O. Wesley Allen Jr: - Matthew

Preaching Matthew is a hybrid of sorts, combining material usually found in different types of biblical, homiletical, and liturgical resources. From traditional books focused on helping pastors preach consistently through a biblical work, it keeps its eye on the overarching structures, themes, and theological claims that give Matthew its unique character. From commentaries that work passage by passage through a biblical work, it works through Matthews material in the order Matthew presents it. But from homiletical helps for lectionary preachers, it gives most attention to readings from Matthew (lections) that appear in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). In this combination of approaches, preachers long familiar with Matthew may see elements of the First Gospel in a new light and may lead a congregation to experience the liturgical year based on Matthew (Year A in the RCL) in a new way.

This hybrid approach grows out of my understanding of the nature of biblical preaching. To preach biblically does not mean to go to the Bible, discover what it says, and simply repeat or translate it for a contemporary audience. Instead, the focus of biblical preaching (well, of any Christian preaching) is the good news of Jesus Christthe grace, judgment, and call of God-with-us, here and now, as God has always been with the world. In the sermon, a biblical passage serves as the particular lens for the day for seeing a particular way God is with us and what it means for life in the world corporately as the body of Christ and individually as a disciple of Christ. In sermon preparation (and in the sermon itself), therefore, preachers should focus their gaze less on the text and more through it to look at life there and find the God made known in the Christ event in new and enlivening ways.

This type of focus changes the way preachers read a biblical text on behalf of a congregation. Critical exegesis is as important as ever, but it is a means to an end. Exegesis during sermon preparation is the process of turning the lens to sharpen the preachers focus on the theological, ethical, pastoral, and existential needs of the congregation. Thus this book is exegetical in nature, but it is unapologetically exegesis in service to the pulpit. It does not attempt to be exhaustive in dealing with textual, historical, or literary issues involved in studying Matthew. It does not position the interpretation of different elements of Matthew in either the history of interpretation or among contemporary scholarship. While the nature of this approach means I have avoided the use of footnotes or references to scholarship, I hope the conversation I have had with Matthean scholarship and my dependence on the research of others is evident in the work. For a list of helpful research and important commentaries on the book of Matthew, an appendix indicating sources for further reading has been included.

So I have been selective in what I have included in this book, assuming that preachers who turn to it will (1) already be familiar with general issues related to Matthean scholarship from seminary or other biblical studies and (2) have done significant exegesis on a passage of interest using critical commentaries based in historical and literary criticism, Bible dictionaries, and other resources before turning to my discussion of that text. In other words, this homiletical, lectionary-oriented commentary on Matthew is meant to help preachers as they begin to turn from detailed, critical commentaries toward the pulpit. Preachers have not moved so close to the sermon that they are looking for sermon imagery and the like but close enough that synthesis of exegetical findings and theological possibilities is needed. In other words, while this book is not intended as a resource that fits the needs of preachers closely examining a biblical text for the first time in their sermon preparation, neither is it a resource for the final stages of sermon preparation where they are filling out their reading of a text with the stuff of the congregation. It stands in the middle of the week of the preparation, just at that point where the preacher is beginning to let go of reading the text for its own sake and moving toward interpreting it for the sake of a specific congregation set in a specific historical time and place.