A Reflection Of The Gospel Of St. Mathew

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A Reflection of the Gospel of St. Mathew: “Jesus and the Pharisees: Friends and/or Enemies!”


The Gospel According to Mathew was the first of the four gospels in the New Testament. It reflects both the view that it was the first to be written, a view that goes back to the late second century A.D., and the esteem in which it was held by the church; no other was so frequently quoted in the literature of earliest Christianity. The Gospel According to Mathew presents the story of Jesus, the demands of Christian discipleship, and the breaking-in of the new and final age through the ministry but particularly through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Readers learn of actions that are approved of and actions that are frowned upon. One of those actions is the love of enemies, family, and friends.
The first part of the gospel starts out with a genealogy of Jesus starting with Abraham, the father of Israel. Yet at the beginning of that genealogy Jesus is designated as “ the son of David, the son of Abraham”. I interpreted the meaning of this first section two different ways. First I interpreted it to mean that Mathew was trying to point out that Jesus is the son of Abraham as well as David. This strengthens the Son of God because it does not prevent Jesus from being Son of David, Son of Abraham through the ancestry of Joseph since Joseph accepted Jesus as his own.
This beginning was very confusing to me. It was hard to keep track of who was who and how they became part of the story. The main thing I want to focus on is Jesus and the Pharisees: Friends and/or Enemies. This topic seems to come up a lot in everyday life today. In little quarrels between loved ones, friends, or neighbors. Mathew gives an idea of when hate has been used and when it should be used. Love is the opposite of hate and Mathew also describes what God has to say about it. Something that people always say is that “you should treat others how ...