One of the most effective ways I have found to study the Bible is to break it up into small passages and study them separately. I have been doing this with the Gospel of Matthew this year, and have found it to be incredibly effective for digesting Scripture in such a way that it can bear fruit in my life, rather than just simply reading it and then forgetting it.

I call this method the Golden Nugget approach. I have written about it here, but in a nutshell, you simply read until God points out three things to you that you think he wants you to pay attention to. Why three? Because I can remember three easier than I can remember five, or nine, or some other amount. I take these three things, and then I watch for God to teach me about them throughout my day, assuming that if he pointed them out to me, then he wants to teach me something about them.

It has worked for me over the years. I still read through the Bible annually, much of it more than once. But this method has enabled me to apply the passages I read into my life easier, and hopefully I become more of the person God wants me to be.

I have been studying the book of Matthew in this way this year, jotting down my thoughts and journaling about what I read. I’d like to share some of my insights here and work my way through this amazingly practical gospel.

But first, let me share an introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, some details about the author, the date it was written, and the original audience. Knowing this can help us place a lot of what Matthew says in context, and can give us a deeper understanding of his work.

The Author

From as early as the second century, the church has accepted Matthew the tax collector as the author of the gospel that bears his name. Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea quotes Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis, affirming that Matthew was the author. We have to rely on the works of Eusebius because none of the writings of Papias remain, but he is known to have written much to the church during his lifetime and service, in the late first and early second centuries.

The Audience

Matthew seems to have been written with the Jewish people in mind. Matthew spends much of his time addressing the fulfillment of the Old Testament, quoting and alluding to specific passages more than 80 times. His style of writing assumes that his readers know Jewish culture and history, and that they are familiar with the customs and history of the Jewish nation. As such, Matthew’s purpose is to show the Jewish people that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah that was expected and predicted. From the genealogy at the beginning to the resurrection account at the end of the book, he lays out a solid case presenting Jesus as the one in whom Israel could place their hope.

The Date

Mark was likely the earliest Gospel account to be written, and many believe that both Matthew and Luke utilized Mark as sources for their own accounts. Based upon that fact, and the fact that Matthew says nothing about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD (although Jesus does predict it), a date somewhere between 55 and 60 AD is probably when Matthew wrote his gospel. Where he wrote it is another matter entirely, but many believe that Antioch of Syria is the most likely location.

The Structure

In general, the book of Matthew can be divided into three basic parts: the introduction or prologue, in Matthew 1:1-2:23; the main body of the book, found in Matthew 3:1-28:15; and the epilogue and summary which is seen in Matthew 28:16-20. The main body can further be broken down into five different and distinct events, and Matthew seems to write with these as his main outline. These are Sermon on the Mount (5:1-7:29), the missionary discourse, where he commissions the apostles (10:1-42), a series of parables about the Kingdom (13:1-52), life in the community of the Kingdom (18:1-35), and the Olivet discourse, where Jesus reveals the judgment to come (24:1-25:46).

If you look closely enough, you can see Matthew writes with a chiastic pattern through much of his book as well. As Matthew writes, his outline flows inward to a focal point, and then reverses to flow back outward to the conclusion, with each point moving in paralleling a point moving out. For example, you can see similarities in the introduction and the conclusion, in the first and last sections, in the second and fourth sections, leaving the third part, the parables about the Kingdom, as the central focal point. As an example of this parallelism, you can see this clearly in the firth chapter (1:23) where Matthew calls Jesus “Emmanuel,” or “God with us,” and his statement in 28:20, where Jesus says, “And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew is an intricate account of the life and teachings of Jesus, but at the same time, it is remarkable simple and applicable. I hope that the insights I have discovered in my own personal studies can help you to grasp the amazing depth of Matthew, and the hope and encouragement this book brings to any discussion about the Kingdom of heaven and the one who makes it accessible to us.

Question: What is your favorite passage from the book of Matthew? You can leave a comment by clicking here.