The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - The Unique Gospel of Matthew

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

What makes the Gospel of Matthew different from the other Gospels? Jeff delves into the unique aspects of the Gospel of Matthew, kicking off a series of four episodes dedicated to understanding its distinctiveness in the liturgical cycle A. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 464, the unique gospel of Matthew. Well, hello and welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show. Thank you for joining me this week. Hope you're doing well. It's kind of that time of the year after Christmas, after the New Year's, people are settling in, kids back to school, and you're back to work, whether that's at home

or driving to work, wherever it might be. But it's good to be with you. Thank you for joining me today. You know, I got to thinking about the show today, and it actually developed into four shows. And what I'd like to do today is to introduce you. This is the first time, actually, that I've done this in almost nine years, I think, with you. And it's the first time that I've ever taken a moment to kind of acquaint you with one of the Gospels as we are entering cycle A of the liturgical years. There's A, B, and C, and this is A, and we're focusing on Matthew. And so I thought it would be good to kind of introduce you to this book a little bit. And today I'd like to talk about the uniqueness of Matthew and kind of orient you to it because you're going to be in it during this liturgical year.

And then on next week, I want to talk about the genealogies of Matthew, which most people think are very boring, but you'll see next week that they're not. They're actually very exciting. And then the week after that, I want to talk about Matthew connecting with the Old Testament, give you a little insight there on how to read Matthew and listen to Matthew for this year. And then on the fourth week, Jesus completing the Old Testament and how he does that. So we're going to take a look at some of these things. It's not really meant to be an exhaustive look at Matthew or a complete synopsis of Matthew in these four times together, but really is just acquainting you with the book and kind of the feel of it so that you're off and running for the liturgical year. If you do want the show notes, all you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word,

Jeff Kavins, and you can text it to the number 33777. 3-3-7-7. We'll get you the notes. And there are some notes on these four episodes about Matthew. I think you're going to like it, though. I really do. You know, as we begin, I think it's important to state that there are four gospels. That might sound funny to some, but you'd be surprised at how many people I run across that are not acquainted with the fact that there's four gospels. and each one of them is a little bit different, and each one has a unique audience, a unique perspective, a unique theme, if you will. Now, I've taught this whole book as part of the Great Adventure Bible Study series, and it's 24 lessons. And so you can imagine how deep we get into it. And if you are interested in going deeper into Matthew during this time, well, by all means, get on board at Ascension Press and get a hold of the Matthews study.

the king in his kingdom. The theme of this amazing gospel, which happens to be my favorite gospel, is the king in the kingdom. And if you understand that, then you understand kind of the narrative that you'll be going through. But anyway, if you want to study Matthew, get on board, get some friends together at church, at home, or just for yourself. But it's a good time to study Matthew right now. Okay, so let's take a look at this. Matthew is very, very unique. And one of the reasons that Matthew is unique is that Matthew is writing to basically a Jewish audience. And as a Jewish audience, they don't need things explained to them as far as customs, what a rabbi is, a Torah, all of that type of thing. What they will need, some explaining for, is the Old Testament scriptures, that line up with the fulfillment of Jesus and his kingdom. They will need help with that. And in the week after next, I'll be going through that with you.

So it's a Jewish audience that understands salvation history. And so some of what Matthew is going to do, including the genealogy next week, is something that doesn't need a lot of explaining to them, like it would with you or me. Why? Because, well, it's because it's their family story, right? you have a tendency to know your family story. You know, the place of scripture in the Catholic life is center stage.

And a lot of people don't know that, that as Catholics, we place scripture center stage in our lives. And we're told to do two things with it. One, we think about it. And number two, we meditate on it. Now, thinking about it, and that's study, and meditating on it, that's how it gets from the head to the heart. Well, that's necessary. But the third thing is the doing of it, putting it into practice. Now, let me give you two, and I'll put these in the show notes, but two citations for this, the thinking part.

I would read the Catechism, paragraph 101 to 1119, 11 to 1119, which begins to talk about God revealing himself. This is Article 3. And in the Ascension Catechism, that starts on page 42. So 101 to 119 gives you a really kind of a good introduction into the inspiration and truth of sacred scripture, how the Holy Spirit is the interpreter of Scripture. And then in verses 115 through 119, the church teaches us how to go about studying it with the literal sense and then the three aspects of the spiritual sense, the allegorical sense, how it relates to Jesus, the moral sense, how it relates to you in your sense. life and the anagogical sense, how it relates to the future in the heavenly Jerusalem. So I would encourage you to read that in the same way. The second citation is on the meditating part.

And on the meditating part, I would really recommend Psalm 1, 1 through 3. Psalm 1 through 3, which talks about meditating on the word of God and the fruitfulness of it. You know, St. Bernard, he said, quote, you want to see, then listen first. It says, if you want to see, then listen first. Hearing is a step towards seeing. Hearing the word of God. Of course, we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. St. Gregory the Great said God's words grow with the reader. And that's what we hope happens during liturgical year A. we focus on Matthew, that the words of God would grow with the reader. The scriptures will show us not as we think we are, but as we actually are. Like a mirror. James talks about that. And James 1, 23 and 24, we'll see ourselves as we really are, like looking into a mirror,

and then we'll make the adjustments. We will not see that our hair is way out of place and just walk out and go to work. No, we'll do something about it. So the Christian goes to the text of God's written word in an attitude of prayer like the Samaritan woman. As she went to the well with her bucket, she follows the instinct of her thirst and is drawn to the place of water. And there she discovers instead Jesus in the scorching noonday solitude.

So it's interesting because nowhere in the gospel does it mention an author. So you ask, well, how do you know it's Matthew? Well, according to Matthew was added to an early date to distinguish it from the other three Gospels. Now, the consensus of the early church is that Matthew, the apostle, an eyewitness of Jesus, is the author. And it was not until the 18th century that the tradition was really questioned. So it was not, he was not writing a book of his own, but bearing witness to Jesus' life on earth.

and that was the emphasis when he wrote it. And there's not a lot known about Matthew, also called Levi. You can read about him in Mark chapter 2 and Luke chapter 5. I'll put that in the notes for you. But we do know this. He's a tax collector and was called by Jesus to be a disciple, and he was later chosen to be one of the 12 apostles. Now, the final appearance of Matthew in the New Testament occurs at Pentecost in Acts 113.

where he is present with the Virgin Mary and the apostles in the upper room. So the place, the circumstances, and the date of his martyrdom, a little unclear on that. So when was the book written? When was this gospel written? Well, you're going to find, if you chat GPT it, you're going to find all kinds of dates. And many people will put the date after 70 AD. Now, why is 70 AD so important? Well, 70 AD is when the temple was destroyed by the Romans. I mean destroyed by the Romans.

Now, here is what I think is the smartest thing to do, and that is to place the dating of this gospel from 50 to 70 AD. Now, the pontifical biblical commission in the church, instituted by Pope Leo the 13th, offers guidance to Catholics about the Bible. And they concluded in 1911, year 1911, that the original Hebrew, Aramaic version of Matthew was probably written before 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the city.

Now that's interesting that the church does this. And here is why, and I think this is really important to get, because you're going to see dates after 70 AD. I don't think that happened. It was before 70 AD. Matthew's normal procedure was to point out how past events have enduring significance for the church in his day. That's the normal thing that Matthew does, which in the next few weeks I'm going to be showing you. Matthew 24 foretells the destruction of the temple.

Matthew would have most certainly, most certainly mentioned the destruction of the temple if he had written the gospel after 78. I would say it was nearly impossible to write it after 70 AD and not mention the destruction of the temple, the temple where the king carried on his ministry. The audience, as I said, Jewish audience. Matthew assumes you know your Old Testament and Jewish customs. And since you don't as a modern day believer, that's what the Matthew study is all about. So again, I hope you'll get into that. Let's take a break. When I get back, I want to talk to you about the unique structure. of this book. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. I am Father Colomba, Jordan a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, living here in Ireland. This Lent, I'm partnering with Ascension

to bring you Crooks, a set of daily challenges and videos in the Ascension app. Starting Ash Wednesday, we'll take on four challenges each day that remind us of the cross of Christ. One, reading scripture, two, praying the examined prayer, three, doing one, workout or exercise in four and dietary fast of your choice. Nothing extreme. It's about stepping into small daily challenges that rub up against our weakness so we can learn to meet God in those moments and rely on him alone. So here's the invitation.

Join me every day this Lent in the Ascension app. Get ready for a Lent that stretches you, challenges you, and draws you closer to God. Download and subscribe to the Ascension app to get started today. God bless you. I'll see you soon. Welcome back. Talking about Matthew, kind of giving you a little introduction as you're going to be in this book during all of this liturgical year A. You're going to be with it, so why not know a little bit about it, right? Now, here's one of the most interesting things, and I'm going to put this in the show notes for you. This is one of the most interesting things about Matthew's Gospel.

And if you share this with your friends, you will dazzle them, right? Now, what was the most important writing in the Old Testament for the Jews? Right. It was the Torah. The Torah is the five books of Moses. You've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That takes you from creation all the way through into the wilderness for 40 years and getting ready to take the promised land, which will happen in the next book, Joshua. So those five books are really the foundation, the Torah.

Now, the Jewish community also explains the Torah is not only the five books of Moses, but the entire Tanakh, the Torah, Nevi-im, Ketuvim, that's an acronym, Tanakh. The Torah's five books of Moses, Nevi-im, the prophets, ketuvim, the writings, those three divisions. And then also there are people who consider the Torah, the oral tradition as well, that goes along with the written Torah. But here's the interesting thing, okay? Matthew, as a Jewish writer, is going to try to show you that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything before him. He's going to try to show you that. What better way could he have found than to structure his entire gospel after the Torah, the five books of Moses?

Now, this is brilliant. Now what you're going to see when you go through the entire book is you're going to see five divisions. Okay? You're going to see five divisions. You're going to start off in chapters one and two with a genealogy. It's an introduction. It's not one of the five divisions. It's the introduction.

It's chapter one and two. It's the genealogy in the birth of Jesus. Okay. Then you have five books, five divisions as you go through it. Now, the Jew who's listening to this or reading this would immediately see the structure of, wow, this is like a new Torah in a way. So how does it go? I'll walk you through it here. And it'll be in the show notes for you.

Absolutely free, I might add. Okay, so we have five books in the gospel of Matthew, book one. Each one of these books now, book one, book two, three, four, five is divided into two sections. okay and the two sections for each of these five divisions of the gospel are number one narrative narrative narrative is the stories moving on jesus moved to another city he did this he did that narrative and then the second aspect is discourse he teaches he teaches so if you look at the book carefully you'll see that there is narrative and discourse one, narrative and discourse two, narrative and discourse three, four and five, right? So let me walk through that with you here to give you

that outline that you're going to be in for quite some time. And then I think you'll be set. All right. So the first narrative is chapters three and four of Matthew. And that's the ministry of John and Jesus. It covers the ministry of John and Jesus, like down at the Jordan River, the wilderness of Judea. And then chapters 5 through 7 is the sermon on the Mount. It's the teaching. So you have chapter three and four narrative, chapters five, six, and seven discourse. That's book one. Then you move to book two. Chapter 8 and 9 is narrative. That's those are the miracle stories. Then you have discourse in chapter 10, the missionary sermon or the apostles. So we're done with three and four, five through seven, book two, eight and nine is narrative,

discourse is chapter 10, moving on to book three. Narrative is chapter 11 and 12. Jesus confronts evil. And then the discourse, the teaching, chapter 13, parables of the kingdom. That's book three. Book 4 is the narrative, chapter 14 through 17, various travels and miracles, and then the discourse, the sermon on life in the church in chapter 18. So you see the pattern there, that's book 4.

Narrative again is chapter 14 through 17, and then the discourse is chapter 18. Then finally, book 5, the narrative is chapter 19 through 23 events in Judea, and then the discourse, the teaching, chapter 24, and 25, that is the Mount Olivet discourse. And then, of course, you end with the Passion Week, the suffering and the resurrection of Jesus. So the theme throughout the entire gospel is Jesus is king and his kingdom and the works of the kingdom and our involvement in the kingdom. So Matthew has a habit of standing back after the narratives, an event,

to reflect on its meaning, narrative. So you've got the narrative, the events, then he stands back and he reflects on the meaning that's Jesus' teaching. And then he, look at this, he cites an Old Testament passage, usually from the prophets, which sheds light on the event. And this technique has been labeled formula quotation or reflection quotation. All right. So this is the outline of this incredible.

gospel that you're going to be looking at in year A. So I'm going to move on next week and talk a little bit about the genealogies. I think you're going to find that quite interesting. In fact, I've entitled next week's show why Bible genealogies are interesting. That might be an eye-opener. My friend, so good to be with you today. And I do pray that you will go deep into Matthew. And again, if you want to study this in 24 one-hour sessions, that I have available for you at

Ascension Press, might be a good time. Start it up in your church with your family, gifted to the kids at college, whatever, and get them into this amazing gospel, which, by the way, is my favorite gospel. But I have three other favorite gospels, too, for different reasons. But this is my favorite because of the Jewish backgrounds. and it just opens up the kingdom in such an amazing way. Shall we pray? The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, thank you so much for giving us your word. And Lord, we ask you to accompany us, fill us, teach us, guide us, illuminate your word within our hearts and minds.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Love you.