Matthew

Summary of the Book of Matthew

Written: c. AD 60–85

The New Testament opens with a genealogy, and that choice announces Matthew's whole program: Jesus is "the son of David, the son of Abraham," the point toward which Israel's story has been driving. Traditionally attributed to Matthew the tax collector, one of the Twelve, this Gospel repeatedly pauses its narrative with the formula "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet" — from the virgin's son called Immanuel (1:23) onward. Written for a strongly Jewish readership, it presents Jesus as Messiah and as a new and greater Moses.

The book alternates narrative and teaching, with five great discourses that echo the five books of the Torah: the Sermon on the Mount (5–7), instructions for mission (10), parables of the kingdom (13), life in the church community — including the call to forgive seventy times seven (18) — and the Olivet discourse on judgment and the end (24–25). The narrative hinge comes at Caesarea Philippi, where Peter confesses "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and Jesus immediately begins teaching that the Messiah must suffer, die, and rise.

Matthew's passion account includes distinctive scenes — Judas's thirty pieces of silver, Pilate washing his hands, the guard posted at the tomb — and his resurrection narrative ends on a mountain in Galilee with the Great Commission: all authority given to Jesus, disciples to be made of all nations, and the promise "I am with you always," closing the loop opened by "Immanuel, God with us." Standing first in the New Testament, Matthew is the bridge book: it grounds the gospel in Israel's Scriptures and launches it toward the whole world.

Written to demonstrate to a largely Jewish audience that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and to train his church to obey all he commanded.