Matthew – A devotional thought

..and..The New Testament World

pic of charles June 18, 2014 (Wednesday)
There are four gospels in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three of these are “synoptic” gospels and all three take very similar approaches to the life of Jesus. Each, however, has its own special way of presenting Jesus.
The word that keeps popping up in Matthew is “kingdom.” Matthew writes to a Jewish audience, and seeks to show that Jesus is the promised “King of the Jews.” His kingdom, however, is not like other kingdoms; it is the reign of God in the believer’s heart–a spiritual kingdom.

Matthew – A devotional thought
Jesus taught us not to worry about “things,” but to focus instead on spiritual matters. Here’s how He put it: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:31-33 NIV).

THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Old Testament is about the people of Israel and God’s love for them, expressed through great people like Moses and the prophets. The New Testament is about God’s love for the entire world, expressed through His One and Only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we begin looking at summaries of the New Testament books today, seeking to discover lessons for us to use in our daily lives as followers of Jesus.

There were 400 years between Malachi and Matthew. The world of Malachi, prophet of the last book of our Old Testament, and the world of Matthew, the writer of the first gospel in our New Testament, were different worlds.

Here is how W.A. Criswell, in a 1974 lecture on the Interbiblical Period, put it:

The New Testament world

“At the close of the Old Testament, Persia was the great world power. At the opening of the New Testament, Rome is the great world power. At the close of the Old Testament, Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, is the lord over Palestine. At the opening of the New Testament, Caesar is the lord over the Holy Land. At the close of the Old Testament, Judea is under a Jewish governor. At the opening of the New Testament, Judea is under a Roman deputy. At the close of the Old Testament, there are no Greek cities in Palestine. At the opening of the New Testament, there are Greek cities everywhere. For example, the Decapolis, the Decapolis is just a name for ten Greek cities. Greek cities are everywhere in Palestine. There was not a one of them at the close of the Old Testament. At the close of the Old Testament, the temple is the one built by Zerubbabel. At the opening of the New Testament, the temple is rebuilt by Herod the Great. At the close of the Old Testament, there is no mention, either in the Old Testament or in the Apocrypha, of the synagogue. At the opening of the New Testament, there are synagogues everywhere, from Jerusalem to Rome and throughout the whole civilized world.
“At the close of the Old Testament, the Scriptures of the Old Testament were in Hebrew and in Hebrew alone. At the opening of the New Testament, the Scriptures of the Old Testament are in Greek, called the Septuagint. The Bible of the first Christian evangelist and apostles and missionaries was the Greek Septuagint.
“At the close of the Old Testament, there are no writings of Jews other than the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures, but at the opening of the New Testament, there are fifteen apocryphal writings and many called pseudepigrapha, writings of supposedly great saints back there, the patriarchs, but absolutely spurious. At the close of the Old Testament, there are no Pharisees or Sadducees. At the opening of the New Testament, they are everywhere, and they arose in that interbiblical period.” (Read the entire lecture: click here).
If you are interested in learning more from the great Baptist scholar, J. A. Broadus, click here.