These earlier chapters of Matthew’s Gospel focus on:
They cast Jesus as much greater than John, for they depict him as:
The text also contains subtle signposts to processes that had been at work for centuries and continued to work in Jesus’ day (for more on this see The Emmaus View).The story of Jesus starts with Adam and encompasses the entire of Biblical history as documented in the Hebrew Bible (for more on this see The Emmaus View). However, compressing all that went before into a single genealogy, Matthew’s Gospel then picks up the story at the time of Jesus birth. At which time Judah had strayed from Godly ways and its ruler, Herod the Great, was all too happy to shed innocent blood in the pursuit of his personal objectives.
The birth of John the Baptist, followed about six months later by that of Jesus, initiated a process that would offer Judah salvation from their spiritual failings. Moreover, this offer ultimately extended beyond Jesus’ own nation, to encompass the world.
After Jesus birth and his presentation at the temple, in accord with Jewish law, a group of magi arrived in Judea. Propelled by an ancient prophecy, they had come to announce the birth of a king, for they had seen a star that heralded the rise of a great leader from the amongst the descendants of King David. The prophecy in question Herod’s advisers recognised perfectly well, for they pointed the king to a prophecy by Micah that referred back to it.
Faced with this challenge to his dynasty, Herod sought to render the prophecy incapable of fulfillment. However, God is not that easily foiled. The holy family were forewarned and fled into Egypt, from which they later returned, for Jesus to grow up in the relative obscurity of the Galilean town of Nazareth.
When John the Baptist began to prophesy and call Judea back to obedient godliness, he oversaw the creation of a willing people amidst which God would work. This prepared the way for Jesus, after baptism and time in the wilderness, to step into the role of law-giver.
The Sermon on the Mount is the first of several great blocks of Jesus’ teaching found in Matthew’s Gospel. As such it introduces us to Jesus’ foundational teaching on the divine law.
. . . now let’s consider an outline of Matt 1:1-12