At one point of another we have all said or done things and then acted out the opposite, thus being a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is one of the underlying themes found in Matthew 6: 1-15. The Gospel of Matthew is a relatively easy passage to read, and according to Hauer and Young, "The Gospel of Matthew is nearly as overt as the Gospel of Mark is hidden.
"[l] Matthew is organized into a fivefold pattern and two parts of the fivefold passage, "The higher Righteousness" (Mt. -7) and "The true Discipleship" (Mt. 8-10) will be looking into in great detail regarding Matthews Gospel. Throughout his Gospel, according to Hauer and Young, "Matthew is proclaiming the authority of Jesus as teacher and preacher, but also with giving the content of his teaching. "[2] In contrast, Matthew shows the conflict between the Jesus Jews and the Jews who are following the Rabbinic leadership.
While studying a passage from the Bible, it is beneficial for the reader to have a historical understanding of the author in order to fully understand the text.Studying the world behind the text (historically) world of the text (literary) and the world in front of the text hermeneutics) gives the reader a clearer understanding of the text and allows them to apply underlying themes to a current issue. The Gospel of Matthew highlights the Jewish origin and identity of Jesus and his first followers more than any other piece of early Christian literature. The Gospel of Matthew is proposed to have been written in the last quarter of the first century, in 85-105 AD.
This Gospel entails themes about hypocrisy, prayer, and almsgiving.These themes can be applied to the contemporary issue of the Oregon Food Bank being a foundation for giving food to the poor, thus ortraying almsgiving and prayer for those less fortunate. Matthew 6 (1-15) 1 "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be one on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 5 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. [3] World Behind the Text: During the past two centuries, critical study of the New Testament gospels has yielded a wealth of insights on their origin and development. There are four canonical Gospels; Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
In Matthew, Jesus is God's anointed, or messiah, and according to Coogan, "Matthew is the one who best envisions and interprets God's plan or God's people. "[4] Critical researchers of these four authors have noticed two intriguing features about them.According to Hauer and Young, "The gospel of John is quite different from the other three. Important events in the life of Jesus that Matthew, Mark, and Luke recorded are absent from Hauer and Young further explain that there are long passages in all three gospels that coincide in content and outline, thus Mark, Matthew and Luke are known s the synoptic gospels, and the problem of explaining their interrelationship is the synoptic problem.
[6] Many biblical scholars have their own hypotheses on why this is.However, the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem is the Four- Source Hypothesis. The first part of the Four-Source Hypothesis (FSH) is that the entire gospel of Mark served as a source for Matthew and Luke. Hauer and Young explain, "All of Mark is duplicated in the other two synoptic gospels; and, when a Marcan passage is missing from Matthew or Luke, it is almost always found in the other. [7] Furthermore, according to Coogan, "The Gospel of Matthew was written after the Gospel of Mark and all but sixty verses of the Gospel of Mark appear in Matthew.
[8] The second leg of the FSH includes the notion that Matthew and Luke share a second common source besides Mark, and the so called "Q" source is yet another source where Mark and Matthew have derived information. Hauer and Young states, "More than one-third of Matthew and one-fourth of Luke consist of material they share in common that is absent from Mark. " [9] Material missing from Mark that is present in Matthew and Luke further confirms the second part of the FSH that the so called Q source is plausible. Moreover, many biblical scholars have tried to counter the FSH with new evidence.However, Hauer and Young state, "The Four-source hypothesis solves more problems more simply and raises fewer problems than any other hypothesis.
"[10] In order to gain a proper understanding of Matthews writings, it is essential to understand his historical background. It is suspected that Matthew wrote his gospel in the last quarter of the first century, in 85-105 AD and has been referred to as a bridge from the Old Testament to the New Testament, thus it was placed first in the NT (although Mt. was ot written first).Coogan explains the timeline of Matthews Gospel, by explaining, "Matthew was written following the first Jewish revolt against Rome and the Titus.
"[11] Like other gospels, Matthew has no direct reference within the work its author or place of origin. However, according to Hauer and Young, "A report usually dated about 130 C. E seems to attribute origin of the gospel Matthew, and this gospel was almost certainly composed in Greek. "[12] With this information we have a general idea of when the Gospel of Matthew was composed, and as for where Matthew wrote his Gospel, Coogan states, "While the traditional place or origin forMatthew has been considered the city of Antioch in ancient Western Syria, many now consider a southern Galilean city, Tiberias or Sepphoris, a more likely location for the writing of the At this time in Matthews community, a conflict arose between the Jesus Jews and the Jews who are following the Rabbinic leadership. In the first and second centuries, Christianity began as a branch of Judaism.
Virtually all of Jesus' followers during his life were Jews, and it was even a matter of controversy, many years after his death, as to whether non-Jews could even be considered Christians at all.There is considerable evidence that Jesus considered himself a reformer in the prophetic tradition, and did not intend to set up a new religion. The Gospel of Matthew offers accounts of confrontations and debates between Jesus and other Jews, and such conflicts were common among Jews at the time. Scholars debate the historicity of the Gospels, and have offered different interpretations of the complex relationship between Jewish authorities and Christians before and following Jesus' death.
Moreover, it was only during the Rabbinic era that Christianity would compete exclusively with Pharisees for converts and over how to interpret theHebrew Bible. Overall, all of these factors are important to understanding the contribution of the author's writings especially where and when and knowing historical facts about the time period. Ultimately understanding the FSH and the setting in which Matthew wrote his gospel plays a vital role in the reader's comprehension. World of the Text: The world of text refers to the literary composition of the writing including the genre of Matthews gospel as well as an in depth analysis of each line of the verse.
As for the genre of the gospel, Hauer and Young explain, "The term gospel comes from he Anglo-Saxon word god-spell"[14] and these "god-spells" are typically a story from or about Jesus. Sometime in the first century C. E. Christians gave a literary term to gospel, and the "Gospel of Jesus Christ" came to refer to a literary work proclaiming the essential role of Jesus in God's saving work. [1 5] From the perspective of the literary world, gospel is a genre, meaning a group of texts that have similar form, style, content, function and perspective.
