One advantage of reading the Bible in a year is that you get through the books of the bible fairly quickly. This means that you get a good overview of what the book is about, while not focussing on the detail. You’d get an even better overview if you read a whole book in one sitting.

Alongside the Old Testament readings I also get something from the New Testament and something from Psalms or Proverbs. I’ve just finished the first book of the New Testament and so here’s the review.

What would Jesus do?

One theme that runs throughout Matthew is that events happened because the Old Testament said they would. Matthew is big on the whole concept of fulfilment. From Jesus birth to his death the book of Matthew is full of references to events taking place as the prophets’ said*.

Because of this emphasis on linking events to the Old Testament it is easy to get the impression that the book was intended for those in the know. If you have no knowledge of the Old Testament or the related religious background is there anything worth reading here?

What should you do?

The other thing that I noticed was the emphasis on ‘do this’ and ‘do that’. Matthew has often been seen as the most didactic of the gospels, telling its readers how to act and what to do. This was quite evident in my reading.

There were large swathes of the book that talked about the kingdom of heaven and how you needed to act in a certain way to be part of that kingdom. The teaching emphasis was quite clear, amongst the narrative of Wise Men, miracles and crucifixion. It you want to be told how to act then Matthew could be the book for you.

What should the world do?

Perhaps I am being a little unfair, but reading the book quite quickly does mean you notice the major themes. However…

… that teaching is seen in great narratives such as the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus sits the crowd down and delivers words that really challenge each and every one of us, whatever our religious persuasion. The challenge to ‘love your enemies’ would solve so many of the world’s  problems that humanity would probably evolve to its next level.

I have a feeling that Matthew won’t be my favourite gospel as I read the Bible this year, but I wonder if that is due to not wanting to be told what to do.

Perhaps I am afraid of changing and becoming a better person?

*There are plenty of theories that suggest Matthew structured his book in ways that emulated the structure of Torah. I’m not going into them here as the connection wasn’t obvious from my read through, but feel free to follow them up with a good commentary.