Gospel Of Matthew

For this essay I chose to write about the Gospel of Matthew. I chose this particular one because it speaks out to me on a spiritual level. The Gospel according to Matthew is the first book in the New Testament, and also serves as a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The gospel tells us of Jesus and his teachings that he wants his people to follow as a Law. It is believed that the Gospel originated with Matthew, one of Jesus' disciples, and it circulated anonymously (Harris 149).

The message in this gospel is heavily displayed on the sermon on the mount. Essentially, the central teaching to the sermon is to have a good heart and to rely on the Lord. Throughout all of the teachings, Jesus brings up heart issues. If you are

At various points in his Gospel, Matthew shows Jesus providing halakic interpretations of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-48) particularly on such legal matters as Sabbath observance and divorce (Matthew 12:1-21). He collected Jesus' sayings in five main places. He speaks of the famous Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5-7. As an evangelist, Matthew discovered the need to explain the person of Jesus in order to encourage the development of Christian awareness (Albright LIV). He broadened the Old Law by incorporating love to include the love of one's enemy, as the fulfillment of God's will (Matthew 5:44). In the same way, Matthew's message showed us how the fulfilling of the law was to be understood. An example of this appears in Matthew 5:48, "be you perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect". Matthew's eschatological vision made charitable acts the standard in distinguishing good people from bad because he imitated the ancient Israelite prophets, who regarded service to the poor and unfortunate as acts of worship to God (Harris 172). Matthew heightened the miraculous element in his teachings, stressing that Jesus affected instant cures in Matthew 9:22 and 15:28. Matthew assembled disparate sayings of Jesus and applied them to the Christian community of the writer's generation. He shared advice on supervising troublesome people, prophetic promises, and direct commands. In Matthew's view of the church, service, humility, and endless forgiveness are the measure of leadership (Harris 169). Practicing the spirit of Torah mercy, the church is the earthly expression of divine rule, a visible manifestation of the kingdom. In regulating the community, Matthew gave individual "congregations" the right to exclude or ostracize disobedient members (Matthew 18:15-17). Matthew also taught that "unchastity" or sexual unfaithfulness provides grounds for lawful divorce (Matthew 19:3-9). In composing his