Week 8- The Gospel of Mathew

Part two of a three week series on “The Synoptic Gospels: Christianity & Jesus of Nazareth.” Dr. Tim discusses vitally important topics uniquely emphasized in Matthew, such as what Jesus meant by righteousness and the role of the Law in the Matthean community. Matthew is also famous for Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. But are his ethics just an ideal, which no one can attain, or are they the concrete expectations of God for all Jesus’s disciples? What does it mean to “seek first God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness?” And, what do commentators mean when they say, “Love is the hermeneutical key for the Law?” This very challenging Gospel, which was placed first in the New Testament canon, raises many questions that are difficult to answer, not least of which is, how we should interpret this Jewish-Christian form of Christianity today?