List of all commentary posts
Matt. 1:17 - Fishers of men
This may be an allusion to Jer.16:16:
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
The parallel between...
(01/28/2004 - 17:01)
Matt. 1:20-21 - He will save his people from their sins
Joseph is told by the angel that the boy will be called Jesus because ‘he will save his people from their sins’. We expect the Christmas story to have universal relevance, good news for all mankind, but the message here is only that Jesus will be Israel’s saviour: he will save his...
(04/21/2007 - 12:44)
Matt. 1:20-23 - The birth announcement
Conceived by the Holy Spirit
The Christmas stories have to do more with Jesus as Messiah than with the incarnation. There is no suggestion that only in this way could he be sinless, etc.; it is not taken as an argument for Jesus’ divinity. Rather the virgin birth is a ‘sign’...
(04/21/2007 - 12:41)
Matt. 1:22-23 - They will call his name Immanuel
The announcement that Jesus will ‘save his people from their sins’ is followed immediately by the reference to the prophecy in Isaiah about a virgin or young woman who will bear a son whose name will be Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).
This child will not actually do anything: he does not...
(04/21/2007 - 12:49)
Matt. 5:1-12 - The beatitudes
The beatitude in Judaism
The beatitude is a common Jewish literary form, found widely in biblical and post-biblical writings. Essentially, it is an affirmation of those who have gained divine approval or of a way of life that will ensure divine approval: a man is blessed, for example, if he...
(04/23/2007 - 09:30)
Matt. 5:13 - The salt of the earth
In the context of Jesus’ address to the community of renewed Israel it makes more sense to translate gē as ‘land’ than ‘earth’. The issue here is the role of the disciples in the eschatological transition from second temple Judaism under judgment to a restored people...
(06/12/2007 - 11:54)
Matt. 5:14-16 - The light of the world
The idea that Israel, as the servant of the Lord, would be a ‘light for the nations’ is found in Isaiah (42:6; 49:6; 60:3). The argument in these chapters is that YHWH will act justly with respect to his alienated people, delivering them from oppression, restoring them to wholeness,...
(06/13/2007 - 10:37)
Matt. 5:17-18 - I came not to invalidate the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil
Jesus explicitly attaches a temporal limit to the validity of the Torah: ‘until all things take place (panta genētai)’. The allusion to the new heaven and earth imagery of Isaiah 65:17; 66:22 points to an eschatological-historical crisis of judgment and restoration that is imagined as a...
(11/03/2007 - 11:39)
Matt. 6:9-13 - The Lord’s prayer and its eschatological context
Here is a good example of the sort of tight corner that a historical reading of New Testament eschatology can get us into. The Lord’s prayer is a central element in our formal and informal liturgies. We assume that it is timeless: we imagine that we pray it in the same way and for the same...
(04/23/2007 - 09:34)
Matt. 7:13-14 - The way of life and the way of death
Jesus tells the disciples to choose a difficult road leading to life rather than an easy road leading to destruction. The basic question to be addressed here is this: Is this a choice exclusively for the community of his followers in the context of first century Judaism, or does Jesus have in mind...
(04/23/2007 - 12:58)
Matt. 9:10-13 - The sick need a physician
The allusion to Hos. 6:6 LXX (‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’) brings into view the wider context of Hosea’s prophecy. The people of Israel will take their sacrificial animals to the temple, but they will not find the Lord there (Hos. 5:6). He has withdrawn from them until they...
(04/23/2007 - 13:00)
Matt. 10:28 - The destruction of body and soul in gehenna
This verse comes in the context of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve before sending them out to proclaim the imminence of the reign of God (10:7). In particular it presupposes the warning that they will face persecution from the Jews as they go through the towns of Israel (10:23). There is no...
(04/24/2007 - 08:46)
Matt. 10:34-37 - Not peace but a sword
When Jesus says that he has not come to bring peace to the land (not the ‘earth’ as in most translations) but a sword, he is speaking with the voice of the prophets. For example, Jeremiah 12:12:
Upon all the bare heights in the desert destroyers have come, for the sword of the...
(10/04/2007 - 21:47)
Matt. 12:43-45 - Seven spirits worse than the first
The reference to this wicked generation locates the saying historically. I would suggest that Jesus is talking about the generation of Jews that would suffer the horrors of the war against Rome. He casts out demons from Israel, but he warns that these homeless spirits will return with a vengeance...
(04/24/2007 - 09:15)
Matt. 16:13-16 - Who do men say that the Son of man is?
In 1998 Dr Andrew Overman discovered the ruins of a large Roman temple at Horbat Omrit. He believes that the temple was built by Herod in Caesarea Philippi to honour Augustus at the time when the emperor was coming to be worshipped as a living God. He suggests that the phrase ‘the son of...
(04/24/2007 - 15:31)
Matt. 16:17-18 - The gates of Hades will not prevail against it
This verse has often been used to support a theology of spiritual warfare. In fact, Jesus is saying something quite straightforward but crucial for the continuation of the community of believers and the success of the message that they proclaimed.
1. ‘Gates of hades’ (pulai hadou)...
(04/24/2007 - 15:36)
Matt. 19:21 - What it means to be perfect
A man comes to Jesus and asks what good thing he must do to inherit the life of the age to come (not ‘eternal life’ in the traditional sense). Jesus tells him that in order to enter life he must keep the commandments. The man has done this. What is still lacking? Jesus tells him that if...
(04/24/2007 - 16:48)
Matt. 19:28 - Judging the twelve tribes of Israel
The assertion here (and in Lk. 22:28-30) that the disciples will sit on thrones with Christ may have a quite specific reference to the eschatological narrative. In the regeneration, which refers not to the final new creation but to God’s people restored following judgment (cf. Is. 65:17; 66:...
(02/12/2008 - 12:11)
Matt. 19:28 - In the regeneration
Jesus tells his disciples that in his kingdom, in the ‘regeneration’ of the people of God, ‘when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Matt. 19:28; cf. Lk. 22:30)....
(04/25/2007 - 10:48)
Matt. 21:42-43 - The stone rejected by the builders
The comment about the stone rejected by the builders and the preceding parable are addressed to the ‘chief priests and the elders of the people’ (21:23), who question his authority to enact (through the events of his arrival in Jerusalem) the judgment and restoration of Israel. The...
(05/04/2007 - 08:25)
Matt. 28:16-20 - The not so Great Commission
Reading Ed Stetzer’s reflections on the ‘meanings of missional’ from a year or so back provoked a familiar sense of bewilderment. How is it that five lengthy posts on the meaning of such terms as ‘missional’ and missio dei, plus a large number of appended comments from...
(02/14/2009 - 18:23)
