Chapter Two - Quick Notes and Facts

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  Note that we only guess at three magi because they bring three gifts. Later tradition has given them names (Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior) and ethnicities (one from Europe, one from Asia and one from Africa.)


• A great deal of ink has been spilled trying to connect the ‘star’ with a known astronomical phenonmenon. It could have been any of a number of events, or none of them, and merely a device in the way the author tells the story.


• The gifts are all symbols which tell us of the child’s significance and fate: gold is a gift fit for a king; franckincense for worship of a god; myrrh was a common extract used in preparing the dead. The song, “We Three Kings” has a verse that explains each one.


• There is no mention of this massacre of children in any other contemporary source.


• It seems, in Matthew’s narrative, that they lived in Bethlehem before the birth and then re-settled in Nazareth when they returned from Egypt.

Chapter Two - Question 5

Who is more important in how this story is told? Mary or Joseph?

Chapter Two - Question 4

There is a theme of disruption in this story (escape from murder, being a refugee). Why do we see the Christ in all this trouble? Wouldn’t it make more sense to gloss over any difficulties and prove that God is always more powerful than any trouble?

Chapter Two - Question 3

The absolutely most important event for the people of Israel was their rescue from slavery in Egypt by the hand of God. Why do you think that the author would want us to know the Jesus, too, was brought from Egypt?

Chapter Two - Question 2

There is a great deal of parallelism between the way this story is told and what we hear of Moses in Exodus. Compare the “massacre of the innocents” in Exodus 1 with this. What are the parallel conclusions that the gospel writer wants to leave us with?

Chapter Two - Question 1

Like chapter 1, the story told here is different from Luke’s Christmas story. Compare this chapter to Luke 2. Any similarities? How do they differ?

Epiphany - and flight

As we mark the Christmas season, we hear from this chapter a great deal. The Feast of the Holy Family, celebrated first, tells of the flight into Egypt. The Feast of the Epiphany tells of the visit of the magi.

Both of these, told together, set up the balance between the Jewish and Gentile themes. Jesus, like the Hebrew people before him, takes refuge in Egypt, and then returns. The magi represent all the nations who come to recognize him.

As you read and reflect on this chapter, see the themes take shape and continue to draw the lines between them and the other chapters you have read.

Chapter One - Quick Notes and Facts

• The geneology in Matthew puts Jesus squarely in the Jewish tradition. It begins with Abraham, the patriarch and first believer in the one God. There are fourteen patriarchs, fourteen kings of Israel (putting Jesus in the line of King David) and fourteen “unknowns.”


• There are also four women mentioned other than Mary. All have something “wrong” with them. They include a deceiver in the name of justice (Tamar in Genesis 38), a prostitute (Rahab in Joshua 2), a foreigner (Ruth), and an adulteress, (Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah in 2 Samuel 11).


• Betrothed couples were allowed in Jewish culture to have sexual relations before the formal wedding. Joseph knew, however, that since he could not be the father of Mary’s child, to denounce her would make her liable to death by stoning, or at least, disgrace.


• Compare the story of Joseph in Genesis to this Joseph. There seems to be a deliberate attempt by the author to evoke the story of the first Joseph. His dreams lead to the story of the Exodus, and the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The dream of the New Testament Joseph also points to salvation. (The baby's name is announced, and is significant, for one thing.)


• The name “Jesus” is really the Hebrew “Joshua.” (Jesus is the Latin equivalent.) It would have been pronounced Y’shua. It means "God saves".

Chapter One - Question 2

Matthew and Luke tell a different story of the angel’s message about Jesus. You might like to read Luke 1 and compare the two stories. How do they differ?

Chapter One - Question 4

On a strictly human level (and he was just a guy), what do you think Joseph’s emotions were?

Chapter One - Question 3

What is Matthew trying to communicate about this baby? Write down all the things that you can that Matthew thinks it is important for us to know.

Chapter One - Question 1

We tend to think of “begats” as pretty boring pieces of literature. However, you might have fun doing a little investigation:

• Compare this list with Luke’s in Luke 3:23 and following. How are they the same? How do they differ?
• Look up the stories of the “wrong” women in Matthew’s list. Why do you think that Matthew took pains to include them?

Now, for the Nativity

When this blog began, I started with chapter three, omitting the Infancy Narrative.

Of course, in the fourth week of Advent, this is a great time to return to chapter one (which we also heard read in church on Sunday.)

Matthew sets up the themes of the gospel in the way that he relates this narrative. We've explored those themes in the last months: the Jewish character of both the gospel and its probable first readers/hearers; the relevance of this Jewish Messiah for all of humanity; the true nature of the Jewish law and its fulfillment.

As you read chapters one and two in these two weeks, keep those themes in mind. "Connect the dots" between what you read in the Infancy Narrative and the ways that those themes are developed in the subsequent chapters of the gospel.

Chapter Twenty Two - Quick Notes and Facts

• Very observant Jews would have refrained from carrying Roman coins, because with the image of the Emperor on them, they were idolatrous and sins against the first commandment. (They sometimes defaced the image of the Emperor on the coin, as well.) When Jesus asks to see a coin, this hyper-observant Jew readily produces a ‘sinful’ one, so Jesus is able to show up the man’s own hypocrisy.


• Sadducees did not believe in life after death. They were actually more in line with ancient Jewish tradition on this matter than the Pharisees. A belief in the afterlife grew slowly in Judaism over the millennia. Before this idea took hold, Jews believed that dead was dead. (For example, see Psalm 6:5 or Psalm 115:17.


• In this passage Jesus quotes God in his appearance to Moses at Sinai. (See Exodus 3.)


• The question about the “greatest commandment” is in the tradition of scholarly disputation. Jesus quotes two passages from the Law, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, to form his reply.


• Jesus’ question about David’s son seems to be less about proving a point about the Messiah than showing his own powers of disputation.

Chapter Twenty Two - Question 4

The “Greatest Commandment” was rooted in the Jewish tradition. Jesus says nothing new here. In our modern context, how seriously do we take this commandment? Do we give it lip service or pay attention to living it?

Chapter Twenty Two - Question 3

The crowds were astonished by Jesus’ teaching on the Resurrection. What does life after death, and the promise of the resurrection of the dead mean to you? How does it factor into your life of faith? (i.e. How much attention do you give to it?)

Chapter Twenty Two - Question 2

The parable of the wedding feast parallels the one of the tenants in the vineyard in the last chapter. What do you think of the tone of this parable? How did Matthew’s listeners hear it? How should we?

Chapter Twenty Two - Question 1

This chapter is one of disputation and debate. What is Jesus’ stance toward the religious leadership? What is he trying to call them to? How do they resist?

Chapter Twenty One - Quick Notes and Facts

• Hebrew poetry uses parallelism, which is common in an oral tradition, since the imagery has a better chance of sticking in your consciousness. The quotation from the ‘prophet’ here uses that technique. Strangely, Matthew, coming from a Jewish background, doesn’t recognize that the same thing is being said twice. So, he gives us the odd image of Jesus riding both the ass and the colt, sort of like a circus trick.


• This particular quotation is really a pastiche of two passages, one from Isaiah 62 and the other from Zechariah 9.


• The Temple in Jesus’ time had three courtyards - one for men, one for women and one for Gentiles. The Temple authorities got a ‘cut’ from the merchants, who set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles. However, it made it impossible for non-Jews to worship there. This is what Jesus objected to.


• The story of the cursing of the fig tree makes more sense in its original place in Mark. (Here it just looks like Jesus had a tantrum.) Read Mark 11:12-25 and see how this story is a commentary on what is happening at the Temple.

Chapter Twenty One - Question 5

Jesus quotes Psalm 118 in this section. (The stone which the builders rejected....) Read all of Psalm 118, which we sing every Easter. Does the mood and feel of this psalm lend texture or perspective to this parable?

Chapter Twenty One - Question 4

What point is Jesus trying to make in the parable of the tenants in the vineyard? What significance do you think it had for the people of Matthew’s time? What significance does it have for us?

Chapter Twenty One - Question 3

What is the point that Jesus is trying to make in the parable of the two sons? What point can we take away from it?

Chapter Twenty One - Question 2

Jesus’ anger is featured (at a heightened pitch, even) in the accounts of the cleansing of the Temple and the cursing of the fig tree. How does this anger strike you? Does it square with your image of Jesus, or challenge your image of him?

Chapter Twenty One - Question 1

The entry into Jerusalem (commemorated every year on Passion - Palm - Sunday) has intimations of the coming disaster. How do you see it played out in Matthew’s account?