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Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary is unavailable, but you can change that!

The visit of the Magi, the Sermon on the Mount, the Great Commission: these are only a few of the well-known passages in Matthew’s Gospel. Yet it begins with a list of unknown names and apparently irrelevant ‘begettings’. The early church may have placed Matthew first in the New Testament because it provides a Christian perspective on the relation between the church and the Jews, an issue that is...

14–16. Light, like salt, affects its environment by being distinctive. The disciple who is visibly different from other men will have an effect on them. But the aim of his good works is not to parade his own virtue, but to direct attention to the God who inspired them. By so doing the disciple will give light to all (cf. Phil. 2:15). Jesus is pre-eminently the light of the world (John 8:12), as Isaiah had prophesied of the Servant (Isa. 42:6; 49:6), but this role passed to his disciples (cf. Acts
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