- 1 Matthew 1 Α′ Matthew opens his Gospel by establishing who Jesus is: the son of David and son of Abraham whose descent runs in three symmetrical fourteens from the patriarch through the kings and the exile to the Christ — and whose birth, virginally conceived of the Holy Spirit and disclosed to Joseph by an angel, makes him 'Jesus' ('YHWH saves,' for he will save his people from their sins) and 'Emmanuel,' God with us. PDF
- 2 Matthew 2 Β′ The newborn King of the Jews is worshiped by Gentile Magi but hunted by Herod; through angelic dreams the child is led down to Egypt and back, his journey scripted by Scripture — Bethlehem (Mic 5:2), Egypt (Hos 11:1), Ramah's weeping (Jer 31:15), and Nazareth — so that the infancy's chain of fulfillment-formulas presents Jesus as the true Israel, the new Moses, and the prophesied Davidic shepherd-ruler. PDF
- 3 Matthew 3 Γ′ John the Baptist appears as Isaiah's wilderness voice, calling Israel to repentance before the nearing kingdom, baptizing the penitent and rebuking the presumptuous leaders with the threat of the axe and the unquenchable fire — until the mightier Coming One, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, himself submits to baptism "to fulfill all righteousness," and is attested by the descending Spirit and the Father's voice as the beloved Son. PDF
- 4 Matthew 4 Δ′ The newly-baptized Son is tested in the wilderness and prevails by Scripture (πειρασθῆναι, "to be tested," v.1), then inaugurates his Galilean ministry — fulfilling Isaiah's promise of light, calling the first disciples, and proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near" (v.17). PDF
- 5 Matthew 5 Ε′ The opening of the Sermon on the Mount: from the mountain a new Moses pronounces the Beatitudes of the kingdom and names his disciples the salt and light of the world, then declares that he has come not to abolish but to fulfill the Law — demanding a righteousness that, in six antitheses reaching from the heart to the love of enemies, exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees and mirrors the perfection of the heavenly Father. PDF
- 6 Matthew 6 Ϛ′ The middle of the Sermon on the Mount: true righteousness is practiced not before men but before the Father who sees in secret — almsgiving, prayer (with the Lord's Prayer), and fasting done unseen (1–18); then a single, undivided heart that lays up treasure in heaven and serves God rather than mammon (19–24), freed from anxiety to seek first the kingdom (25–34). PDF
- 7 Matthew 7 Ζ′ The close of the Sermon on the Mount: a sequence of demands and warnings — do not judge, but ask of the generous Father; do to others as you would be done by; enter the narrow gate; test the prophets by their fruit; obey, do not merely confess — sealed by the parable of the two builders and the crowds' astonishment that Jesus taught with authority, not as the scribes. PDF
- 8 Matthew 8 Η′ Down from the mountain of the Sermon, the authoritative Teacher becomes the authoritative Healer and Lord: a chain of mighty works — cleansing a leper, healing a Gentile centurion's servant by a word, restoring Peter's mother-in-law, casting out spirits, stilling the storm, and freeing the Gadarene demoniacs — displays the Servant who 'took our infirmities' (Isa 53:4), summons disciples to a homeless, all-claiming following, and provokes the question 'What sort of man is this?' PDF
- 9 Matthew 9 Θ′ A gallery of mercy and mounting conflict: the Son of Man forgives and heals the paralytic, calls the tax-collector Matthew, eats with sinners as the physician of the sick, and works a cascade of restorations — a dead girl raised, a hemorrhage stanched, blind eyes opened, a mute demoniac freed — answering Pharisaic suspicion with Hosea's word, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," and ending in compassion for the shepherdless crowds and a call to pray for harvest laborers. PDF
- 10 Matthew 10 Ι′ The second of Matthew's five great discourses: Jesus names and sends the Twelve to the lost sheep of Israel with his own kingdom-authority, then looks beyond the immediate mission to the long road of persecution — sheep among wolves, hated for his name — pressing the disciple to fearless confession, supreme allegiance above family and life itself, and the cross-bearing path of losing one's life to find it, with a closing promise that even a cup of cold water given to a "little one" is divinely rewarded. PDF
- 11 Matthew 11 ΙΑ′ With the mission discourse finished, the chapter turns to the question of who Jesus is and how 'this generation' answers him: John's prison-question is met by the works of Isaiah's age (vv.1–6); Jesus exalts John as the Elijah-forerunner yet subordinates him to the inbreaking kingdom (vv.7–15); the fickle generation rejects both the ascetic and the festive (vv.16–19); the unrepentant towns are warned (vv.20–24); and the Son, sole revealer of the Father, invites the weary to a gentle yoke and rest (vv.25–30). PDF
- 12 Matthew 12 ΙΒ′ Mounting conflict crystallizes around the meek but sovereign Servant of the Lord: against Pharisaic charges over the Sabbath and an exorcism, Jesus claims lordship of the Sabbath, embodies Isaiah's gentle, Spirit-anointed Servant who brings justice to the nations, declares the kingdom's arrival in his work, warns of the unforgivable blasphemy against the Spirit, weighs every word at the judgment, gives only the sign of Jonah, and redefines his true family as those who do the Father's will. PDF
- 13 Matthew 13 ΙΓ′ The parable-discourse of the kingdom: in seven kingdom-parables Jesus unveils the hidden, mixed, and growing reign of heaven — sown like seed into varied soils and a contested field, small as a mustard grain yet destined for greatness, worth selling everything to gain, and ending in a harvest-separation of righteous and wicked — while teaching the crowds only in riddles, so that the mysteries given to the disciples are withheld from the hardened, in fulfillment of Isaiah and the Psalter. PDF
- 14 Matthew 14 ΙΔ′ Between the murder of the forerunner and the worship of the disciples, Matthew sets Jesus' twofold self-disclosure: the shepherd-king who feeds the wilderness multitude with a Mosaic abundance, and the Lord who treads the storm-sea with the divine 'ἐγώ εἰμι' — drawing from those in the boat the church's confession, 'Truly you are the Son of God.' PDF
- 15 Matthew 15 ΙΕ′ True purity is of the heart, not the hands: Jesus exposes how the tradition of the elders voids God's commandment and relocates defilement from food to the words and deeds that issue from within — then enacts the breadth of God's mercy, commending a Canaanite woman's great faith and feeding four thousand in the wilderness, so that even Gentiles eat the children's overflowing bread. PDF
- 16 Matthew 16 ΙϚ′ The hinge of Matthew's Gospel: against sign-seekers and the leaven of false teaching, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and receives the keys of the kingdom — yet the messiahship just confessed is at once redefined by the cross, so that following the Son of Man, who will come in glory to judge, means self-denial, cross-bearing, and the loss of life that finds it. PDF
- 17 Matthew 17 ΙΖ′ From the mount of glory to the valley of need: the Father unveils Jesus as the beloved Son to be heard above Moses and Elijah, then the descent leads through the disciples' failure of faith, a second passion prediction, and the temple-tax episode in which the free Son willingly condescions — glory, suffering, and humble submission held together. PDF
- 18 Matthew 18 ΙΗ′ The fourth Matthean discourse, on life in the community of disciples: true greatness is childlike humility, the "little ones" are to be guarded from stumbling and sought when they stray, sin between brothers is to be restored through patient, escalating discipline backed by Christ's presence — and, above all, forgiveness must be limitless and from the heart, on pain of forfeiting the mercy one has received. PDF
- 19 Matthew 19 ΙΘ′ On the road from Galilee to Judea, Jesus grounds marriage in the creation order against the divorce casuistry of his day, welcomes the little children as heirs of the kingdom, and shows the rich young man that eternal life turns not on a deed but on renouncing all to follow him — sealing it with the promise of a hundredfold and the reversal of first and last. PDF
- 20 Matthew 20 Κ′ The kingdom overturns human reckonings of priority and power: a vineyard owner's scandalous generosity makes the last first (vv.1–16), and the road to the cross redefines greatness as service — climaxing in the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (v.28), enacted in compassion on two blind beggars at Jericho (vv.29–34). PDF
- 21 Matthew 21 ΚΑ′ Jerusalem's true king comes humble on a donkey to claim his city and temple — hailed by crowds and children with the Hosanna of Psalm 118, judging the fruitless cult, and unmasking, in three confrontations and two vineyard parables, the leaders who will reject the cornerstone and lose the kingdom to a fruit-bearing people. PDF
- 22 Matthew 22 ΚΒ′ The temple-controversies reach their height: a parable of the wedding feast exposes the leaders' refusal and the unfit guest (vv.1–14), then three tests — taxes to Caesar, the resurrection, the great commandment — are turned back on the questioners, until Jesus' own riddle of David's Lord silences them all and ends the debate. PDF
- 23 Matthew 23 ΚΓ′ Jesus' climactic public indictment of the scribes and Pharisees: from the seat-of-Moses concession ("do as they say, not as they do") through the sevenfold "woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" on a religion of display, casuistry, and inward corruption, to the prophet-killers' inherited blood-guilt — closing with the grief-stricken lament over Jerusalem and the abandonment of her "house." PDF
- 24 Matthew 24 ΚΔ′ The Olivet Discourse: prompted by the foretold destruction of the temple and the disciples' question about the sign of Christ's coming (παρουσία) and the end of the age, Jesus surveys the deceptions, wars, and persecutions that are only the "beginning of birth pains," moves through the desolating abomination and the great tribulation to the visible, glorious coming of the Son of Man and the gathering of the elect, and closes by pressing — since no one knows the day or hour — relentless watchfulness, in the parables of Noah's heedless generation, the thief, and the faithful versus wicked servant. PDF
- 25 Matthew 25 ΚΕ′ The close of the Olivet Discourse presses one demand — readiness for the Son of Man's return — through three pictures: the ten virgins who must keep their own lamps lit, the servants who must trade with their master's talents, and the nations judged by what they did, or left undone, to "the least of these." Watchfulness, faithful stewardship, and unselfconscious mercy are the marks of those who enter the kingdom and eternal life. PDF
- 26 Matthew 26 ΚϚ′ The longest chapter in Matthew opens the passion: the plot and the anointing for burial, Judas's bargain, the Passover-Supper where Jesus gives his body and "my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins," the Gethsemane agony resolved in "not as I will, but as you," the arrest with the sword renounced, the trial before Caiaphas where Jesus answers "you have said so" and points to "the Son of Man at the right hand of Power," and Peter's threefold denial sealed by the cock's crow. Throughout, the Son of Man goes "as it is written," sovereignly obedient to a script of Scripture. PDF
- 27 Matthew 27 ΚΖ′ The trial, crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus: handed to Pilate and abandoned even by his betrayer, condemned through envy and a clamoring crowd, mocked as King of the Jews, and crucified amid the echoes of Psalm 22 — he dies with the cry of dereliction, and the rent veil, the quaking earth, the raised saints, and a Gentile centurion's confession declare who he is, before he is sealed in a borrowed tomb under guard. PDF
- 28 Matthew 28 ΚΗ′ The resurrection and its commission: at dawn the women find the tomb opened by an angel and hear that the crucified Jesus has been raised; the risen Lord meets them and then, on a Galilean mountain, claims all authority in heaven and on earth and sends the eleven to make disciples of all nations — baptizing into the triune name and teaching obedience — with the abiding pledge, "I am with you always, to the end of the age." PDF