SNBS The Book of Matthew Part I

What's up, everybody? It's time for our study on the book of Matthew. We're gonna be here a while.

I'll put up here how long I think this will take us. So, let me stop that. I'll put it to March 2023.

We'll see. The in -person Bible study here at Witten Baptist Church in Memphis is already on chapter 4.

So we have some catching up to do. So let's get to work. The writer, even though the work in and of itself is anonymous, early church tradition and internal evidence gives way for us to accept that this is

Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector, who wrote this. We don't know the exact date, but late 50s to late 60s is a good date for when this would have been written.

There's a lot of debate about which comes first, Mark or Matthew. You know, there's a lot of scholars, some secular, but even some evangelical scholars who say

Mark was first and that there's this other gospel cue that's since been lost.

I don't think there's any evidence for that. But then they'll start saying things like one of the gospel writers were dependent on the other.

And this especially makes me laugh when we have secular scholars say, well

Mark, well, I mean Matthew was dependent on Mark. Why would Matthew, an eyewitness, be dependent on a non -eyewitness for writing his gospel?

That just doesn't make sense to me. At any rate, guys, I'm okay with saying things like the writers had read each other's works.

That's possible. I mean, we can't know that, but the only dependence to be had is that of the Holy Spirit.

Even a cursory reading shows us the audience Matthew intends to write to is Jews, and his purpose is to prove to them that Jesus really is the promised

Messiah of the Old Testament. To make that point, Matthew quotes from the Old Testament between 55 and 60 times, depending on how you count it.

The other three Gospels quote from the Old Testament a total of 65 times. Matthew bases most of his major arguments on fulfillments of prophecies from the

Old Testament to show that Jesus really was the Messiah. Matthew is not really as focused much on chronological writing, and you'll notice this, man, as I started reading

Matthew, he focuses it around, and I had some help reading some scholars on this, on five discourses, five sermons

Jesus taught, if you want to think of it that way, and then narration of events in between each of one of those sermons.

Since he's preaching those sermons and telling events leading up to them, Matthew doesn't necessarily write his gospel in the chronological order of Jesus's life, but more focuses on his words and events that surround those words, okay?

So again, not necessarily chronological. There had been a lot of work, especially by A .T.

Robinson, I believe it's how you say his name, on a harmony of the Gospels. Right here, yeah,

A .T. Robinson, A Harmony of the Gospels, and a lot of people use his work to make it chronological.

Anyway, just have that back in your mind as we're reading Matthew, it is not necessarily in chronological order.

To give you one example of this, well, or maybe not a good example of chronology, but John, for example, mentions

Jesus's cleansing of a temple at the beginning of his ministry, but the other three mention him doing it at the end of his ministry.

So Jesus did it twice. Matthew chooses not to mention the first cleansing, that first very short, probably, visit to Jerusalem.

Matthew goes straight into his ministry, starting in Nazareth and Galilee. Which, of course, it did, but John mentions a visit to Jerusalem early on.

Okay, so that's a little bit of background stuff. We won't go into everything I wrote here. Section 1,

I have just the first two chapters. Our Greek of the week for this week is Christos. We're gonna see this, and our

Greek takes a minute. Christos literally means anointed. It is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah used 529 times in the

New Testament alone. So chapter 1, 1 through 17, we have a genealogy of Jesus.

This happens in Matthew and in Luke. Couple reminders, son of does not always mean literal son, but sometimes a direct descendant, like grandson.

This happens in a lot of cultures. Now, you'll say son of, but really they're not their son.

They are a grandson or something like that. Like when the blind men call Jesus the son of David, the descendant of David, they are affirming that he is the

Messiah. In verse 5, we're gonna see two women that apart from grace do not belong in the list of the chronology of Jesus and the line of David.

And those women are, of course, Ruth and Rahab. They should not be in that list apart from grace.

But God's salvation was always for all the world. God told Abram, all nations will be blessed through you.

But what I want to point out, and I'm about to switch to a text, is that Matthew has this knowledge of this genealogy because he has reliable documents of the

Old Testament. Guys, the Bible was not written by the Catholic Church or by Emperor Constantine.

Matthew was able to write this gospel and quote the Old Testament 60 times because he had access to the

Old Testament because it was already widespread and available. It's not that difficult. That's why it's so important to defend the

New Testament because if you can defend the New Testament in its authenticity, you are almost by default defending the

Old Testament because so much of it is quoted in the New Testament. That's why

I love, man, I think it's, oh, I don't want to lie to you, and I want to say it's in Hebrews, where the author actually quotes the second psalm, and he says the second psalm, showing the psalms had already been compiled.

It's just incredible. Yeah, and you'll see a list of the same fathers mentioned in Matthew mentioned in 1

Chronicles 3. Okay, our next section goes into the actual birth of Jesus.

Okay, so let's go over to a text and read this section for a minute.

Okay, so here's Matthew, and yes, as I scroll down, you'll see here's

Rahab, and here's Ruth, who otherwise should not be in this list.

They were not Jewish. Rahab was a pagan from Jericho.

Ruth was a Moabite. My memory serves me correct, but of course, Grace, Abraham believed

God, and was credited to him as righteousness. Faith has always been the prerequisite. Okay.

All right, so now we have Jesus. Birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, betrothed is much like engagement, but it's taken very seriously.

It takes a divorce to break a betrothal. They are married. They just have not consummated it with physical touch yet.

As we see, before they came together, before they moved in together, she was found to be with child from the

Holy Spirit. Pneumatos or Pneumatos Hagia, the

Holy Spirit. Her husband, notice he's already called her husband, her man, her husband, her man,

Joseph, being a just man, being a just man, and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

Now, what's Joseph's immediate reaction to this before the angel talks to him? Obviously, he would think that Mary has cheated on him, and even in that, he doesn't want to put her to shame.

He decides to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, Angelos, an angel of the

Lord, a messenger, appeared to him saying, Take Mary as your wife. She's conceived from the Holy Spirit. She'll bear your son.

You will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. I'm gonna read this again, guys. Verse 21.

She will bear his son, and you will call his name Jesus. Now, it's important to note the word

Jesus means Savior, Yeshua, Yahweh saves.

For he will save his people from their sins.

Amarteyan, Harmateyan. I always remember that word because it's like harm. Harmateyan. He will save,

Soter, Soze, Sozei, He will save his people. See that there?

His people. His people from their sins.

His people. Al too. Guys, I want you to notice something about the beautiful doctrine of election.

They are already his people before he has died for them. He's not even born yet, and they're already his people.

And I would hesitate, I don't want to encourage you to think of this simply as his people being his ethnic

Jewish people. Oh, no, because in John 10, he talks about his sheep and the sheep, his sheep.

Some of them are not of that fold. They're of other folds, the Gentiles. His people is all those that he has been given by the

Father, that the Father has chosen. And they are already his people. Ladies and gentlemen, do you not see the beautiful doctrine of election?

You were chosen before the foundation of the world for salvation. We love him because he first loved us.

We're already his people before we even recognize it or even submit to it. All this took place to fulfill it.

The reason it took place, hinnah, so that to fulfill what the Lord has spoken from the prophet, and this is a quote from Isaiah 7 14,

Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means

God with us. God with us.

It means God with us. The name Emmanuel means God with us. Matthew fills the need to interpret it for us there.

Notice it doesn't mean God sent someone to us. It literally means God with us.

Couple more here, and we'll go back to the handout. When Joseph woke from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but he knew her not until, remember that word, until she had given birth to a son.

He called his name Jesus. Okay, now,

I wonder if you guys can see that good enough. Maybe I can make it bigger. Yeah, that works, doesn't it?

I think it does. If not, someone can comment later.

So they're already his people. Yes, I noted that here, but verse 25

I highlighted where it said until. He did not have sex with his wife Mary until Jesus was born.

Roman Catholics, I shouldn't capitalize that, I think, Roman Catholics teach in the perpetual virginity of Mary that she remained a virgin her whole life.

Now, the Bible mentions at least six siblings of Jesus.

In the Gospel of Mark, it mentions his four brothers by name. Let's see, Jude, James, I'm gonna forget them.

I'm gonna forget them. It mentions four brothers by name and then says his sisters, which implies at least two.

So he had at least six siblings. Roman Catholics believe the perpetual virginity of Mary is taught through some oral tradition that it's binding just like the

Bible, even though that is not in the Bible. That tradition is just as binding.

That what they will do when you present them with a text like that is they will say, oh, yeah, Joseph must have left

Mary and married another woman. There's no evidence of that, but they would rather go to those extremes and just teach the plain meaning of Scripture.

When the Bible says he did not have sex with her until Jesus was born, that implies he did after he was born.

If I say don't show up to my house until five, that means at five, I plan on you showing up at my house.

It's not that difficult. Yes, the only reason that the betrothal was not a full -blown marriage because they had not been consummated, i .e.

they had not had sex yet. R .E. spoke about that his people, through a local study of election, and I went into this with Isaiah 53 and John 10 and Ephesians 5 and all that stuff, but only by reading one chapter of Matthew, we already recognize that salvation will take place through the death of Jesus by absorbing the wrath of God, also known as penal substitutionary atonement.

Um, what else we got here?

Yeah, of course, we have highlighted here in the virgin birth imputation. Because he was born of a virgin, he's not born with the imputing sin of Adam, and this way he could be a savior that could overcome temptation, live a perfect life of obedience to God, be punished for our sin while transferring the credit of his perfectly lived life to our account.

We get our sin, I'm sorry, he gets our sin, we get his righteousness. That's the beautiful doctrine of the imputation.

Notice again that Emmanuel means God with us, not just God sent someone to us, but God is truly with us.

Yes? Amen? All right. Um, that's chapter one in a nutshell, and believe it or not,

I think we're gonna call that good. Yeah, I think we will. Guys, I know that was relatively short, but I just wanted to give you an overview of the book of Matthew and quickly go through chapter one to set the scene for chapter two.

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