain access into the mind and environment of the author and original readers. The author does not purport to tell his own story or that of his readers, but the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Fortunately, following the sequential development and sense of Matthew's story of Jesus does not depend on identifying with certainty the author or the historical and social matrix that may have prompted his writing.

In what follows, traditional introductory questions will be briefly discussed, alongside important insights afforded by literary theorists who focus on the Gospels as narratives.

A. AUTHORSHIP

The anonymity of the canonical Gospels necessitates heavy reliance on external evidence as a point of departure to establish Gospel authorship. The external testimony from the second century is virtually unanimous that Matthew the tax collector authored the Gospel attributed to him. Even before explicit patristic testimony regarding Gospel authorship there is convincing evidence that no Gospel ever circulated without an appropriate heading or title (e.g., KATA MAQQAION, "according to Matthew"), identifying the person thought to be the author. The common assumption that the Gospels circulated anonymously until the mid-second century when titles were finally affixed to them has been seriously challenged by Martin Hengel. While certain details of Hengel's theory regarding the origins of Gospel headings have been challenged, the lack of variation in the second-century tradition regarding Matthean authorship could well owe its origin to the time when the Gospels first began to circulate among the Christian communities.

The earliest patristic source addressing Gospel authorship comes from Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis (ca. 60-130), whose comments are available only in quotations preserved by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (ca. 260-340, H.E. 3.39.14-16). Eusebius' citation of Papias regarding Matthean authorship has been subject to various interpretations dependent upon the translation of key terms. The citation reads:

Matthew collected (sunetavxato, synetaxato , "composed," "compiled," "arranged") the oracles (taÉ lovgia, ta logia , "sayings," "gospel") in the Hebrew language (dialevktw/, dialektô, "Hebrew or Aramaic language," "Semitic style") and each interpreted (hJrmhvneusen, hçrmçneusen, "interpreted," "translated," "transmitted") them as best he could (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16).

It appears that patristic testimony subsequent to Papias was dependent upon his testimony and thus perpetuated the tradition of Matthean authorship alongside the notion of an original Semitic version. The testimonies of Irenaeus ( Adv. Haer. 3.1.1), Pantaenus (quoted in H.E. 5.10.3), Origen (quoted in H.E. 6.25.4), Eusebius himself ( H.E. 3.24.6), Epiphanius (quoted in Adv. Haer. 29.l9.4; 30.3.7), Cyril of Jerusalem ( Catecheses 14.15), Jerome ( DeVir. III.3), as well as Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389), Chrysostom (347-407), Augustine (354-430), and Syrian and Coptic authorities are all unanimous in affirming that Matthew authored the first Gospel originally in a Semitic language. However, since the tradition seems ultimately to rest upon the view of Papias, as cited by Eusebius, the accumulated evidence of patristic testimony, in the view of some, has very little independent worth. Especially since the idea of an original Semitic Matthew, from which our Greek Matthew has been translated has been challenged on textual and linguistic grounds. Matthew simply does not read like translated Greek. These and other difficulties with the view of Papias have resulted in many dismissing all patristic testimony concerning Matthean authorship.

While much critical opinion has assumed that Papias' errant view of an original Semitic Matthew discounts his testimony about Matthew being the author, in recent times the evidence afforded by the testimony of Papias has been reassessed. On the one hand, some scholars have argued that the terms Ebrai?di dialevktw/ (Ebraidi dialektô), do not refer to the Hebrew or Aramaic language, but rather to a Jewish style or literary form. In this view, Papias would be referring to Matthew's penchant for Semitic themes and devices, not an original Semitic Gospel. Others have rejected such an interpretation as an unnatural way to read the passage from Papias, and prefer to acknowledge that Papias was simply wrong when he claimed that Matthew was originally written in a Semitic language. However, such an admission does not warrant the complete dismissal of the testimony of Papias concerning the authorship of Matthew. One must still explain how Matthew's name became attached to the first Gospel. The obscurity and relative lack of prominence of the Apostle Matthew argues against the view that the early church would pseudonymously attribute the Gospel to Matthew. Surely, patristic tradition had some basis for attributing the Gospel to Matthew. Therefore, as noted by Davies and Allison, "the simplistic understanding of Papias which dismisses him out of hand must be questioned if not abandoned."

There is nothing inherent in the Gospel itself that convincingly argues against Matthean authorship. Contrary to the view of a few, the decided Jewish flavor of the Gospel argues decisively for the author of the first Gospel being a Jew. Other scholars have noted that Matthew's background and training as a "tax collector" along with other professional skills offers a plausible explanation for the Gospel's sophisticated literary form and attention to detail. Certainly the combined weight of external and internal considerations make the traditional view of Matthean authorship a reasonable, if not a most plausible position. However, in the words of R.T. France there is "an inevitable element of subjectivity in such judgments." Not only is hard data difficult to come by to establish the authorship of any of the Gospels, what is available is often subject to diverse but equally credible explanations. It follows that while the issue of authorship is an intriguing historical problem, it is extremely doubtful that any consensus will ever emerge given the nature of the available evidence.

The question must be raised whether the veracity of the first Gospel or its interpretation are ultimately dependent upon one's verdict concerning authorship. While one's theological bias concerning authorship may influence how the text is evaluated, the two issues are not integrally connected. Since the first Gospel offers very little (if any) insight into the identity of its historical author, recreating the figure behind the Gospel is neither relevant or particularly important for understanding Matthew's story of Jesus. Thus, while I see no compelling reason to abandon the traditional attribution of Matthean authorship to the first Gospel, no significant exegetical or theological concern hangs on the issue.

B. NARRATION OF THE STORY

Of much greater importance than deciding the identity of the author, is an evaluation of the way the author has decided to present his story of Jesus. In literary terms the way a story gets told is called "point of view." A storyteller may tell his story in the first person (i.e., "I"), and portray himself as one of the characters in the story. From a first person point of view the storyteller would necessarily be limited to what he personally has experienced or learned from other characters. Matthew's story is told in a third person narration, wherein the storyteller is not a participant in the story, but refers to characters within the story as "he," "she," or "they." From such a vantage point the Matthean narrator provides the reader with an informational advantage over story characters, and thereby, situates the reader in an advantageous position for evaluating events and characters in the story.

Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of a third person narration is the storyteller's ability to provide the reader with insights which are not normally available to one in real life. His ability to move inside his characters to reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motivations, enables the reader to use these insights to form evaluations and opinions about characters and events within the story. For example, the narrator reveals when the disciples are amazed (8:29; 21:20), fearful (14:30; 17:6), sorrowful (26:22), filled with grief (17:23), and indignant (26:8). He knows when they understand (16:12; 17:13), and when they doubt (28:17). The overall impact of these insights enables the reader to better evaluate the traits exhibited by the disciples.

Similar insights are provided into the thoughts, emotions, and motivations of minor characters in the story. The inner thoughts of Joseph (1:19), Herod (2:3), the crowds (7:28; 22:33; 9:8; 12:13; 15:31), the woman (9:21), Herod the tetrarch (14:59), Judas (27:3), Pilate (27:14,18), the centurion (27:54), and the reaction of the women at the tomb (28:4,8) are all accessible to the Matthean narrator. The narrator even supplies the reader with inside information about the thoughts and motivations of the Jewish leaders (2:3; 9:3; 12:14; 21:45-46; 26:3-5; 12:10; 16:1; 19:3; 22:15). These insights function to establish in the mind of the reader the antagonist of the story.

The Matthean narrator is also not bound by time or space in his coverage of the story. Matthew provides the reader access to private conversations between Herod and the Magi (2:3-8), John and Jesus (3:13-15), Jesus and Satan (4:1-11), the disciples (16:7), Peter and Jesus (16:23), Judas and the chief priest (26:14-16; 26:40), and Pilate and the chief priest (27:62-64). He makes known to the reader the private decisions made by the chief priest and the Sanhedrin (26:59-60), and the plan of the chief priest and elders concerning the disappearance of the body (28:12-15). The narrator is present when Jesus prays alone, while at the same time he knows the difficulties of the disciples on the sea (14:22-24). He easily takes the reader from the courtroom of Pilate to the courtyard of Peter's denial (26:70f.), and eventually to the scene at the cross (27:45). For the most part, the narrator in Matthew's story stays close to Jesus, and views events and characters in terms of how they affect his main character.

Whoever the actual historical author may be, it is clear that the Matthean storyteller narrates his Gospel in a way to reliably guide his readers through the story so as to properly evaluate events and characters. On occasion the narrator will interrupt the flow of the story in order to provide the reader with an explicit comment or explanation. These intrusions may take the form of various types of descriptions (e.g., 3:4; 17:2; 28:3-4; 27:28-31), summaries (e.g., 4:23-25; 9:35-38; 12:15-16; 14:14; 15:29-31), or explicit interpretive commentary (1:22-23, 2:15, 17-18, 23; 4:15-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10). Detecting the narrator's voice in the story enables the reader to be sensitive to the manner in which Matthew instructs, leads, and encourages the reader to adopt a particular point of view.

SETTING OF THE GOSPEL

Traditional approaches to Gospel introduction usually treat under the heading of "setting" such issues as the date and place of the Gospel's writing, alongside the identity and problems confronting the community addressed. It is important to remember that practically speaking our exclusive source for information about the time and circumstantial factors generating the Gospel's production come only from the Gospel itself. No explicit outside information speaks directly to the issue of the social and historical conditions of the Gospel's primary readers. Essentially, scholarly efforts to establish a life-setting for the writing of the Gospel must search the Gospel for possible clues that hint at the time and circumstances of the writing. The fact that, although reading the same evidence, scholarly proposals for the setting of Matthew's Gospel have resulted in reconstructions that are opposed to one another should give one caution about dogmatic claims in such areas.

A. DATE

Efforts to recover the environmental setting that best explains the form and content of Matthew's Gospel have not resulted in a scholarly consensus. Concerning the date of the Gospel's composition scholars are divided into two broad proposals. The majority view is that Matthew was written after Mark sometime between the dates of A.D. 80-100. However, the arguments adduced to establish such a dating scheme are largely based upon prior judgments concerning the order of Gospel composition or hypothetical reconstructions of developments in the first century. Pivotal to the post-70 dating of Matthew is the contention that Matthew knew and used Mark as a major source for the writing of his Gospel. Since the consensus of scholarly judgment dates Mark in the 60s, it is therefore likely that Matthew composed his Gospel sometime after A.D. 70. Of course, if one rejects Marcan priority or the suggested date for Marcan composition, the argument fails to be convincing.

A post-70 date has also been assumed based upon Matthew's explicit language concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and his references to the "church" (16:18; 18:17). Such language is thought to be anachronistic and therefore indicative of a post-70 composition. The reference to a "king" in the parable of the wedding feast who "sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city" (22:7), appears to reflect historical knowledge of Jerusalem's destruction retrojected into Jesus' ministry as prophecy. However, apart from the fact of whether Jesus could predict Jerusalem's fall, the wording of 22:7, as France observes, "is precisely the sort of language one might expect in a genuine prediction of political annihilation in the Jewish context, and does not depend on a specific knowledge of how things in fact turned out in A.D. 70." There also is no need to read a developed ecclesiology into Jesus' references to the "church." The term ejkklhsiva (ekklçsia) in Matthew says nothing about church order, and with the communal imagery attached to the term in Jewish circles (cf. Qumran), it becomes entirely credible that Jesus could speak of his disciples as constituting an ekklçsia.

Perhaps the most heavily relied upon argument for dating Matthew in the last decades of the first century is the decided Jewish polemic that seemingly dominates the first Gospel. It is thought that formative Judaism in the post-70 period provides the most suitable background for Matthew's portrayal of the Jewish leaders and his underlying view of Israel. After the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 it was the Pharisaic movement that emerged as the normative form of Judaism. Pharisaism was particularly suited to bring stability and a renewed sense of Jewish identity after the tragedy of A.D. 70. The Pharisees saw themselves as "the most accurate interpreters of the law" (see Josephus, JW 1.5.1; 2.8.14; Life 38.191), and definers of both the social and cultic boundaries delimiting the covenanted people of God. The community addressed by Matthew's Gospel is thought to be a rival to a post-70 formative Judaism, having endured severe hostility and rejection by official Judaism.

However, the evidence does not warrant the supposition that Matthew's community has severed all contact with the Jewish community. Furthermore, not enough is known about pre-70 Pharisaism to emphatically deny a setting for Matthew's Gospel before Jerusalem's destruction. Indeed, an impressive list of scholars have cogently argued for a pre-70 dating of Matthew. Not only does such a view have solid patristic evidence, some passages in Matthew may be intended to imply that the temple was still standing at the time of the Gospel's writing (cf. Matt 5:23-29; 12:5-7; 17:23; 16:22; 26:60-61). It appears that the evidence is not sufficiently decisive so as to completely discredit all competitive views. Fortunately, understanding Matthew's story of Jesus is not dependent upon reconstructing the historical context from which the Gospel emerged.

B. PLACE OF ORIGIN

Even less important for a competent reading of the first Gospel involves the effort to decide the Gospel's precise place of origin. Because of its large Jewish community and strategic role in the Gentile mission most Matthean scholars have opted for Antioch of Syria as the Gospel's place of origin. Other proposals have included Jerusalem, Alexandria, Caesarea, Phoenicia, and simply "east of the Jordan." While certain evidence may tend to weigh in favor of one provenance over another, in the final analysis we cannot be certain where Matthew's Gospel was composed. Nevertheless, as observed by France, deciding "the geographical location in which the Gospel originated is probably the least significant for a sound understanding of the text." Much more relevant to the interpretation of the gospel is the dimension given the discussion of "setting" by a literary reading of the first Gospel.

C. NARRATIVE WORLD

In literary terms the discussion of "setting" does not involve the delineation of factors generating the text, but rather the descriptive context or background in which the action of the story transpires. Settings, as described by the narrator, are like stage props in a theatrical production. Oftentimes, the narrator's description of the place, time, or social conditions in which action takes place is charged with subtle nuances that may generate a certain atmosphere with important symbolic significance. For example, early in Matthew's story the narrator relates places and events to create a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate his central character, Jesus. The story opens with a series of events that are calculated to evoke memories of Israel's past, and thereby to highlight the significance of the times inaugurated by Jesus. By means of a genealogy, cosmic signs, dream-revelations, the appearance of the "angel of the Lord," and the repeated reference to prophetic fulfillment, the narrator highlights God's renewed involvement with his people and the climactic nature of the times realized in Jesus. The locations of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Egypt evoke feelings of continuity between Jesus' history and that of Israel's. Other locations such as the "desert" and "mountain" function to create a certain aura around events and characters in the story. Later in the story specific locations such as "synagogue," the "sea," and the "temple" all contribute to a distinct atmosphere from which to evaluate the course of events. While real-life settings of the author and his readers can only be reproduced in terms of probability, the temporal and spatial settings established in the story provide an integral context for interpreting Matthew's story.

THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF MATTHEW

A. LITERARY AND RHETORICAL SKILL

Since Matthew's text would have been handwritten without systematic punctuation or modern techniques for delineating structural features such as bold print, underlining, paragraph indention, or chapter headings, any clues for discerning the structure and nature of the composition is dependent upon "verbal clues" within the narrative itself. Within both Hebrew and classical traditions communication on a literary level assumed a level of competency in conventional communicative techniques. While NT authors may not have been formally trained in rhetoric, an effective exchange of ideas demands some awareness of conventional patterns for communication. A study of Matthew's literary style puts emphasis on the literary devices he employs to lead the reader to experience his story in a certain way.

Reading Matthew's story (whether orally before an audience, or in private), would have demanded that the reader attend to the various structural features which might illumine the meaning and flow of the narrative. Some of these literary strategies function on a broader structural level providing the text with a sense of progression and cohesion (e.g., Matt see the formulaic phrases in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1; and 4:17; 16:21). However, most structural features primarily contribute to a sense of cohesion within smaller textual units. These features may highlight or bracket unifying themes by opening and closing distinct units with similar words or phrases (see, e.g., 4:23-24 and 9:35); build anticipation by foreshadowing subsequent events (e.g., ch. 2 foreshadows the passion narrative); or stimulate reflection and a sense of development in the story by verbal repetition and episodic similarities (cf. 8:23-27/14:22-33; 9:27-31/20:29-34; 9:32-34/12:22-34; 14:13-21/15:32-38). These elements along with Matthew's fondness for grouping materials according to a thematic or even numerical scheme, are indicative of an environment largely educated through oral proclamation not the written word. Matthew's compositional scheme greatly facilitated learning by providing the listener (or reader) with a coherent and orderly presentation that aided comprehension and memorization.

The meticulous structural concerns, both in the whole and the smaller details of Matthew, have been widely recognized by scholarship. However, as we shall see in the next section, there is great diversity with respect to the overall structural pattern of the first Gospel. The difficulty lies with going from clearly delineated structural features in the smaller units of text, to the use of the same devices to explain the total composition. Often the analysis seems forced and unable to fit the details into a single coherent pattern. It may not always be easy to identify the precise contribution that a particular literary device makes to the overall composition of a literary work, and certainly there always exists the danger of reading too much into a text by artificially imposing symmetrical patterns where none exist. However, these problems are overcome by a greater sensitivity to the nature and function of literary devices, and not by ignoring these features of a text. The question remains concerning what features might provide clues to the overall structure of Matthew's Gospel.

B. STRUCTURAL-PLOT

Consideration of Matthew's skill in the smaller portions of his text has stimulated numerous efforts to locate structural indications that may provide the organizing pattern for the entire Gospel. Structural appraisals of Matthew's Gospel usually begin with the discovery of a literary device or formulaic expression that appears to be unique to the evangelist. However, while scholars may agree on the existence of a literary device or formula, they may diverge widely concerning the function or theological significance of a literary feature. For example, although the expressions kaiÉ ejgevneto o{te ejtevlesen oJ =Ihsou'" (kai egeneto hote etelesen ho Içsous, "and when Jesus had finished;" 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), and ajpoÉ tovte h[rxato oJ =Ihsou'" (apo tote erxato ho Içsous, "from that time Jesus began," 4:17; 16:21) are recognized to be structurally significant, it is difficult to establish that Matthew consciously adopted these expressions as the organizational key to his entire Gospel. As helpful as these phrases are for marking off the major discourses of Jesus or highlighting major new developments in the story, neat structural schemes based upon repeated formulae cannot do justice to the subtle twists and turns of the dramatic flow of Matthew's story.

Several scholars have centered on Matthew's use of Mark to determine the structure of his Gospel. Attention has been called to the peculiar Matthean organization of 4:12-13:58 in contrast to the faithful following of Marcan order in 14:1-28:20. Certainly a source-critical study of Matthew must account for the seemingly independent structural form and sequence in the first half of the Gospel as opposed to the latter half. However, it is doubtful that Matthew intended his readers to compare his Gospel with Mark in order to understand his structural scheme. If Matthew could clearly structure patterns on a smaller scale, independent of Mark, why not on a larger scale? Furthermore, there are too many structural peculiarities even in the second half of the Gospel to assume that Matthew merely succumbed to a slavish reproduction of Mark in the second half of his Gospel.

More recent investigations have delineated the Gospel's structure in terms of how the individual events or episodes connect sequentially to form a discernable plot. It is the organizing principle of plot which determines the incidents selected, their arrangement, and how the sequence of events or episodes are to impact the reader. Given the episodic and thematic flavor of Matthew's narrative, his plot development does not exhibit a linear tightness or the flair for the dramatic found in other narratives (cf. Mark). Nevertheless, Matthew does tell a story, and thus the various episodes are carefully interrelated by causal and thematic developments. There are definite major and minor story lines and character development, with certain episodes marking key turning points in the unfolding drama. An analysis of plot has the advantage of moving the discussion away from isolated literary devices or contrived symmetrical patterns, to a consideration of how the sequence of events and portrayal of characters connect meaningfully to tell a continuous and coherent story.

Matthew's story is organized around several narrative blocks comprised of events that are interconnected according to a particular emphasis or theme. The unifying factor giving coherence to the overall sequence of events is the explicit and implicit presence of the central character Jesus in virtually every episode. Within this story-form events of similar nature are often clustered or repeated for their accumulative impact, as various themes are reinforced and developed. An analysis of the sequence and function of Matthew's major narrative blocks enables the reader to discern an overall progression of events according to a consciously constructed plot. The following seven narrative blocks provide the story with a clear sense of dramatic progression:

1:1-4:16 Establishing the identity and role of Jesus, the protagonist of the story.

4:17-11:1 Jesus embarks upon a ministry of teaching and healing to manifest God's saving presence in Israel.

11:2-16:20 While faulty interpretations of Jesus' ministry lead to misunderstanding and repudiation, the disciples, through divine revelation, are provided special insight into Jesus' person and mission.

16:21-20:34 During Jesus' journey to Jerusalem he engages his disciples in explicit discussion concerning the ultimate values, priorities, and intentions of his messianic mission.

21:1-25:46 Upon entering Jerusalem Jesus' actions and teachings lead to conflict and rejection by the Jewish authorities.

26:1-27:50 While hostility and misunderstanding coalesce in betrayal, desertion, and death, Jesus is resolved to consciously and voluntarily fulfill the divine plan.

27:51-28:20 God ultimately vindicates his Son as evidenced by cosmic signs and by raising him from the dead and giving him authority to commission his disciples to a worldwide mission.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTED COMMENTARIES:

Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. Matthew . AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971.

Beare, Francis Wright. The Gospel According to Matthew . San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992.

Carson, D.A. "Matthew." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 8:3-599. Edited by Frank Gaebelein. 12 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

Davies, Margaret. Matthew Readings: A New Biblical Commentary . Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT Press/Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

Davies, W.D. and Dale C. Allison. Introduction and Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew I-VII . Vol. 1 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

. Introduction and Commentary on Matthew VIII-XVIII . Vol. 2 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew . International Critical Commentaries. 3 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991.

France, R.T. Matthew. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

Gardner, Richard B. Matthew. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991.

Garland, David. Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel . New York: Crossroad, 1993.

Gundry, Robert. Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Hagner, Donald. Matthew 1-13 . Word Biblical Commentary 33A. Dallas: Word, 1993.

. Matthew 14-28. Word Biblical Commentary 33B. Dallas: Word, 1995.

Harrington, D.J. The Gospel of Matthew . Sacra Pagina 1. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991.

Hill, David. The Gospel of Matthew . New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

Keener, Craig S. Matthew . The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Ed. Grant R. Osborne. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Luz, U. Matthew 1-7 . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels . Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992.

Meier, J.P. The Vision of Matthew . New York: Crossroad, 1979, 1991.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to Matthew . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

Patte, Daniel. The Gospel According to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew's Faith . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew . Translated by David E. Green. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975.

SELECTED STUDIES:

Allison, Dale C. The New Moses: A Matthean Typology . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Bauer, D.R. The Structure of Matthew's Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . JSNTSup 31. Sheffield: Almond, 1988.

Borg, Marcus. Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus . New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984.

France, R.T. Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Hill, David. "Son and Servant: An Essay on Matthean Christology." JSNT 6 (1980) 2-16.

Kingsbury, Jack D. Matthew As Story. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Lohr, C. "Oral Techniques in the Gospel of Matthew." CBQ 23 (1961): 339-352.

Luz, U. The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew . Translated by J. Bradford Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Matera, Frank. "The Plot of Matthew's Gospel." CBQ 49 (1987): 233-253.

. Passion Narratives and Gospel Theologies . New York: Paulist, 1986.

Powell, M.A. God With Us: A Pastoral Theology of Matthew's Gospel . Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.

Senior, D. The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew . Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985.

. What Are They Saying About Matthew? Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Stanton, Graham. A Gospel For a New People: Studies in Matthew . Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992.

. "The Origin and Purpose of Matthew's Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980." In ANRW II.25.3. Edited by W.Haase. Pages 1889-1895. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1985.

Verseput, Donald J. "The Title Son of God in Matthew's Gospel." NTS 33 (1987): 532-556.

Westerholm, Stephen. Jesus and Scribal Authority . ConNT 10. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1978.

Wilkens, M.J. The Concept of Discipleship in Matthew's Gsopel as Reflected in the Use of the Term Mathçtçs. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988.

Witherup, Ronald D. "The Death of Jesus and the Rising of the Saints: Matthew 27:51-54 in Context." SBLASP. Pages 574-585. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.

Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

. The New Testament and the People of God . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary

AnBib Analecta Biblica

ANTJ Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und zum Judentum

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium

Bib Biblica

BibRev Bible Review

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BZNW Beheifte zur ZNW

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

ConBNT Coniectanea biblica, New Testament

ConNT Coniectanea neotestamentica

DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

ETL Ephemerides theologicai lovanienses

ExpTim The Expository Times

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

Int Interpretation

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSNT Journal for the Study of New Testament Theology

LXX Septuagint

NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary

NIV New International Version

NovT Novum Testamentum

NT New Testament

NTM New Testament Message

NTS New Testament Studies

OT Old Testament

RevQ Revue de Qumran

RQ Restoration Quarterly

SBLASP Society of Biblical Literature Abstracts and Seminar Papers

SBLDS SBL Dissertation Series

SBLMS SBL Monograph Series

SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

Str-B Kommentar zum Neuen Testament by Strack and Billerbeck

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

TIM Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew by Bornkamm, Barth, and Held

TrinJ Trinity Journal

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

UBSGNT United Bible Society Greek New Testament

USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review

WUNT Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Matthew (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. ESTABLISHING THE IDENTITY AND ROLE OF JESUS THE CHRIST - Matt 1:1-4:16

A. Genealogy of Jesus - 1:1-17

B. The Annunciation to Joseph - 1:18-25

C. The Infancy of Jesus - 2:1-23

1. The Gentile Pilgrimage - 2:1-12

2. The Messiah's Exile and Exodus - 2:13-23

D. The Mission and Message of John the Baptist - 3:1-12

E. The Baptism and Commission of Jesus - 3:13-17

F. The Testing of the Son - 4:1-11

G. Introducing the Ministry of Jesus - 4:12-16

II. GOD'S SAVING PRESENCE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE - 4:17-10:42

A. Programmatic Heading: Proclamation of the Kingdom - 4:17

B. Call of the Disciples - 4:18-22

C. Programmatic Summary - 4:23-25

D. Sermon on the Mount: Ministry in Word - 5:1-7:29

1. The Setting - 5:1-2

2. The Beatitudes - 5:3-12

3. Salt and Light - 5:13-16

4. Jesus and the Law - 5:17-20

5. Practicing Greater Righteousness Toward One's Neighbor - 5:21-48

a. Murder - 5:21-26

b. Adultery - 5:27-30

c. Divorce - 5:31-32

d. Oaths - 5:33-37

e. An Eye for an Eye - 5:38-42

f. Love Your Enemies - 5:43-48

6. Practicing Greater Righteousness Before God - 6:1-18

a. Summary - 6:1

b. Giving to the Needy - 6:2-4

c. Prayer - 6:5-15

d. Fasting - 6:16-18

7. The Priorities and Values of the GreaterRighteousness - 6:19-34

a. Treasures in Heaven - 6:19-24

b. Worry - 6:25-34

8. The Conduct of Greater Righteousness - 7:1-12

a. Judging Others - 7:1-5

b. Honor What Is Valuable - 7:6

c. Ask, Seek, Knock - 7:7-11

d. The Golden Rule - 7:12

9. The Call for Decision - 7:13-27

a. The Narrow and Wide Gates - 7:13-14

b. A Tree and Its Fruit - 7:15-23

c. The Wise and Foolish Builders - 7:24-27

10. Conclusion - 7:28-29

E. Ministry in Deed - 8:1-9:34

1. Cleansing of a Leper - 8:1-4

2. Request of a Gentile Centurion - 8:5-13

3. Peter's Mother-in-Law - 8:14-15

4. Summary and Fulfillment Citation - 8:16-17

5. Two Would-Be Followers - 8:18-22

6. Stilling of the Storm - 8:23-27

7. The Gadarene Demoniacs - 8:28-34

8. Healing of the Paralytic - 9:1-8

9. Jesus' Association with Tax Collectors and Sinners - 9:9-13

10. Question on Fasting - 9:14-17

11. Raising the Ruler's Daughter and Cleansing the Unclean Woman - 9:18-26

12. Healing Two Blind Men - 9:27-31

13. Healing of a Deaf Mute - 9:32-34

F. A Call to Mission - 9:35-10:4

G. The Missionary Discourse - 10:5-42

1. Instructions for Mission - 10:5-15

2. Persecution and Response - 10:16-23

3. The Disciples' Relationship to Jesus - 10:24-42

III. ISRAEL'S MISUNDERSTANDING AND REPUDIATION OF JESUS - 11:1-14:12

A. John's Question from Prison - 11:1-6

B. The Person and Mission of John - 11:7-19

1. Identification of John by Jesus - 11:7-15

2. Rejection of John and Jesus - 11:16-19

C. Unrepentant Cities - 11:20-24

D. Jesus' Response and Invitation - 11:25-30

E. Sabbath Controversy: Incident in the Grainfield - 12:1-8

F. Sabbath Controversy: Healing in the Synagogue - 12:9-14

G. The Character and Mission of God's Servant - 12:15-21

H. The Beelzebub Controversy - 12:22-37

I. The Request for a Sign - 12:38-42

J. A Concluding Analogy - 12:43-45

K. Jesus' True Family - 12:46-50

L. The Parables of the Kingdom - 13:1-52

1. The Parable of the Four Soils - 13:1-9

2. The Purpose of the Parables - 13:10-17

3. The Interpretation of the Parable ofthe Soils - 13:18-23

4. Parable of the Weeds - 13:24-30

5. Parable of the Mustard Seed - 13:31-32

6. Parable of the Leaven - 13:33

7. The Purpose of Parables - 13:34-35

8. The Interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds - 13:36-43

9. Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl - 13:44-46

10. Parable of the Dragnet - 13:47-50

11. Trained in the Kingdom - 13:51-52

M. Rejection at Nazareth - 13:53-58

N. The Death of John the Baptist - 14:1-12

IV. EDUCATING THE DISCIPLES: IDENTITY AND MISSION - 14:13-16:20

A. Feeding of the Five Thousand - 14:13-21

B. Walking on the Water - 14:22-33

C. Summary: Healings at Gennesaret - 14:34-36

D. Jesus and the Teachings of the Pharisees - 15:1-20

E. The Canaanite Woman - 15:21-28

F. Feeding of the Four Thousand - 15:29-39

G. Request for a Sign - 16:1-4

H. The Leaven of the Pharisees and Saducees - 16:5-12

I. Confession at Caesarea Philippi - 16:13-20

V. THE WAY OF THE CROSS - 16:21-20:34

A. The Things of God Versus the Things of Men - 16:21-28

B. Transfiguration - 17:1-8

C. The Coming Elijah - 17:9-13

D. The Power of Faith - 17:14-21

E. The Second Passion Prediction - 17:22-23

F. Jesus and the Temple Tax - 17:24-27

G. Fourth Discourse: Life in the Christian Community - 18:1-35

1. Becoming Like a Child - 18:1-5

2. Avoiding Offense - 18:6-9

3. Value of the "Little Ones" - 18:10-14

4. Reconciling an Offending Brother - 18:15-20

5. Importance of Forgiveness - 18:21-35

H. Transition from Galilee to Judea - 19:1-2

I. Marriage and Divorce - 19:3-9

J. The Bewildered Response of the Disciples - 19:10-12

K. The Little Children - 19:13-15

L. The Rich Young Man - 19:16-22

M. Wealth, Reward and Discipleship - 19:23-30

N. The Generous Landowner - 20:1-16

O. Third Passion Prediction - 20:17-19

P. Requests on Behalf of the Sons of Zebedee - 20:20-28

Q. Two Blind Men Receive Sight - 20:29-34

VI. CONFLICT IN JERUSALEM - 21:1-25:46

A. Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem - 21:1-11

B. Demonstration in the Temple - 21:12-17

C. The Fig Tree - 21:18-22

D. The Authority Question - 21:23-27

E. Parable of the Two Sons - 21:28-32

F. Parable of the Tenants - 21:33-46

G. Parable of the Wedding Feast - 22:1-14

H. Confrontations with the Religious Leaders - 22:15-46

1. Paying Taxes to Caesar - 22:15-22

2. Marriage in the Afterlife - 22:23-33

3. The Greatest Commandment - 22:34-40

4. The Son of David - 22:41-46

I. Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees - 23:1-39

1. Do Not Practice What They Preach - 23:1-12

2. Woes against the Teachers of the Law andthe Pharisees - 23:13-36

3. Lament over Jerusalem - 23:37-39

J. Fifth Discourse: Judgment to Come - 24:1-25:46

1. Introduction - 24:1-3

2. Warnings Not to Be Deceived - 24:4-14

3. The Coming Tribulation in Judea - 24:15-28

4. The Climactic Fall of Jerusalem within "This Generation" - 24:29-35

5. The Coming Judgment of the Son ofMan - 24:36-25:46

a. The Coming Son of Man~ - 24:36-51

b. The Ten Virgins - 25:1-13

c. Parable of the Talents - 25:14-30

d. Judgment of the Son of Man - 25:31-46

VII. THE PASSION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS - 26:1-28:20

A. The Plot to Arrest and Execute Jesus - 26:1-5

B. Anointing in Bethany - 26:6-13

C. Judas' Betrayal - 26:14-16

D. Preparation for Passover - 26:17-19

E. The Last Supper - 26:20-30

F. Jesus Predicts the Disciples' Desertion and Denial - 26:31-35

G. The Gethsemane Prayer - 26:36-46

H. The Arrest of Jesus - 26:47-56

I. The Hearing Before Caiaphas - 26:57-68

J. The Denial of Peter - 26:69-75

K. Transition to the Roman Authorities - 27:1-2

L. The Suicide of Judas - 27:3-10

M. The Trial Before Pilate - 27:11-26

N. Mockery and Abuse of Jesus - 27:27-31

O. The Crucifixion - 27:32-44

P. The Death of Jesus - 27:45-56

Q. The Burial of Jesus - 27:57-61

R. Keeping Jesus in the Tomb - 27:62-66

S. The Empty Tomb - 28:1-7

T. The Appearance of Jesus to the Women - 28:8-10

U. The Bribing of the Guards - 28:11-15

V. The Great Commission - 28:16-20

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: Matthew (Book Introduction)

PREFACE.

——————

IN presenting to the reader the Second Volume [Matt X to XXI] of this Translation of the great work of Cornelius à Lapide, I desire to mention that it has not been within my purpose to give an equivalent for every word of the original. This ought to have been stated at the commencement of the first volume, and I greatly regret the omission.

The stern exigencies of publication have compelled me to compress the translation of the Commentary upon the Gospels within five octavo volumes, when a reproduction of the Latin original, verbatim et literatim , would have probably necessitated seven.

The matter standing thus, I have had to exercise my own judgment as to the character of the necessary omissions and compression. I am perfectly aware that in omitting or compressing anything at all, I expose myself to the full fury of the blasts of unkind, bitter, or unscrupulous criticism; though criticism of this kind has, I am thankful to say, been confined to a single print.

I have no fault whatever to find with the criticism of the R. Catholic Tablet . It was dictated by a thoroughly honest and commendable, but certainly mistaken fear, that I had made omissions for controversial purposes. Of this, I hope I am incapable.

With regard to the other adverse criticism to which I have alluded, I am sorry that I cannot regard it as either just or righteous. One reason is this; the reviewer in question concludes his remarks by saying—"Those who are familiar with Cornelius' work are aware of the terseness and pungency of the author's style. Whether it would be possible to give this in English we cannot say, but the present translators do not appear to have even attempted the task, either in their literal rendering, or in their paraphrased passages, so that much of the sententiousness of the original has evaporated."

It would be almost impossible to single out from the whole range of the history of criticism a more telling example of its frequent utter worthlessness and disregard of a strict adherence to truth. In the first place, with regard to Cornelius himself, those who are best acquainted with him—his greatest lovers and admirers—are aware that if there is one thing more than another which they are disposed to regret, it is his great prolixity, and the inordinate length of his sentences.

Secondly, if the hostile reviewer had examined my translation solely for the purposes of an honest criticism, he could not have helped becoming aware of the fact that there is scarcely a page in which I have not broken up what is a single sentence in the Latin into two, three, and sometimes even more sentences in the English.

Lastly, I need not tell scholars that it would be far more easy and pleasant to myself to translate literally, without any omission whatever, than to have continually to be, as it were, upon the stretch to omit or compress what must be omitted, when very often all seems valuable. I can truly say I have often spent as much time in deliberating what to omit, or how to compress a passage, as would have sufficed to have written a translation of it in full twice over.

About two-thirds of the twenty-first chapter of S. Matthew, the last in this second volume, have been translated without any omission, or compression whatever. A note is appended to the place where this unabridged translation begins. This will enable any one who cares to do so, to compare the abridged portion with the unabridged, and both with the original.

T. W. M.