The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew

by Ulrich Luz , Translated by J. Bradford Robinson

• ISBN13: 9780521435765
• ISBN10: 0521435765
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-06-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Matthew’s Gospel is the most significant Jewish-Christian document of the New Testament. For Matthew, the story of Jesus is the underlying tale of his own community, summoned from Israel by the living Jesus and now, following Israel’s rejection, sent to the Gentiles. Matthew's Jesus story bears much the same relation to the Matthean community as does the Pentateuch to Israel, hence the profoundly Jewish basis of his theology. Ulrich Luz both outlines and elucidates the story told in Matthew’s Gospel, emphasising its focal points: the Sermon on the Mount, the miracles, the renunciation of possessions and particularly the theology of judgement by works, an idea which represents both a challenge, in its quest for a church set apart from non-Christians by deeds alone, and a burden, through its traumatic origin in the breach between the Matthean community and the Israelite majority.

Table of Contents

1. The Book

2. The Prologue (Matthew 1:1-4:22)

3. The discourse on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)

4. The ministry of the Messiah and his disciples in Israel (Matthew 8:1-11:30)

5. The origins of the community of disciples in Israel (Matthew 12:1-16:20)

6. The life of the community of disciples (Matthew 16:21-20:34)

7. The final reckoning with Israel and the judgement of the community (Matthew 21:1-25:46)

8. Passion and Easter (Matthew 26-28)

9. Concluding thoughts.