Setting and audience
Matthew writes to a largely Jewish-Christian audience, answering the question burning for any first-century Jew: is Jesus of Nazareth the promised Messiah? His emphatic answer, built on Old Testament fulfillment at every turn, is yes — Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham, the new Moses, and Immanuel, “God with us.”
Author and date
Early and unanimous tradition names the apostle Matthew (Levi), the tax collector. Most date it to roughly AD 50–70.
Structure
Matthew is built around five great discourses, echoing the five books of Moses, each closing with “when Jesus had finished these sayings”:
- The Sermon on the Mount (5–7)
- The Mission discourse (10)
- The Parables of the kingdom (13)
- The Community discourse (18)
- The Olivet discourse on the end (24–25)
These alternate with narrative blocks, and the whole drives toward the cross and resurrection and the Great Commission.
Major themes
Fulfillment of Scripture; the kingdom of heaven; Jesus as the new and greater Moses, teacher, and king; righteousness of the heart; and the gospel going to all nations.
Christ in Matthew
The book is bracketed by the presence of God: it opens with “Immanuel, God with us” (1:23) and closes with “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20). Everything in between shows what it means that God has come to be with his people in Jesus.
How to read it
Watch for Matthew’s “this was to fulfill…” formula and his Old Testament echoes — he is constantly showing Jesus completing Israel’s story. Read each discourse as a unit, and let the Sermon on the Mount reset your picture of what God’s kingdom is like.