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Catholic Bible Study
Matthew 1:1-25
00:30:15
Join Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber as they begin studying the Gospel of Matthew by introducing St. Matthew and looking at Chapter 1 of this incredible Gospel.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to FormLive. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augusta Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, who is a professor of scripture here at the Augusta Institute as well. And what we want to do over the next series of Wednesdays, probably for the next couple months at least, is do a little Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. We've gotten great feedback from all of you on how you like the form dailies, and especially many of you really love all the scripture exposition and teaching that happens. And so we thought it would be good to just spend an entire episode just focused on one of the Gospels and really kind of really do a Bible study with you. And so this will be a different kind of Bible study. So we invite you to grab your Bibles. We're going to be using the ESV Catholic Edition, which is the English Standard Version, which you can get in the Augustan Bible. And so that's the translation we're going to use if you want, but any translation will do. Please open up your Bibles and just join us in this Bible study. You have two biblical scholars and friends who are going to talk about the Gospel in Matthew, and we'll try not to get too detailed into the scholarly issues and behind every verse and every page and all the different academic debates. But what we want to do is take the fruit of that deeper academic study and research over the last few generations and share those insights and opening up the text of Matthew's Gospel with you. And that's our goal, is to help elucidate and clarify the text of Matthew and his gospel, because his Gospel is exactly that. It is good news. That's what gospel means. And we're going to get into how Matthew's story of Jesus is good news today just as much as it was when Matthew sat down and wrote this gospel. So we are excited to dive into the biblical text. But before we do that, maybe we just start with Matthew himself and. And a good window into Matthew that I like, and I know, Michael, you and I were talking about this just a little bit ago, is if you go to Rome, there's a wonderful church, San Luigi. And for the jubilee year in 1600, there was paintings, a couple paintings commissioned by, at that time, a young and upcoming artist named Caravaggio, who obviously came up and did well. And Carvaggio is one of the great artists.
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B
I've heard of him.
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A
Yeah, I think a number of people have. So there's two great scenes in San Luigi. The first is what we have right behind us here, and that is the calling of Matthew. And that is a great scene, you know, Jesus reaching out and pointing to Matthew. Matthew is sitting with his friends at the. At the table. And he's, of course, Matthew is a tax collector and he's a trained scribe, basically an accountant, so to speak. And he's living in Caphernaum, and Caphernum is just a few miles from the region of Bethsaida, which would be in the district of Philip. And so you have the border between Philip and Herod Jr, as I call him Herod Antipater. So Herod Jr, not Herod the Great. So these are the two sons of Herod the Great. Philip and Herod Jr are two of the sons of Herod the Great. And there's a territory there. And so it's probably more accurate to say that Matthew as a tax collector, was a tax collector at the border, at the road, taking goods that were coming in from Phillips territory on the Via Maris on the way to the sea. And so anyhow, you have depicted in the art of Caravaggio, Matthew at table with his friends, his cronies. They're all counting the money. The money's on the table, and they're all distracted. All the people around Matthew are focused in on the money. But Matthew has been called by Jesus, so his attention is arrested, and Jesus is pointing to him. And Matthew is kind of pointing to himself, saying, me? Are you calling me Rabbi? You know, why would you call me? And I love, you know, Matthew is wearing this deep, dark black velvet, which is a very costly outfit, very expensive, but it's just deep black. And that kind of reflects symbolically where Matthew's at in his life. You know, captured by money, not following the Jewish ways, as an observant Jew, and certainly not even at this point, a disciple of Jesus. So he's kind of enwrapped in black, and yet Jesus is pointing to him. And there's so many great things about this art that we can go into in many, many details, but the light is coming from behind Jesus, and it's not coming from the window. It's a divine light. And the idea of that light that's falling upon Matthew, calling him in this moment, giving him an opportunity of conversion. And we know in Matthew's Gospel, in Matthew chapter nine, he will tell the story of Jesus calling him. And then Jesus calls Matthew and eats supper with him at his house. And Matthew has a great banquet, invites his friends and cronies to come and meet Jesus. And so there's this great banquet. Of course, it'll be a source of scandal. And we'll talk about that story as we get into the Gospel of Matthew a little bit more. But then another great depiction of Caravaggio. Michael, anything you want to add to this scene?
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B
Well, I've always liked the hand of Jesus there. Right. The way that Jesus is pointing to Matthew is evocative of Adam, of God's hand, in the creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel. And I'm not an art expert, but I think that may be intentional. It's sort of hard to imagine that is just a coincidence.
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Oh, yeah.
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B
Either way, what I love about that is it underscores the idea that with the coming of Christ, we have a new creation. And this is something that Matthew's Gospel is going to underscore. In fact, in the very first line of the Gospel, we read the book of the Genealogy. It says in English of Jesus Christ, but the Greek word that's used there is actually the book of the Genesis, Jesus Christ. So here we see what Jesus is doing is bringing about a new creation. That's hinted at later in Matthew 19, where Jesus talks about how in the new world, Matthew 19:28, the English translators say in the New World, but the Greek is actually palingenesis, which is literally in the. Again, Genesis, in the Regenesis, in the new creation. So it's really nice that it's captured there. In Christ we have creation.
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A
Yeah. I think there's no doubt that that hand, if you look at it, is the hand of Adam up on the Sistine Chapel. And so Adam's hand is kind of a little bit limp, you know, reaching out to God, where God the Father is much more exerted.
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B
That's right, yeah.
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A
And here you have Jesus and Caravaggio, who's in the shadow of Michelangelo, as every artist is, but he's in the next generation.
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B
He likes shadows, though.
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A
Exactly. So he. He paints. He paints Adam's hand, Michelangelo's hand of Adam on Jesus as the new Adam. So for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, they'll see the deeper resonance there of Jesus as the new Adam. And I, love Peter, is in between Matthew and Jesus, mediating for Jesus. And so we'll see the role of Peter looming large in the Gospel of Matthew later on and throughout the Gospel of Matthew. So. So that's. It's a fascinating scene. Of course, Caravaggio is a master of light. Now, if you look at. We have a scene of the inspiration of St. Matthew. So this is the calling of Matthew is calling Matthew out of the darkness into the light. And later on. And right next to that painting over the altar in that side chapel in San Luigi, you have this great depiction of the inspiration of Matthew. He's inspired to write his gospel. And it's right over the altar. And you see Matthew now cloaked, not in black velvet, you know, as need of conversion, but now you have the converted Matthew, post Pentecost, who's writing his gospel. And Matthew actually looks like a flame because he's dressed in orange and yellow. And so he looks like a candle that's lit on fire for the Lord, inspired with the fire of the Holy Spirit. And then if you see the angel that's above him, the angel has these circular design, and the angel with white and then black and gray looks like the smoke coming up from the candle. And so it's brilliant. Symbolism, where the symbolism is so subtle, it's easy to miss. Just like the hand of the. On Jesus, you know, it's very subtle and yet very powerful and evocative of this idea of the transformation now that Matthew's had.
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B
And what I really like about that painting, too, is how active Matthew is in that painting. There's a famous. Another painting of Caravaggio that was rejected. It's the heretical portrait of Matthew, if you will. And in that image, Matthew's writing his gospel, but he looks like he's in a trance and. And the angel has his hand on Matthew's hand, almost like Matthew has no involvement whatsoever in witnessing the Christ. But here in this image, in the second image, you see Matthew sitting up or almost, he's like standing almost. He's kneeling and he's writing, he's active. The angel is recounting things to him. But you see, Matthew is very much involved in the process of relating his gospel. And that's extremely significant because, of course, the church affirms that we have divine authorship of the Gospels, but we also have human authorship. And so in the Gospel of Matthew, we're going to get special emphases. We're going to get certain ideas that are drawn out that you don't find in Mark and Luke and John. So they all have their own unique style. And that's one of the things I especially love about Matthew, is just the unique elements of that Gospel. It's so beautiful. And so by just focusing on Matthew, sometimes we can sort of combine Matthew, Mark and Luke and John. Right. And we just have one gospel in our head. But it's nice to just spend time in one of them and to get Appreciation for their unique spin.
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I'm glad you brought up that earlier sketch of the painting that Caravaggio did, because in that earlier drawing, because it's a commissioned art, and a lot of people don't know that in early art, like in the Renaissance, typically an artist would have to do different sketches of what his painting would end up being. And then the theological commission would look at it and say, okay, this is right. This is not right. And oftentimes Caravaggio, early on, he'd be given an idea by the theologians or the commissioner who commissioned the art, and he might get the theology. You know, he wasn't as good a theologian as he was artist. And so putting the hand on there is the idea of dictation rather than the idea of inspiration. And I love what you said. It's fully human, fully divine. And the way to look at this is analogous to the incarnation of our Lord. You know, Jesus takes on a full human nature. So he's fully human, 100% human. And yet he also has a divine nature, and he's fully divine. And it's not 50, 50. It's 100%, 100%. And that's the same thing is true in the mystery of inspiration, that the authorship of scripture is 100% divine. It's the Holy Spirit, it's God who's the author of Scripture. So it's God's word, and yet he also uses human agents freely. And so it's 100% St. Matthew here and 100% St. Paul and Paul's letters and on and on. So you get the idea that it's the mystery of inspiration that is 100% divine and 100% human, that God is the only agent, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, who can use a free agent freely. And. And that's what we have in this great mystery of Scripture. So as Michael says, we're going to dive in and you're going to see the fingerprints of Matthew. You know, he's an accountant. And, you know, if you've ever known an accountant, they tend to be hyper organized. They like things very organized and very clear and structured. And Matthew's Gospel will be extraordinarily well structured and engineered, like an engineer, because Matthew is an accounting engineer, so to speak. And so we're going to see that we'll later on, as we get into Matthew, we'll kind of deploy and explore his structuring principles. But let's just dive into the first verse, Michael, because you mentioned that very first verse and how important it is and let's just start there because it is a Genesis and he's alluding to the very first book of the Old Testament in the very first book of the New Testament. Right. He's talking about the Genesis of Jesus.
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That's right. And right from the beginning we get the sense that to understand the Gospel of Matthew, we're going to need to know a little bit of background. We're going to need to know the Old Testament. And you see that right up front, right? The book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ. And it's important to underscore what that means. Christ is from the Greek term Christos, which is from the Hebrew meshech, where we get the word Messiah. So Jesus Christ, it's not like Christ is his last name. I was listening to a radio show one time and there was a non Catholic radio host and he wanted to seem respectful towards Christianity even though it was obvious that he was not a Christian. And he kept referring to Jesus as Mr. Christ. Christ isn't his last name. It's not like Joseph Christ, Mary Christ, Jesus.
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It's a title.
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No, it's a title. That's right. Right. Jesus is the Messiah. And what does that mean for him to be the Messiah? Well, we could say a lot about that. But basically the Messiah is the one who's going to bring to realization the hopes of the Scriptures of Israel. And so you really can't understand Jesus without the Scriptures of Israel because he's bringing them to fulfillment. Likewise, I think you can say you can't really understand the Scriptures of Israel without Jesus because he's the one that gives them their meaning. And then the next line, or as the sentence finishes, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So two very important figures in the Old Testament, the son of David, Solomon, and of course the son of Abraham, Isaac, who was the only beloved son of his Father, who was to be offered as a sacrifice. And there we see a type, if you will, of Christ. And so these two figures, David and Abraham or Solomon and Isaac, going to be very important for unpacking what's going on in the genealogy. You were mentioning how the gospel as inspired is fully human, fully divine. And it just reminded me Thomas Aquinas in his commentaries highlights that the Gospel of John especially emphasizes the divinity of Christ. And Aquinas says it's because that aspect of Christian teaching was highly questioned in John's circles. Matthew, he underscores, wants to emphasize the humanity of Christ. And so here we have at the beginning of Matthew, his genealogy.
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His genealogy, which is you would think, you know, I've heard that the New Testament is the most published book in human history. And if you look at the culture in the world, you think it was the least read. And maybe we could blame Matthew for beginning it with a genealogy, I don't know. But the idea of beginning with a genealogy is rather off putting. It's like this is the wrong way to begin the greatest story ever told, and yet it's a Jewish story. And I think that's the beautiful thing about Matthew. Matthew's a Jew. And this gospel is showing you as Michael, I think you highlighted here, right, with the idea of Genesis. He's showing you that the story of Jesus is not a new story. It's the story of Israel reaching its climax. And we're in a new chapter, an exciting new chapter in Israel's story. But, but that's a new chapter in an old story. And if you, you just can't read the story of Jesus apart from the story of Israel. And you think about it, you know, God the Father had spent thousands of years preparing for his Son in the fullness of time, St. Paul will say, you know, Jesus comes born of a virgin. And so this fullness of time, well, there's a lot of time and a lot of preparation that God is doing for his people. And if you pick up a novel, you don't just start three fourths of the way through and start reading it and think you can make sense of everything, right? And so one of the things we're going to have to do is read backwards quite a bit. As an old mentor of mine, Richard Hayes, used to say, we have to read backwards. We're going to be reading the Gospel of Matthew, but we're constantly looking back at how Matthew and Jesus himself are going to be alluding to the story of Israel to make clear the story of Jesus. And so we're going to be constantly doing that. And if you don't know the story of Israel really well, you will by the end of this Bible study, you'll know it a lot better. So let's just start with, you know, it's odd, by the way that he mentions, you know, son of David, son of Abraham, because that's in the second half of verse one that's out of chronology. And why would Matthew, who knows these things and he's very detailed, why would he give us those names out of order, Right.
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I think one of the key things that he wants us to see is that Jesus as the Messiah is the Messiah from the line of David in Jesus Day. In the first century, Jews had wildly different expectations. It's not like all Jews were expecting a particular kind of Messiah. In fact, Jews debated which books were even scripture. So Matthew wants to clarify for us what, what Jesus is as the Messiah. He is the son of David. And of course, as soon as you hear that, your initial expectation or understanding may be that Matthew is going to announce that Jesus is bringing about some sort of political victory, some kind of political earthly kingdom. After all, isn't that what David was all about? But then by clarifying he's also the son of Abraham, we're going to get the sense that Jesus is isn't just coming as the son of David, as a political victor, the son of Abraham, Isaac triggered a blessing from the Lord by his offer of self sacrifice. Right? Mount Moriah. Abraham famously offers Isaac in Genesis 22. But Jewish tradition understood that Abraham's an old man. He could have easily been fought off by his son, could have easily fought him off. Isaac wasn't just a little boy. In fact, in the book of Judith, it talks about how that story is about the testing of Isaac. So Isaac is a willing victim in Jewish tradition. And so already Matthew's helping us to clarify what kind of messiah Jesus is by adding that he is the son of Abraham.
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Well, you know, I think that that's a great insight into understanding what kind of Davidic Messiah Jesus is going to be. And you know, as we get into the genealogy, we'll start with verse two with Abraham. And it's almost in a verse order that he gives it now. He said, you know, son of David, son of Abraham, and then he begins with Abraham. So he can kind of. So there's a nice parallelism that Matthew's building. And as he does that, he begins with Abraham and he's going to take Abraham all the way through the time of the patriarchs. And then he picks up with David. And David was the father, Solomon. And so we go from David all the way to the time of the deportation to Babylon. So when the kingdom is lost and the kings lose their reign over Jerusalem and Jerusalem is destroyed, they go into exile in Babylon. And then after the deportation to Babylon, and this is the exciting part because every Jew had in the Book of Chronicles all these names up till this point, really. And then after you get Zerubbabel and his son, you start to get into names as you go further down this list that the Jews didn't have, right, because the dynasty went underground because it was under foreign occupation. And to just simply Say, hey, I'm of royal blood. That could be dangerous, couldn't it?
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Yeah, definitely dangerous. And, in fact, you got to understand, for Matthew's audience, this would have been shocking claim. Right, Jesus is the son of David. What you're saying is, in a way, this is the true king. And in the political atmosphere of the first century, where you have Caesar, who's making claims on the whole world, this is a dramatic announcement.
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One thing I've just said, it really is. And just to build on that for a second before you go on, you know, I think a lot of people don't understand that the idea that Caesar was obviously the ruler, the emperor, but no one could be a king in any of his territories without permission from Caesar. In fact, he made Herod the Great come to Rome to receive the crown. And so Herod the Great would be the king of the Jews and of Judea, but he had to get that crown from the emperor, from Caesar. And then the idea of someone, Joseph, and then Jesus here being of the royal Davidic bloods, is showing you that he, Herod, really isn't the legitimate king of Judea, Jesus is, which is quite astonishing. But the idea of promise that David's line didn't get cut off, that's part of the good news here, isn't it?
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B
Definitely, yeah. And one other piece of the good news that we should highlight in the genealogy. So just so people know, this is exactly what Tim and I do over dinner, right? So this is. Tim and I are friends and we've been friends for 20 years or so, and when we get together, this is what we do. So we didn't sit down and hash out exactly what we were going to talk about.
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We just.
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We know we can do this, right? We do this all the time. But I just want to back up, because there's one thing we left out that needs to be mentioned, and that is between Abraham and Solomon are four women that are mentioned. This is really important for Matthew's genealogy. Tamar, who acts as a prostitute. Ruth, who was a Moabitess. Of course, you have Rahab, who. Who's also probably a prostitute, a Gentile. And then you have the wife of Uriah, who is Solomon's mother. Of course, that's an allusion to Bathsheba, who David had an affair with. Right. And there's that whole sordid episode in the historical books. Why are these mentioned? Well, notice that God is already writing straight with crooked lines, even in history. Right. So some people might assume. Well. Well, if you're A Gentile, you have no part in God's plan. We're going to see the end of the gospel. The last line of the gospel is that the Gospel is to go to all nations, right? And so in some ways, the genealogy is setting us up to realize that God is working not just in Israel, but also even with Gentiles. And even those who might be considered outcasts might be lost causes because they're sinful. God has a plan even for them.
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It's a good counterpoint because I think the common factor for all these women is that they're Gentiles. So Bathsheba is the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. Right. So they're all Gentile women. A couple of them have some questionable background in terms of things, but not all of them. And I think that the idea that here you have Matthew highlighting four women in Jesus genealogy who are Gentiles is showing you in Matthew, who's a good Jew and a good Jewish scribe, a very Jewish story. He begins with a new Genesis and he's going to give us this genealogy which is very Jewish. And yet in this Jewish story, in the heart of, literally in the DNA of the Jewish story of David, are Gentile women. And that's showing that the story is going to get broader. This story, this good news is going to be for Gentiles. And that will be an important theme for Matthew.
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B
Right. And if there are people who want to write off the, the Jesus movement, the early church, if you're a Jew and you're hearing the story of the gospel and you come to know that Gentiles are being included in this, you might think, well, this isn't right. This is inconsistent with God's plan. No, Matthew wants to highlight, no, this is the way God has been preparing things from the beginning. In fact, Jesus is the son of Abraham and it was to Abraham that God promised through your descendants all, all nations will be blessed. Right. One other thing about the genealogy then that we should highlight is that it's divided up into three sets of 14. And people wonder why that is. You know, when you see these genealogies in scripture, you might think to yourself, you know, couldn't the Holy Spirit have done a little bit better? Maybe we could have cut this down. There's literary artistry here that we don't want to overlook. So Matthew wants to highlight again, Jesus, Davidic pedigree. And so it's important that the genealogy is divided up into three sets of 14. Now, if you actually do the math and you look at the history, you'll know there are more genealogies, more descendants involved here. Matthew is carefully highlighting the number 14. Why? Well, because in Hebrew, David's name is written in ancient Hebrew with just consonants. There are no vowels in ancient Hebrew, it's like reading license plates. I like to tell my students, no vowels. So David's name would be the equivalent of just dvd. D is the number four. Also in Hebrew, they use letters as numbers, like Roman numerals. We all know our Roman numerals because you need to know what super bowl you're watching. So you learn it in school. DVD is the number 14. So again, Matthew's highlighting Jesus role as the true son of David, the one that they've been waiting for.
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Messiah. Yeah. So every letter of the Hebrew Alphabet had that numerical value and you take David's name and it comes out to 14.
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That's right.
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So think of DVD, which is David. Right. And so that's going to be the numerical value of David's name. And so I think you're right. He's joined. And three times in Hebrew means absolute. So the angels sing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, which means he's absolute holiness. And so the idea that three times the 14, this is the absolute David. There is many great kings in the land of David. There is Hezekiah, there is Josiah, but this is the one beyond all others. This is the absolute Messiah. This is the absolute David of David's
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the son of David par excellence.
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Yep, there you go. And so that really kind of that numerology. And of course, Matthew loved numbers. Remember, he was an accountant. And so the idea of numbers and, and the significance of numbers would be something not lost on Matthew. And so you get that beautiful thing there. And there's so much more. One last little thing here because I love St. Joseph and I have a great devotion to St. Joseph. If you look at the father of Joseph, it is Jacob. And of course, in the Old Testament you have a Jacob, the patriarch, who has a son. He has 12 sons. But one of those sons, the beloved son, is Joseph. And that son is known for his dreams. And we're going to see in our next episode as we get into the infancy narrative, this Joseph of the New Testament, the Joseph with Mary and Jesus, our New Testament Saint Joseph, he will be known for his dreams. And just as the Old Testament Joseph is known for his dreams, in the Old Testament, Joseph was known for his chastity. He wouldn't sleep with his master's wife when Joseph is working for potiphar and he has heroic chastity. And we'll see that the New Testament Joseph will have heroic chastity. And so there's many interesting parallels here, but even the genealogy gives us a slight allusion to preparing us for the character of Joseph, who will be the foster father for Jesus. And Jesus will inherit through Joseph the full rights of kingship, because that's true. Adoption gives you full covenant rights, Jewish law, and Luke's Gospel according to Tradition gives you the genealogy through Mary. But that's a whole other question, isn't it? You know, we only have two minutes. What would you say? I think what I would recommend for everybody is to read the rest of chapter one and chapter two for next time for next week. We'll go through that. We'd like to hear back from you in the comments. If you want us to do a live question and answer session, maybe we could set up some special zoom time or submit questions that you have and maybe we can deal with that in the next few episodes as well. But Michael, what would you just how would you. Anything else you'd summarize the genealogy and what Matthew is setting us up for in this series?
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Well, let's just say where it ends. So it leaves with up to the deportation to Babylon and then from the deportation of Babylon to the Christ. In other words, he never announces that the deportation is over. Right. In a sense, Israel still in exile. Right. Israel is still looking for redemption. Israel is still looking for salvation. Even if the Jews return from Babylon, there's a spiritual bondage that Jesus is going to come to save his people from. And I think that's where we should leave off.
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A
That's a great place to leave off. And I just want to end by thanking everybody for joining us. Bring your Bibles. We're going to keep going through every Wednesday. So and if you missed any of the sessions, you can go back and find them on formed. Also, I wanted to recommend for you or just actually thank everybody for supporting us. And many of you have joined the mission circle this month and that's I'm deeply grateful because our mission circle is that monthly giving society of $10 or more a month. And right now in the month of May, and this is where we have just a few days left of May, we have a donor who's given a challenge gift that every gift, everybody who enters the mission circle this month of May, they will match all their giving for the rest of this year. So eight months worth of your monthly giving will be matched dollar for dollar by the generous donor, which is a huge help for us. So thank you to everybody who's generously joined our mission circle. You're part of our team, and we're grateful for your support. And I want to thank everybody for joining us. And I hope that you get to know Matthew and his gospel and the good news even better. So we'll see you next week.