The new teaching

The new teaching The Discourses, Matthew 5—7, 10, 13, 18, 23—25

While Mark has very little actual teaching, Matthew builds the character of Jesus as the Teacher of Israel, and structures the gospel around his five great blocks of teaching – the discourses punctuating the narrative (5—7, 10, 13, 18, 23—25). Detailed comparison with Mark and Luke reveals how carefully Matthew has worked on these chapters. Some parts of Matthew’s sermons have come from Mark: chapter 10 has verses from Mk. 6.7–13; chapter 13 includes parables from Mk. 4.3–34; chapter 18 has teaching from Mk. 9.35–48 and 24 is similar to Mk. 13.5–37. Some of Matthew’s extra material is shared with Luke and probably came from Q: for example, some of the teaching in Matthew’s continuous Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5—7) is scattered in bits and pieces throughout Luke’s gospel (Lk. 6.20–49; 7.1; 8.16; 11.2–4, 9–13, 33, 34–35; 12.22–31, 33–34, 58–59; 13.24, 25–27; 14.34–35; 16.13, 17, 18). Matthew takes these separate teachings from Q, completely re-orders and mixes them with his own special material to form beautifully crafted sermons as a complete, clear and concise exposition of the teaching of Jesus the Teacher…