Matthew

Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2024, 389 pages, paperback.

I have already reviewed the previous volumes from this series. All three were what I would call average to above average works, containing useful content, although my repeated refrain was that in my opinion they fail to live up to the title. If you want to write a NT commentary “through OT Eyes” then you really can’t superimpose the NT on it. At least you can’t unless what you meant to say was something like “How the NT Book of _____ Reads the OT.”

This is from the first draft of my book The Words of the Covenant: New Testament Continuity. Read the series.

Read Part 1.

The Kingdom to Come in the Lord’s Prayer

We are accustomed to treat the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” within our own “Church” context. And no wonder, for the guidance and hope it supplies are a great boon to the spiritual life. But if we situate it in its setting in the Sermon on the Mount we have to allow that it signified something a little different for the disciples, especially Matthew 6:10:

The Kingdom of Heaven?

Matthew 3 begins with John the Baptist proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt. 3:1-2). It has him calling Pharisees and Sadducees “a brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:7), which hardly matched the exalted spiritual status they gave themselves. Later in this Gospel we see Jesus calling Pharisees (and scribes) hypocrites and “fools and blind” (Matt. 23:13-19). In Matthew the religious leaders get called all kinds of names.