Matthew: The Mentor’s Gospel A Typological Approach (1)
In a couple of months
the lectionary will turn its pages to Year A for which Matthew is the primary
gospel focused on. This commentary on Matthew I intend as background for those
who follow the lectionary in their preaching. Each time through the lectionary
cycle I try to reread the Gospel of the year with a commentary I’ve not used
extensively that takes a distinctive approach to the gospel. For this go around
on Matthew I’ve chosen Peter Leithart’s two volumes on Matthew titled The
Gospel of Matthew Through New Eyes.
Leithart adopts a
typological approach to Matthew. That is, he sees the author reading and explaining
Jesus’ life and work in terms of earlier key figures and the history of the people
of Israel. These figures and events are the “new eyes” in the title of Leihart’s
commentary. Instead of an historical approach that attempts to peer through the
text at “what really happened and when” or a devotional or reader-response
approach which looks at the text for what it says to me today that provides
meaning or inspiration for daily living, Leithart looks at the story embedded
in the way Matthew has put his account of Jesus’ life and work together. He
does not neglect looking “through” the text as if it were a window[1]
to see what lies “behind” it, or as if it were a mirror reflecting the image of
the reader and their needs or interests “in front of” the text (as it were), he
does not make either the focus of his reading. Rather he uses them to the
degree that they serve his focal purpose of telling the story Matthew inscribes
in the text and in the (artistic) way he had done it. And according to Leithart
he does this by reading Jesus’ story as though he gathers up all the key
figures and events in the Old Testament story and “recapitulates”[2]
them (so to speak) in himself and brings them a climax and fulfillment.
This way of
reading scripture is time-honored[3]
and an effort to follow the principle of allowing scripture to interpret
scripture itself. Not all interpreters appreciate or consider such an approach
legitimate. But this is more of a modern conceit than anything else deriving
from modernity’s insistence that the best and only truly meaningful way to
interpret the Bible today is through the window to discern the historical
reality (or lack thereof) behind it and evaluating its truth, significance, and
authority in those terms.
-Did it happen like
the Bible says it did?
-By the people
the Bible said did it?
-At the time
the Bible says it did?
-Is it “possible”
that what the Bible says happened could have happened according to modern
science?
These are not the questions
that animate Leithart’s work on Matthew. He’s aware of them, of course, but he
believes this gospel’s account as if it were a piece of stained-glass art.
Other principles than historical exactness (the Bible as a window approach) or personal
meaning or inspiration (the Bible as a mirror approach), he tries to understand
Matthew’s art, the way he has used the materials he had to work with, as his
main principle for understanding his gospel.
And those materials
are the story of Israel found in the Old Testament, especially as embodied in
its key figures: Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, and the prophet Jeremiah chief
among them. Matthew, according to Leithart, connects the dots (so to speak)
between these ancient figures and happenings and Jesus and the events in his
life as their completion and fulfillment. In this way Matthew reflects a key
premise of modern gospel studies: the gospels tell how the story of Israel
reaches it appointed conclusion. In that story, so a typological approach affirms,
we discover what was really happening in the figures and events used and
correlated (whatever the case may be about their literal historical veracity)
and from that what this story as completed and fulfilled by Jesus means for us
and ought shape our lives.
The Mentor’s Gospel
Most commentators
see some sort of educational design or intent behind Matthew’s gospel. His way
of grouping Jesus’ teaching in five major blocks of topical material is
doubtless the primary reason why. The ease of introducing new church members to
Jesus’ movement and way, or to catechumenates, or even to a proposed “school”
of Christian prophets, using it seems obvious. This accounts for why Matthew
was the most popular of the four canonical gospels in the early church.
For preaching and
teaching in the church today this gospel continues to offer rich possibilities.
And reading it in a typological fashion enhances those possibilities. Though it
is not my purpose to point all this out I hope these possibilities will be
apparent to readers as we move along.
It would be silly
and stupid to claim this is the only way to read Matthew’s Gospel. Other
commentaries take a different tack than typological to understanding and explaining
it. But the typological has its virtues others don’t, chief among them a
refresher course in the Old Testament story it builds off of. We today do not
know that story well enough to pick up on other than the most obvious clues
(like Matthew’s frequent “This was written in order to fulfill …”). It is good
to have a guide like Peter Leithart to help us find our way to them.
The next post will
take a look at Leithart’s proposed typological structural outline of the gospel
so we can see the forest before we start looking at the trees. I’ll also make
some comments on the authorship, date, and place of writing of Matthew.
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