Questions
These AI images are weird, do you do that on purpose?
Yes! Of course I do! Because I do data work for a living I am familiar with the way the models and algorithms work internally when they create things like AI generated content. They are really easy to fool and make fun of, because AI cannot and does not understand human concepts like metaphor, sarcasm, or even contextual references. It cannot because it is just a computer that connects dots, and we are not at a point where AI can say “oh, this dot is not literal, I need to treat it differently than other dots” because all AI Large Language Models are doing is scraping up stuff from the internet. I dunno if you are aware of this or not (sarcasm, that AI wouldn’t get) but there is some wild religious stuff out on the internet from some wild Christian theories. So, it’s super easy to have AI generate something like this week’s picture simply because it cannot understand the Peter/Rock connection in Greek, or the metaphorical “like a rock” character quality of some humans. Maybe I’m just too immature, but these things amuse me! This week I leaned hard into a silly AI picture just to prove the point.
A Major Rehabilitation of the 12 (Matthew 16:13 - 17:23)
Peter’s recognition of Jesus is one of the most explicit efforts Matthew makes to rehabilitate the image of the 12 from their depiction of hapless idiots in Mark. Matthew takes Mark very much out of sequence here, because the group suddenly appears in Caesarea Philippi out of nowhere. In Mark they appear to be traveling there for Jesus to escape the heat and lay low for a bit outside of Herod Antipas’ jurisdiction. In Matthew they just show up there. Some may assume that Bethsaida is the same place as Gennesaret, and Matthew simply switches the names, but this does not make sense for two reasons. First, Gennesaret is a region, the Sea of Galilee should more likely be called Lake Gennesaret; but, this is also the name for a city south of Capernaum, so to confuse it with a separate specific city doesn’t square with the archaeological and historical record no matter which one Matthew might have been talking about. Second, in Matthew’s narrative, even after the crew arrives in Gennesaret (14:34), Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon (15:21), then comes back to Galilee, and specifically goes to Magadan (15:39). Bethsaida is nowhere in his travel itinerary. Some manuscripts believe Magadan is Magdala, as in the town from which Mary Magdalene gets her name. This also has two problems for squaring Jesus’ record with Mark. First, Ancient writers were unaware of a town called Magdala or Migdal, it is simply assumed to exist by later writers because of Mary Magdalene, but writers closer to Jesus’ time do not know of this place, even those writing from very nearby where Magdala is proposed to have been. Second, even if there was a town named Magdala, and Magadan is supposed to be this place, it is even further south of Capernaum than Gennesaret. After this Jesus and the crew go “the other side” (v5), presumably of the lake / Sea of Galilee. I suppose this could mean they went to the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida, but peran typically means more like “the opposite” or “across from”. So, to sum it all up, Matthew seems to have Jesus and his group suddenly appear in Caesarea Philippi, quite a long journey from where they have been up to this point, and they have not been traveling toward that place.
After that detailed and boring explanation, you might be wondering why the hell it matters so much that Matthew has a different travel route than Mark. Well, the travel itself doesn’t matter nearly as much, but I wanted to point out that discrepancies here because it is important that we remember that these gospels are not eye witness accounts. These are narratives that make an argument about who Jesus was as a figure—they are not histories. If they were histories, Matthew would have to follow Mark much more closely in order to be accurate, unless he has information that Mark does not have. That doesn't seem likely here because Matthew has not offered any new or clarifying geographical details that help make sense of this. And that is because the geographical details do not matter to Matthew’s readers. They understand this is not a history, and you should too. Maybe Matthew just chose to leave out the relevant details and this can be considered a history? Sure, but by that standard I can also tell you that Matthew saw, with his own eyes, Jesus fighting off a pack of angry Velociraptors with modern Krav Maga techniques and didn’t even sustain a scratch, but Matthew also chose to leave that out of his narrative.In Peter’s christological confession narrative notice the small change Matthew makes at the beginning. Rather than asking who people say “I” am, Jesus asks who people say “the Son of man is” (v13). This is another good indication that Matthew is giving Jesus this title—a theological title that Mark did not use for Jesus. While “son of man” was often used during Jesus’ day in place of “I”, this is a consistent change Matthew makes throughout his narrative because he adds theological meaning to it. This tells us there has been evolution in the belief about Jesus between the writing of Mark and the writing of Matthew. If we remember the Son of Man figure as described in Daniel, this figure comes to usher in the new reign of God and to wipe evil and suffering off the earth. Recall that Daniel tells us this figure is an avatar for the people of Israel as a whole. Later Jews wrote religious texts that specified this figure as Enoch, the enigmatic figure from the Torah about whom all we are told is that God took him up to heaven. By the writing of Matthew the Jesus Movement believed this figure would be Jesus. This is where modern Christians get their belief in a Second Coming of Jesus. Paul and Mark still believed in a literal physical Kingdom of God that would appear with the return of Jesus. By the time Matthew writes the expectation of the literal kingdom has apparently lost favor because Jerusalem and the Temple have been destroyed and God was nowhere to be seen. Now, the Son of Man is Jesus, and he will come back to wipe out evil and bring cosmic judgement for the kingdom of heaven. This evolution in theology is one of the most influential in history, and we would not have Christianity as we know it without this.
Notice the next change Matthew makes from Mark. In Mark Peter’s confession is simply that Jesus is the Christ—the Greek word for Messiah. That is it. Peter believes Jesus to be the king of the Jews who will overthrow Rome and establish the Kingdom of God. In Matthew, Peter believes Jesus is not only the messiah but also “the Son of the living God.” (v16). This is something the 12 do not ever realize in Mark, but in Matthew, where the 12 are intelligent and capable students, they can see this clearly. Recall again that this designation of Son of God would be equivalent to other great Jewish figures, not to the literal child of a deity as modern Christians believe, and as Greeks taught happened all the time.
The next several verses are unique to Matthew, and they elevate Peter to the top of the 12. Jesus says Peter learned this only from God, and that he is now the rock [Petros] and on this rock Jesus will build his assembly (usually translated as church). Matthew then tells us that Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven—this is where the “Peter at the pearly gates” idea comes from. It is kind of ironic that the pearly gates idea is more of a caricature, and the most common idea of Peter in modern Christianity is that he was the chief apostle and the head of the first church. As we have discussed, we know historically that James, Jesus’ brother, was the guy who was actually in charge, and Peter seemed to be a lieutenant of James. This is what seems to be more in line with this statement about building the assembly and having keys, at least historically speaking. Having the keys to the kingdom, in this context, is somewhat of a specific statement with a specific meaning—the same way we saw the statement about James the Just being one for whom heaven and Earth came into being in the Gospel of Thomas. Peter having the keys to the kingdom more or less makes him something like what we would refer to as an executive assistant, the guy who makes all the things run smoothly behind the scenes. If this is a statement Jesus actually made, and only Matthew felt the need to include it for some reason, Peter would become like he most trusted official in the royal court of the Kingdom of God, but he would not lead the court himself. This is what the statement about binding and loosing on Earth and in heaven means in the context of all that precedes. Peter, as more or less the chief of staff to the king, will have power to make decisions on behalf of the king in order to oversee the affairs of the king. The binding and loosing was a common phrase in Jesus’ time that essentially meant having civil authority over certain matters or affairs. This included prison or release from prison, arbitration of disputes or contracts, and government conscription or domain. Peter, in this context, is designated as the magistrate of the affairs of Jesus, not as the leader of the religious community. Having the assembly built on Peter makes much more sense in this context, especially if the assembly Jesus was talking about was a religious governing body like the Jewish Sanhedrin. If Peter is the chief of staff he would represent the king at these assembly meetings, and may even have the literal keys to unlock the doors to the meeting hall, and could be the magistrate who leads he meeting and counts votes. However, none of this would make him the leader of the assembly.
Matthew alters language again ever so slightly to help rehabilitate Peter’s image from Mark. Matthew inserts the word apo before the next verse from Mark. The literal meaning is “out of”, and usually means “from”, as in “the car came out of/from the garage”. Adding in this one word creates a separation of time in Matthew that does not exist in Mark. In Mark Jesus begins teaching the disciples about his death as soon as he thinks that Peter might actually realize who he is, but Jesus soon realizes Peter gets it wrong. Matthew has just added material to praise Peter for his recognition, an indication that Peter got it right. To make the rebuke of Peter a little less contradictory, Matthew tells us that from the point of Peter’s recognition on, Jesus started to tell them about his coming death. It does not seem immediate, as it did in Mark, it seems like Jesus started doing this and Peter eventually objected. It seems as though Matthew is attempting to separate these two events that Mark has connected. So, in Matthew, Jesus still does rebuke Peter, but he does all he can to elevate Peter, and rehabilitate his image. After all, who wouldn’t object to the death of their dear teacher!
In taking up the cross Matthew makes another subtle change from Mark. In Mark, Jesus says that anyone who loses their life/soul for his sake or the sake of tou euaggelion will save it. Recall from Section 2 that tou euaggelion is Paul’s phrase for his message, it is the/my announcement. Matthew removes this phrase from v25 because he doesn’t think Paul’s teachings about abandoning the Law of Moses are legitimate. He thinks only Jesus is the cause will help with one finding their life/soul.
Notice again the change Matthew makes at the very end of Chapter 16. The promise in Mark is that some of those present will not die before they see the Kingdom of God established. Well, by the time Matthew was writing many (most? all?) of those present were dead, and there was no Kingdom of God that had come. So, Matthew reframes the timeline. No longer are they talking about the Kingdom of God, which never came, now they are talking about the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. One can argue that this happened at Jesus’ resurrection. If that is how we interpret this, then Jesus’ prophesy is not longer a failure, and all those present except Judas Iscariot, who kills himself, will see the Son of Man come in his kingdom.
Another way to interpret that prophesy, though I believe it is less convincing, is that Peter, James, and John saw the kingdom come at the transfiguration that takes place at the beginning of Chapter 17.
As for the transfiguration itself, it follows Mark almost word for word. As far as the development of Christianity goes, there is not anything new here to add beyond what we said when we have discussed in Mark. After the transfiguration the disciples ask Jesus about the coming of Elijah. What is interesting is that Matthew changes Mark’s version a bit to emphasize—and Matthew even says so explicitly—that John the Baptist was the coming of Elijah. This was hinted at in Mark, but since the disciples are airheads Mark never tells us they got the hint. In Matthew, v13 is clear they understand John the Baptist to be the Elijah coming.
Matthew continues to follow Mark’s narrative and places he healing of the epileptic boy next. The placement of this miracle, which does a lot of heavy lifting for the narrative of Mark, is a bit awkward in Matthew because it feels out of place. In Mark this fits in well with all the other failures of the 12 in this section, but Matthew has rewritten these stories in this section to rehabilitate the 12. Now, the narrative reads like Jesus is explaining, and the 12 are understanding, the tasks that Jesus must complete as the Messiah. So, placing a miracle in the middle of this new understanding breaks up the flow of Matthew’s narrative. Perhaps this is why Matthew cuts down the story significantly. No longer are the other nine disciples discussing the sick boy with the scribes; some of the details of the boy’s condition are omitted; and we don’t hear anything in Matthew about a demon until after Jesus has heals the boy. Matthew also removes he discussion Jesus has with the boy’s father in Mark almost entirely, and removes any hint that this man might have lacked faith and been uncertain because the disciples were unsuccessful in attempting to heal the boy. Finally, for Matthew the 12 were unable to heal the boy because they are still learning, and Jesus uses their inadequate faith as a teaching moment to tell them that if they have faith like a mustard seed, they can move mountains. The whole episode is reframed so that this is all simple for Jesus, so that everyone believes entirely that Jesus can do this miracle, and so that the 12 can grow rather than demonstrate their ineptitude.
The final event in this sequence also serves to rehabilitate the 12. In just a few lines, as Matthew omits much of Mark again, Jesus tells the 12 he, the Son of Man, will be killed and will be raised again on the third day. The group is “greatly distressed” (v23) because they know this would mean the failure of the traditional messianic mission, but after everything in this section they get it. They now know Jesus’ mission is not the traditional one. They are now distressed at the death of their leader, because Matthew removes Mark’s indication that none of them understood what Jesus was talking about, and were afraid to ask him because Jesus had been so frustrated with their lack of understanding.
Governing the Movement (Matthew 17:24 - 18:35)
Another indication that the disciples actually get it in Matthew is that he creates an entire section in which Jesus is giving instruction on how to govern the movement, presumably after he is dead.
Matthew inserts some of his own unique material to show again that Jesus was a faithful Jew who followed Jewish expectations, and did not do away with the Law of Moses or intend to start a new religion. Jesus has a dialogue with Peter, who perfectly understands what Jesus wants and intends—something Peter would not have done in Mark. Despite Jesus declaring that he and his followers are free from the Temple tax, he instructs it to be paid so as not to offend other Jews. This statement that would not have been controversial to Matthew’s group because the Temple had already been destroyed, and they had been kicked out of their synagogue, so they had no more loyalty to the Jewish religious infrastructure, despite still being thoroughly Jewish. Matthew makes sure to thread this needle to make this clear, as Jesus performs a miracle to pay the tax even though he believes he is not required to do so.
In the next story Matthew changes the wording again from Mark, quite significantly, in order to make the 12 look less greedy and power hungry. No longer is the genesis of the story an argument the 12 are having among themselves about who is greatest; now, Jesus simply asks the questions rhetorically as a teaching moment. Interestingly, Jesus goes right to bringing in a little child and Matthew has a new statement from Jesus, that only those who become like children will get into heaven (18:3), and the one who is humble like a child will be the greatest.
I want to pause to make clear what Matthew is talking about in v8, when in English it reads “eternal fire”. This may sound like a reference to Hell, as we conceive of it in modern times. However, the most likely explanation is that it is not. If it were, it would be the only reference to something like Hell that Matthew makes, and the only one Jesus makes. Because it is so out of place we should look for another meaning that is more likely to fit with the context of fire and burning in the rest of the narrative. As we have seen, Matthew either believes in annihilation rather than eternal torture, or he is quoting Jesus who believed this. In this verse the word for “eternal” is aionion. We have run into this word before when we discussed age-long life in the Kingdom of God. This word means age-long or lasting an era. So this fire lasts an age, and in the context of the apocalypticism of Jesus and the burning of those who fail judgement in Matthew, the explanation that best fits within the narrative is that Matthew thinks the fire that burns the wicked at judgement will last for an age. We should probably understand this to mean that it is burning during the entire second coming of Jesus, and people are thrown in throughout that period. Nothing in here suggests they burn for a longer period of time—the simply are thrown in and annihilated—but that the fire stays lit for a long period of time.
Although this could be a later copyist attempting to put the later theological belief of Hell into Matthew, a perhaps more likely explanation is that this is Matthew’s interpretation of Mark’s words. Mark tells us these people will be thrown into Gehenna, which we can remember is the valley southwest of Jerusalem where child sacrifices were made. Mark calls the fire unquenchable, so Matthew calling it age-long (or even eternal) is just a way of rephrasing Mark. While Matthew doesn’t mention Gehenna specifically in v8, he does in v9 when he calls the place the “Gehenna of fire”. All of these contextual clues make it pretty clear this is not a reference to Hell the way modern Christians understand it.Mark’s statement about salt is a bit confusing. Matthew seems to clear it up. He makes clear to the 12 (at least we can only assume he is still talking specifically to the 12), that they are the salt. This is a high compliment, and one Mark does not make, and we cannot imagine Mark agreeing with. However, Matthew also adds a warning, that if the 12 fail in their duties they are useless and will become nothing. I think those in the Jesus Movement would see this as a pretty clear reference to the proto-orthodoxy of Paul. If they leave their Jewish roots for the Greek based proto-orthodox early Christianity, Matthew seems to think, or to understand Jesus as thinking, that they become worthless and lose their spiritual status.
I don’t know if any of you have ever had the unfortunate displeasure of tending any sheep, but they are just about the dumbest animal that ever lived. This makes the lost sheep parable more interesting to me. I dunno if sheep were just way smarter 2,000 years ago, or if Jesus is just calling all of us really dumb when he compares us to sheep, but I kind of suspect it’s the latter…
The instruction about reproving your brother is historically interesting. We saw from Paul that he was trying to keep interpersonal disputes among his congregations out of the courts. He wanted to project a unity and a community to the outward world because he was advertising his belief system, with Jesus at the center, as the ideal way to achieve mastery of the soul. Matthew seems to be having similar concerns with his group. While Luke, and therefore, likely Q, has a similar saying, Matthew greatly expands it and adds more information and more context. Matthew specifically adds the instruction to keep a dispute private between the two parties (v15), something that Luke only loosely implies. Matthew adds instruction unique to him, that if private redress fails, take only one or two with you as witnesses to attempt to solve the dispute. If this still fails, take the matter to the whole church. If this fails, then treat the man like a non-Jew or like a tax collector. This would be the equivalent of excommunication, shunning, or any other common religious practice today. This is also a clear indication that Matthew is Jewish and so is his community. It is pretty telling, and pretty interesting, that Jesus clearly associated with tax collectors and called at least one (two if Matthew and Levi are different people) to be among his closest students, but 50-100 years later the Jewish community formed around Jesus is back to despising tax collectors. Perhaps they always did, and Jesus had to constantly defend Matthew and/or Levi during his life?
In v18 we see Jesus repeat the authority to bind and loose. This time it appears to be given to all the 12, whereas in Chapter 16 it appears to have been given to just Peter. Peter is still the Chief of Staff—the designated holder of the keys—but Jesus, at least according to Matthew (none of the other gospel writers mention anything about these civil and magisterial duties) has given all the 12 the authority to rule in civil matters.
The parallel between v18-19 and the saying in the Gospel of Thomas is a bit striking. In Thomas, Jesus tells us that if two men make peace they can move mountains. While Matthew sets that ability as a consequence of faith, v18-19 sound similar to Thomas in their core message. Peaceable agreement (this is still in the context of resolving disputes) between two people will allow them to ask God for anything. When two or three gather in Jesus’ name, presumably in peaceable agreement, he will be there. Perhaps this saying is directed only to the 12—that is the context of the narrative—but it would still be noticed a lot by those in Matthew’s community who were apparently having trouble with community cohesion.
The instruction to Peter—and Matthew likely wanted this to be understood by his community—to forgive is one that holds context many Christians miss. This is a teaching only Matthew has. Luke, and therefore, likely Q, has a much shorter version that does in fact specify seven as the number of times to forgive—although Luke says in one day, so this should probably not be understood as the requirement before you can just be a dick to people if you’ve forgiven them seven times. However, Matthew takes it further. Seven is considered the number of perfection in Hebrew numerology, so Luke, and Peter here in Matthew, are asking if they should forgive seven times. The use of seven here implies that they should be very forgiving, it would probably not be understood by Jews to mean a literal number. But Jesus tells Peter this is not good enough. Instead they should forgive 70 sevens. Why is this so important? Well, do you remember Daniel’s calendar counting down the end of the world? It was seventy weeks of years, or 70 sevens; it was a 490 year calendar. Jesus is telling Peter—and Matthew is telling his Jewish community of the Jesus Movement—to forgive each other 490 times. The instruction here is to forgive, literally, until the end of the world. When time ends, and Jesus comes back, and the kingdom of heaven is opened to all the living, that, according to Matthew, is when we no longer need to forgive. In other words, we cannot ever hit a number too high in terms of forgiveness, it is a perpetual requirement.
Matthew backs up his teaching that forgiveness is required until the end of the world with a parable that is unique to him. It is remarkable that the king simply forgives a debt of 10,000 talents. It is difficult to express how large a sum of money this is. A single talent would be about 15 years of wages for an ordinary worker during Jesus’ time. Thus, if we are calculating, it would take 150,000 years to repay this debt if the worker never spent any money on food or housing. But, it gets even bigger. The Greek word murios that gets translated as 10,000 is not an exact number. It is where we get the English “myriad” from, and it is more often used the way we, in the US, would say “gazillion”. It just means immeasurable or innumerable. 10,000 was a number so large in that day that it often meant something was immeasurable. National treasury accounts were often in the ballpark of hundreds of talents, so even if 10,000 were meant to be exact, it is more than any one person could ever pay. Yet the king simply forgives the debt. Notice, this debt is not atoned for, it is simply discarded. This is what the Jewish belief—and as far as we can tell, the early Christian belief—was for the handling of sins. God, merciful and loving, simply forgave. There was no need for a sacrificial intermediary. As we have discussed in previous sections, the Temple sacrifices were a way to help persuade God, to demonstrate that a person deserved forgiveness or was deferring to God in humility. They were not understood as somehow paying for the sin so that the books were squared. This idea of penal substitution did not exist until Martin Luther.
After all of this, the man refuses to forgive a debt of a single day’s wages to one of this fellow slaves. The King hears this and decides to unforgiven the debt, and throws the man in jail until all the debt is paid.
There are several theological implications to this story that are worth discussing. The first is with forgiveness. Matthew is telling his readers that if they do not forgive, essentially what they are saying is “I am smarter than God. God might forgive you, but I know better than God, and I do not forgive you.” This is why forgiveness is required until the end of the world. In modern Christian terms, where so many believe in penal substitution, the refusal to forgive is even more stark because a person who will not forgive is saying they do not care that Jesus paid for a sin, they still know better than Jesus. Even though Jesus suffered for that sin, Jesus doesn’t know what he is talking about, but I do, and I will not forgive this person. Second, the idea that the wicked slave is thrown into prison until the debt is paid is a very Greek idea. Notice that the wicked slave is not thrown in prison for eternity. 150,000 years is a long time, but if we are talking a span of trillions of years in eternity, this is a payable debt. Once it is paid the slave will be free. This is a very platonic belief, that evil souls suffer the punishment of their choices after they die, and when they have endured what is owed the souls can leave their punishment. We have seen many times, and in many ways, that Hell as we think of it as modern Christians does not exist in the Bible. Here we see a teaching that even the worst souls can be redeemed if they pay their debt. There were several early Christian theologians in the first centuries of Christianity who taught this—that everyone would eventually be saved. That seems to be what Matthew is implying here, and it fits with biblical evidence much more than an eternal hell or suffering. But, for the souls who live good lives and attempt to master their souls, God will be forgiving.
On the way to Jerusalem (Matthew 19:1 - 20:34)
In the teaching about divorce Matthew copies more or less word for word from Mark. However, at the end of the instruction Matthew inserts unique material that is worth unpacking. The 12 ask if it is not just better to be celibate because of Jesus’ teaching on divorce. Jesus responds in an odd way about eunuchs—men who have been castrated. This really doesn't make much sense in the context of the divorce teaching, but here it is nonetheless. In the ancient world a eunuch was considered a kind of anomalous gender. They were not quite a man, not quite a woman. When a nation was conquered many times some of the nobles would be castrated and then given employ in the conquering king’s court. They would advise the king on how to rule over the foreign people conquered, and they could share the education and wisdom of their nation with the king’s court, spreading trade techniques and technology. They were castrated because this removed any threat they might pose to the king himself. If, for instance, a conquered Jewish elite got the wife of the king of Babylon pregnant, that child might become a threat to the king’s throne. Apparently, according to scholars, the women loved to have the eunuchs around as well because it meant they could have sex without any risk of pregnancy. Women using eunuchs for sex was apparently a common practice, which would undercut the usefulness of this teaching in regards to divorce. What is more strange here is that Jesus identifies not only the people who are made into eunuchs—like those captured in war—but also says there are some who are born that way, and some “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (v12)! This is quite strange. Why would one make themselves a third gender, or an incomplete man, for the sake of heaven? There must be something about Matthew or his community that is lost to history that would explain this. I have heard some modern Christians say this is more about celibacy than it is about castration, but this makes no sense and scholars reject this because of how Jewish we have seen Matthew was. Jews are not celibate, quite the opposite. Fertility is celebrated by Jews and reproduction is encouraged, especially in Matthew’s day. It is also odd that Jesus says some are born as eunuchs. I really don’t know of any other way to read this teaching of Jesus than as a fairly clear endorsement of inclusivity for people who are not gender binary. I’m sure fundamentalists would argue that eunuchs are still men, just men unable to reproduce, but that is not how they were viewed in the ancient world. Jennifer Bird is a Bible scholar whose work focuses on gender and gender roles in the ancient world, and she has a lot more information on this topic. The bottom line is that Jesus, in Matthew, seems open to accepting all genders, and even seems to accept that some are born as neither male nor female.
The story of the rich man who comes to Jesus is nearly identical to Mark; however, there is one difference worth noting. Jesus tells this man that selling his possessions and giving to the poor will make him telios. This is the concept of completeness, wholeness, or possibly, as the English translates it, perfection. As we discussed in Section 2, Paul uses telios to describe those who are likely to be reproduced as Gods. Matthew seems to think that extreme charity and generosity is a requirement. This makes a lot of sense given Jesus’ other teachings—those attested in multiple sources—and Greek mastery of the soul. It also fits in well with Jewish philosophy of hospitality and the great commandments. Matthew is saying that anyone who wants to be a complete person must be willing to help the poor.
Just like in Mark, Matthew adds the camel in the eye of a needle metaphor to strengthen Jesus’ point. Matthew does remove some of the amazement of the 12 because he doesn’t want them to come across as greedy, like they do in Mark, but the point remains the same. It is only after hearing the eye of the needle teaching the 12 are astonished because, as we discussed in Mark, this is meant quite literally, and it would imply, as the 12 understand, that nobody can be saved. Jesus tells them this is correct, only with God can someone be saved.
What follows is not in Mark, but likely comes from Q. Jesus tells the 12 they will sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel (v28). This is likely something Jesus actually taught because it is early material, if it was in Q, and it is quite embarrassing. The Kingdom of God never came—not even Jesus sat on a throne, let alone the 12. Even if we reorient this to the kingdom of heaven (which does not seem to be the context of Q since it clearly mentions the new world), Judas is still among the 12 at this point, and Jesus has just promised all of them a throne—even Judas! This is embarrassing since we all know Judas will betray Jesus soon, so it is highly likely to be historical because this is not something later writers would have made up.
Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard is unique to Matthew, and it is difficult to know what to make of it in the context of the development of Christianity. We can see that Matthew, because this is his unique material that Mark, Luke, and Q do not have, seems to be less concerned with the apocalypse that Mark, Paul, and Q obsess over. The parable demonstrates that the end of the labor is certainly some time off in the future. We have seen this belief of Matthew many times throughout his narrative by the way he alters Mark’s language and reorients Jesus’ teaching away from the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of heaven. Historically speaking, a denarius was a generous wage for a day of labor, but not extravagant—perhaps 50% more than the normal going rate if we base it off of a Roman soldier’s yearly pay. So, the master is generous to all the laborers, not just those who did not work a full day. The message is often interpreted as those who convert to Christianity late in their lives still get to go to heaven, however, that interpretation only fits a modern context. As we have seen, Matthew and Jesus were both thoroughly Jewish, so if that is the meaning of the parable then it would apply to Greeks who convert to Judaism and follow the labors of the Law of Moses. In this context Jesus would be more generous than other Jewish owners of the vineyard because his Jewish philosophy has more to offer in Matthew’s perspective. The last line of the parable tells us what Matthew cares about, that the first and last will switch places. Matthew tells us this at the end of Chapter 19—the last words Jesus says before this parable. Then he uses this phrase again at the end of this parable. Perhaps a good interpretation is that those looked down upon by the traditional Jews who kicked the Jesus Movement out of their synagogue will end up being last, and the Jesus Movement and its Greek converts will be the first in the eyes of God. This, however, does not imply the other Jews will be burned at judgement as Jesus tells us the wicked will. From context the traditional Jews still receive the agreed upon reward.
Matthew almost word for word copies Mark in Jesus’ prediction of his death. He even uses Son of Man in the same context—the context that sounds more like the common saying meaning “I”. However, Matthew’s readers likely understand this a little differently because, unlike Mark, Jesus seems to have been identified as the Son of Man throughout the narrative.
Before reaching Jerusalem, we see the same story Mark includes about James and John wanting to have the most powerful and prominent positions in Jesus’ kingdom. Mark uses this story to emphasize the failures of the 12, and how they do not understand the nature of the Kingdom of God or the mission of Jesus. Matthew, characteristically, doesn’t like this and changes the story. No longer is it James and John who ask for the special privileges and recognition, but it is their mom who asks. Still, Matthew makes sure to include Mark’s phrase that the greatest among them must be like a slave to all.
Matthew now includes a second healing of two blind men. This story in Matthew is strikingly similar to the story Matthew told in Chapter 9. In fact, it feels more similar to that than the story of Bartimaeus in Mark. The healing narrative itself, the end part of the story, uses some of the same language as Mark, but these two blind men are not told to keep their healing a secret as Bartimaeus is told in Mark.
Blind Explanation
This week is really an important flow from what we learned last week. Matthew goes to great lengths to rehabilitate the 12. For Mark, making the 12 a bunch of useless idiots increases the need for Paul to come along and save the Jesus Movement from itself. While it may have looked like Jesus was the one who made a mistake in choosing the 12, it was an easy story to spin to say that the 12 would have been fine if only they had been willing to look outside of their Judaism, they way Paul was. Paul was initially a Jew—and he even claims to have been quite a devout Jew—but he saw Jesus and realized what “true” Judaism was supposed to be. The 12, for whatever reason, never did. At least not according to Paul and Mark. They saw Jesus, and Paul even says they saw him as a resurrected life giving spirit, but they never connected the dots the way Paul claims to have done.
Matthew, however, goes to great lengths to make sure all the dots get connected. We see a thoroughly Jewish writer who depicts Jesus and the 12 as devout Jews (likely true historically), but they see the bigger picture like Paul sees. They see the kingdom of heaven where Paul saw only the Kingdom of God which never came. In an odd way this alone is a reversal of Paul’s Greek ideas and James’ Jewish ideas. The reorientation to a kingdom of heaven for the soul is very Greek, and Paul’s apocalyptic view of the Kingdom of God is Second Temple Judaism 101. Matthew connects Jesus with the Son of Man, with the Suffering Servant, the Son of David, even the Holy One (typically only the Jewish God). Matthew takes Hebrew scripture and time after time applies them to Jesus even when they aren’t a good fit. Not only is the credibility of the 12 established, but the credibility of the Jesus Movement as a whole—the idea that Jesus and his followers were originally, and still should be, Jewish to their core—is rehabilitated and heavily supported in Matthew’s narrative.
After this hefty rehabilitation task that has taken place over several weeks in our class, Matthew basically gives governing instructions and communal expectations for the group. There are a number of unique stories and parables in Matthew, and many of them are about the internal workings of the Jesus Movement and the relationship the Jesus Movement has to the rest of Judaism who do not believe the messiah has come. With the temple tax question Matthew is clear that even if the group sees some Jewish requirements as unnecessary, they are still Jewish and should follow them. They must be humble like children, treat children well, and disregard their own physical appetites to strengthen their souls. They are to look after and go after those who are “lost sheep”, and some fairly specific instructions are given to handling disagreements and keeping internal disputes out of courts. They must be very forgiving and they should not divorce.
After all of this Matthew lays out the final act of the narrative. He sets up the trip to Jerusalem. Jesus is clear that all are welcome in the movement, even saying some eunuchs become that way for the sake of God. This is in addition to what we saw at the beginning of Matthew where the hints are all there that Jesus blesses a same sex relationship between a centurion and his slave. In Matthew’s narrative Jesus includes everyone, heals everyone, cares for everyone (especially the poor), and tells them this will make them become first in the eyes of God. This, as it seems, is the last thing Matthew wants his group to know before the their attention turns away from their situation and to the final week of Jesus’ life. There will still be great lessons to learn from this week, but the basics are firmly set in the narrative, and now they can be built on.