Jesus appears in the Gospel of Matthew as the long-expected Messiah of Israel (Matt 1:1), the Teacher greater than Moses (Matt 5–7), the Son of David who will rule and save his people (Matt 1:1, 21), the Son of Man who has the authority to forgive sins (Matt 9:6), and the Son of God who gives his life for his chosen people (Matt 26:63; 27:40, 43, 54).
Matthew’s Gospel reveals the wisdom of the gospel message and the new way of life that results as disciples discover truth through encounters with Jesus. Additionally, Matthew’s Gospel makes clear through these encounters that the call of the gospel is to allegiance. Jesus’ kingdom vision re-socializes us by deconstructing our values and then reconstructing them in new, kingdom-oriented, God-directed ways that are often counter-cultural and very unnatural.[1]
But Matthew does more than merely share stories of Jesus’ life. And this is why you should preach through it. Below are four more reasons.
1) The power and importance of biblical narrative.
One of the keys to preaching the Gospels well is to read them with the literary features of a narrative in mind. This is especially true when preaching the carefully crafted book of
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