Matthew, Disciple and Scribe: The First Gospel and Its Portrait of Jesus
Overview
Patrick Schreiner provides a fresh look at the Gospel of Matthew, highlighting the unique contribution Matthew’s rich and multilayered portrait of Jesus makes to understanding the connection between the Old and New Testaments.
Drawing from Matthew 13:52, Schreiner understands the author of the Gospel as a “discipled scribe” who brings out treasures new and old from his teacher. Jesus, as a teacher of wisdom, formed an alternative scribal school. One of the main ways Jesus instructed his students in the paths of wisdom was to reveal the relationship between the new and the old with himself at the center.
Schreiner argues that Matthew obeyed the Great Commission by acting as scribe to Jesus in order to share Jesus’s life and work with the world, thereby making disciples of future generations. The First Gospel presents Jesus’s life as the fulfillment of the Old Testament story of Israel and shows how Jesus brings new life in the New Testament. This book will appeal to professors, students, and scholars of the New Testament as well as pastors.
- Argues that Matthew is the disciple and scribe following his teacher and sage of wisdom
- Examines titles and trace phrases through the narrative presentation
- Demonstrates how Matthew brings out treasures new and old by examining some themes and characters in his writing
Part 1: The Scribe Described
- Matthew, the Discipled Scribe
- The Scribe’s Convictions and Methods
Part 2: The Scribe at Work
- Jesus and the Journey of the Davidic King
- Jesus as the Ideal and Wise King
- Jesus and the Mosaic Exodus
- Jesus and Abraham’s New Family
- Jesus and Israel’s Destiny
Top Highlights
“unexpected form: a genealogy.1 The Gospel’s first words unveil Jesus through the prism of OT characters” (Page 7)
“My argument is that Matthew is the discipled scribe who narrates Jesus’s life through the alternation of the new and the old.” (Page 9)
“First, I will argue that ‘fulfillment’ means to bring something to fruition in the eschatological sense and is not always tied to predictive prophecy. Second, I will examine the location of the fulfillment formulas, displaying that the theme of fulfillment covers not only sections of the First Gospel but Matthew as a whole.” (Pages 38–39)
“It is better simply to assert that Jesus himself and his teaching is the new, while the old is the Jewish tradition more generally.” (Page 29)
“The second argument for seeing Jesus as the teacher of wisdom is in the specific titles given to Jesus” (Page 15)
Readers of the Bible often recognize the role the Gospels play as the bridge between old and new in Scripture. Schreiner gives the First Gospel special attention as he convincingly argues that Matthew is a disciple and scribe elucidating the relationship between old and new as he himself learned it from his teacher, Jesus. From this perspective, Schreiner sheds fresh light on what makes Matthew tick.
—Nijay K. Gupta, Portland Seminary
With Schreiner’s Matthew, Disciple and Scribe I have found a new favorite book on the Gospel of Matthew and a new required course text for my classes on the Synoptic Gospels. Both old and new insights abound in Schreiner’s fresh reading of Matthew, setting forth a powerful portrait of Jesus as the wise, righteous, merciful king; the new Moses, who leads his people to saving freedom through his death; and the one who brings Abraham’s blessing to all the natio
—Joshua W. Jipp, associate professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
By combining thoughtful research on what it means for Matthew to be a disciple of Teacher Jesus with the intertextual theology of Matthew’s text, Patrick Schreiner has provided a rich exploration of Matthew's message.
—Jonathan T. Pennington, associate professor of New Testament and director of doctoral studies, Southern Baptist Theologic
- Title: Matthew, Disciple and Scribe: The First Gospel and Its Portrait of Jesus
- Author: Patrick Schreiner
- Publisher: Baker
- Publication Date: 2019
- Pages: 304
- Resource Type:
- Topic: Gospel of Matthew