Vol. 11 No.10 –June, 2013

The Book of Matthew

Mike Johnson

 The book of Matthew is probably the best known of all of the gospel accounts.  When people want to find the teaching of Jesus on any Bible subject, they will often start by turning to the book of Matthew.  This may be due to the fact that Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, but another reason may be that the teaching of Matthew is often carefully grouped together and thus easier to find.  Whatever, the reason, Matthew is a very popular and widely read book of the Bible.

The author of the book is, of course, Matthew.  We do not know a great deal about him, but we do know that he was an apostle.  His name, in fact, appears in all of the lists of the apostles.  Matthew  was, no doubt, a Jew.  He  was also known by the name Levi, and he was a publican (tax collector) when Jesus called him.   Matthew writes in a very systematic manner which might characterize the writing style of a person doing the work of collecting taxes.

The book of Matthew has a lot about the king and the kingdom of heaven.  It presents clear proof of the nature of Christ’s teaching and presents a refutation of the objections of unbelieving Jews.

Matthew is the only gospel account in which the word “church” appears.  It has many great addresses such as “The Sermon on the Mount” (cpts. 5-7), and it has  the denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees (cpt. 23).  It also has recorded in it 15 parables and 20 miracles.

Have you read a good book lately?  Why not read the book of Matthew?  It tells us about the life of our Savior.