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 sa...