Review
My argument has been that Matthew is the “discipled scribe” referred to in 13:52, who learns wisdom from his teacher. This wisdom more specifically concerns how the “new” relates to the “old”—or as Jesus puts it, the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (13:11).1 The best way for Matthew to disciple and teach future generations is to tell the story of Jesus, because in this story the new and the old clatter together. He therefore tells shadow stories—stories that echo the previous narrative of Israel. Matthew’s wisdom is thus embedded in his form. His conviction is that the story of Israel is fulfilled in this Solomon-like sage, who taught him how to integrate what is new with the old. The old in fact predicts that the new will come bearing wisdom: someone from Jesse, a new David, a righteous branch, who will have a spirit of wisdom and understanding (Isa. 11:1; 52:13; Jer. 23:5; 2 Chron. 1:10).
We therefore began by exploring how Matthew paints Jesus as the son of David. This son of David is the heir of the throne and the kingdom because he is a wise king, who reunites the north and the south. Yet the people of Matthew’s day were probably tempted to have questions about Jesus’s claim to kingship because of the seeming failure of his mission. Matthew reminds his readers that as David’s path to kingship was filled with conflict, so Jesus himself must endure exile. In addition, if they look to Jesus’s life, Matthew’s readers can see how Jesus is the living embodiment of the law (à la wisdom). He shepherds and heals his people. He is the king that the prophets foretold––the wise suffering servant.
Matthew also styles Jesus as the new Moses. Moses’s prophetic role, mediation, healing, and redeeming acts all revolved around the exodus. Moses, though flawed, was a wise leader who brought his people out of Egypt and to the brink of the promised land. Jesus is like Moses but better. Jesus not only leads his people on the new exodus through his death on the cross, but he also tells them to go into the land, spreading the teaching of Jesus.
Jesus is also the son of Abraham. Abraham was promised that he would have a family who would be a great nation. Abraham wisely believed God and followed God’s will, but he and his children also turned their backs on God and tried to make families in their own power. Jesus rests in the will of his Father and knows that it is precisely in an act of death that Abraham’s family expands.
Finally, Jesus is the new Israel. Because of Israel’s sin, Israel was conquered by foreign armies. But Jesus, as the true Israel, submits himself to the armies of sin and darkness, offering his innocent blood on behalf of the nation. The messiah retraces the footsteps of Israel and brings them home from exile by his sacrifice.
| Character | Concept/Event |
| David | kingdom |
| Moses | exodus |
| Abraham | family |
| Israel | exile |
Though for the purpose of closer examination, I have separated these characters (David, Moses, Abraham, Israel) and concepts/events (kingdom, exodus, family, exile), they interweave in the narrative. When Jesus commands the disciples to go out into the nations, he instructs them as the king, the new Moses, the new Abraham, and the new Israel. In the command he instructs them to go up out of exile and on the new exodus, to build their kingdom and establish their new family. The new exodus has the kingdom as its goal. The return from exile is a new exodus. The new family of God inherits the kingdom.
Therefore, while lines can be drawn, Matthew ties these hopes together under the banner of fulfillment. The life of Jesus is where the new and the old meet––an understanding Matthew has gained through becoming a disciple of his teacher of wisdom. If Matthew is the discipled scribe, who learned the law of the Lord, thereby making him wise (Ps. 19:7), then he defines his activity not only by a positive portrayal but by negative pictures of foolish scribes. Through looking at the antithesis to scribes, we can draw some conclusions about what it means to be a true disciple and scribe.
Wise teachers instruct by negation and comparison. Light is opposed to darkness, health is contrasted with sickness, and sheep are distinguished from goats. Both Matthew and Jesus teach in this way. They oppose blessings and woes, worthless shepherds with caring shepherds, and positive instruction with negative denouncement. This new and old alternation—explanation by comparison or negation—is pervasive in the wisdom tradition.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Prov. 1:7)
Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me. (Jer. 9:23–35 NIV)
The righteous are like a tree; the wicked are like chaff. (cf. Ps. 1)
The kings of the earth conspire against the Christ, but the wise kiss the Son. (cf. Ps. 2)
It is therefore appropriate to end this examination of Matthew as the discipled scribe with the negative corollary: foolish or unwise scribes.2 If Matthew and the other disciples are an alternative scribal school, they must represent an alternative to something. Matthew does not merely define what it means to be a discipled scribe; he also illustrates the opposite of a trained scribe. This serves as both a warning and clarifying instruction about what it means to be a pupil of the teacher. The false scribes, the non-discipled scribes, the adversaries to Jesus in the Gospel—these are the religious leaders, the teachers of the law, the Pharisees, the “kings” of Israel, and finally Judas is revealed as the ultimate false disciple.3 This conclusion briefly explores the tradition against which Jesus contends.
Matthew 23 is unique to Matthew and bolsters my thesis that Jesus in Matthew is creating an alternate scribal school. Jesus vociferously denounces the actions of the scribes (γραμματέων) and Pharisees: they impose heavy burdens, do their deeds to be seen by others, love the place of honor, and like to be called “Rabbi.” So Jesus turns and says to his disciples, “But you are not to be called rabbi [ῥαββί], . . . and call no man your father, . . . neither be called instructors [καθηγητής]” (Matt. 23:8–10, emphasis added). Readers should be asking what these false scribes teach us about what it means to be students of Jesus.
Three things come to the forefront in Matthew’s presentation of the foolish scribes. (1) They don’t recognize Jesus as their teacher of wisdom, (2) they are unreliable interpreters because they don’t understand the relationship between the new and the old, and (3) they lack righteousness. Put another way, they lack wisdom theologically, practically, and ethically.4 They walk down the path of folly. Psalms 1 and 2 therefore loom large over this section. The introduction to the Psalter contrasts the righteous with the wicked––the wise with the foolish. The wise are those who meditate on the Torah, who follow the messiah. The foolish are those who have no future, who plot in vain, and set themselves up against the messiah. Therefore, Yahweh looks at the kings of the earth and calls them to understanding—to wisdom. The wise gain understanding by learning and listening. The foolish travel their own path.
Theological Folly
Foolish disciples and scribes are at their core contrasted with discipled scribes because they don’t accept Jesus as their messiah and teacher of wisdom, and so lack theological wisdom. If all wisdom is from the Lord (Sir. 1:1), then all folly comes from rejecting him. The foolish scribes claim that Jesus blasphemes (Matt. 9:3), ask him for a sign (12:38), and wonder why Jesus’s disciples break the traditions of the elders (15:1–2). Most importantly, the scribes condemn Jesus to death and mock him on the cross (20:18; 27:41). In Proverbs the author claims that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10). “This fear is not the fear that makes us run, but it is the fear that makes us pay attention and listen. Fear of the Lord makes us humble, a wisdom trait.”5 One can almost hear Jesus saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15; 13:9, 43; Sir. 1:14).
In the Sermon, Jesus forms his alternative scribal school through his teaching, but in another sense, he pleads with the scribes of the day to understand who he is. They don’t understand that Jesus is the one of whom the Prophets spoke. Jesus claims this school of scribes has rejected him, and now he must “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matt. 16:21; 20:18). Foolish scribes are essentially those who have rejected the true teacher of wisdom.
Practical Folly
Second, Matthew continually has the false scribes “searching the Scriptures,” but they cannot find life in them for they are impoverished interpreters, lacking practical wisdom. They don’t recognize that all of the Scriptures point to Jesus. If the new is not accepted, then the old will be left in obscurity. We can see this illustrated in Matt. 2. King Herod assembles all the chief priests and scribes of the people (γραμματεῖς τοῦ λαοῦ) and inquires where the Christ is to be born (Matt. 2:4). The chief priests and the scribes quote a Jewish text to Herod, and it is the correct text (Mic. 5:2), but they seem to miss the point entirely or reject Jesus as the referent. Matthew demonstrates that because they have missed the new, they understand neither the new nor the old. The old makes sense only in light of the new. They have not interpreted the law rightly because they don’t know to whom it points.
Similarly, Jesus responds to the indignation of the chief priests and the scribes (Matt. 21:15) by saying, “Have you never read in the Scriptures?” (21:42). He goes on to quote a verse from Ps. 118:22. They certainly had read this text, but again they could not understand it because Jesus is the cornerstone. Later Jesus says to them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). The false scribes are foolish precisely because they do not know the Scriptures, but Jesus creates a new class of scribes who understand his words (13:51). The chief priests and the scribes don’t fulfill their role because they don’t recognize to whom the Scriptures point. Jeremiah speaks prophetically when he condemns the people, saying, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie” (Jer. 8:8; Ps. 19:7).
Ethical Folly
Finally, the foolish scribes are hypocrites and lack righteousness, and so lack ethical wisdom.6 Throughout Proverbs and other literature, righteousness and wisdom become connected terms.7 The false scribes cannot see the ancient texts’ true interpretation, partially because they lack righteousness. As C. S. Lewis says, “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”8 Jesus’s new scribal school must learn not only how to interpret but also how to embody the life of their teacher. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).
Though Jesus says that the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’s seat (23:2), the disciples should do and observe what they say but not the works they do (23:3). They do the opposite of what Jesus says in the Sermon: they impose heavy burdens, do their deeds in order to be seen, enjoy being called rabbi, and boast in their accomplishments (23:4–12). Therefore, Jesus pronounces woes instead of blessings on the scribes and Pharisees because they are hypocrites (23:13–39). He has rejected this scribal school because they refuse to be tutored by him, to interpret the old in light of him, and to practice the righteousness of the Torah.
Judas as a Foolish Disciple
Maybe the most tragic example of a false disciple is Judas. Matthew devotes more lines to Judas than any of the other Gospel writers. He provides clues in his narrative, displaying Judas as the foolish disciple: in two tragic texts Judas ironically refers to Jesus as rabbi. When Jesus predicts Judas’s betrayal, Judas seals his own fate by asking, “Is it I, Rabbi?” Jesus says to him, “You have said so” (Matt. 26:24–25). Then in a final meeting between Jesus and his betrayer, when Judas comes to the garden, he says, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kisses him (26:49). Twice Matthew has Judas paradoxically call Jesus his rabbi as he plans to betray Jesus. Judas has been following his teacher, but he has not accepted his teaching, nor will he pass on his teaching except through a negative example (Matt. 7:21–23). Judas ends up following the allure of riches rather than listening to his teacher’s instruction. “Wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul, or dwell in a body enslaved to sin. . . . The ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death” (Wis. 1:4, 16).
Jesus warned his scribal school of the dangers of money, but Judas did not listen. In the Sermon, Jesus says that if the eye is healthy or generous, then the whole body will be full of light (Matt. 6:22). He follows this with claiming that no one can serve two “masters.” “You cannot serve God and money” (6:24). The disciples are not to be concerned about their life, for life is more than money. They are to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to [them]” (6:33). He tells his disciples to “acquire no gold or silver or copper for [their] belts” (10:9). Later in the Gospel a man comes up to Jesus, calling him “Teacher” and asking him what he “must do to inherit eternal life” (19:16). Jesus tells the man that if he wants to be “whole,” he must sell everything he possesses and give to the poor, and he will have treasure in heaven (19:21 AT). Finally, Jesus calls his disciples to invest their money well, so that when he returns, they may receive a reward (25:27).
But this teaching does not penetrate Judas’s heart. Judas does not follow the teachings of his rabbi.9 He asks the chief priests what they will give him if he delivers Jesus over to them. They pay him thirty pieces of silver (26:15). Matthew brings up this silver four more times to emphasize the negative effect it has on Judas (27:3, 5, 6, 9). Job affirms wisdom cannot be bought with gold or silver (Job 28:15). Though Judas changes his mind, it is too late. He has betrayed his rabbi and goes out and hangs himself. Judas did not listen when Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24). The chief priests ironically try to do what is lawful with the silver pieces, saying, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money” (27:6). But like Judas, they are neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (23:23). Jesus told them that if they attempt to save their life, they will lose it (16:25). Judas’s fate led him to a field of blood; the disciples are promised that they will “sit on twelve thrones” (19:28). Judas is therefore the antithesis to Matthew. While Judas dies in a field, Matthew will be commissioned on the mountain in Galilee to spread the teaching of Jesus.
To Be a Discipled Scribe
Through these negative portraits, we can draw a few conclusions about what it means to be a discipled scribe. As Brown has argued, part of the purpose of Matthew’s Gospel is to communicate a vision of discipleship.10 The disciples are ultimately to be like their teacher and become teachers themselves who transmit the message of Jesus to future generations; they are to go out, making disciples by teaching and baptizing (Matt. 28:19–20). Byrskog notes that pupils of a teacher in the ANE and in the first century would acknowledge the authority of their teacher and transmit their teachings to future generations.11 Jesus creates an alternate scribal school to pass his wisdom on. The disciples therefore are not merely pupils; they are also future scribes/teachers.12 According to Matthew, to be a discipled scribe is to fear God by recognizing and submitting to the teacher of wisdom (theological), interpret the law rightly (practical), and practice the law (ethical).
Theological Wisdom
The book of Job asks, “Where shall wisdom be found?” (Job 28:12). Matthew learns that the answer is as Ecclesiastes has said: to be wise is to “fear God and keep his commands, for this is the whole duty of [humanity]” (Eccles. 12:13). Fearing God means accepting the one God has attested—the wise messiah—and following him as he fulfills the law. To fear God means first that one has recognized Jesus as the teacher and embodiment of wisdom (theological). Jesus is God’s final word of wisdom, to which all the Law and the Prophets point. He is the king of wisdom, for wisdom sits by his throne (Wis. 9:4). Wisdom involves divine communication, but this communication must be accepted. “For the LORD gives wisdom” (Prov. 2:6). “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom” (4:7). Jesus thanks God that he has hidden “these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (Matt. 11:25). The “wise and understanding” in context seems to refer to the scribes and Pharisees (12:2, 14, 24, 38).13 The “little children” (νηπίοις), on the other hand, are the disciples and followers of Jesus.14 Deprivation, oppression, and humiliation characterize the disciples. Ulrich Luz describes the “little children” as the women, the Galileans, the poor people of the land, who have neither the time nor the possibility of going to the school of the “wise.”15 But they become wise as they sit at the feet of the wise one.
Matthew himself was a tax collector who gathered money from his own people for the Roman government, and Jesus calls him to repentance. When Jesus sees Matthew sitting at the tax booth, he calls to him and says, “Follow me.” Matthew rises and follows him (Matt. 9:9), thus acknowledging his deprivation. This Greek word for “follow” (ἀκολουθέω) means to go in the same direction, to obey, comply with. Matthew becomes a pupil of Jesus. A discipled scribe is first and foremost someone who has heard the call of Jesus and risen from his tax booth and followed Jesus. Barton concludes his chapter on wisdom in Matthew by rightly stating: “Jesus the wisdom of God teaches the way of wisdom, authorizes the way of wisdom, and gives access to it both by his invitation to the ‘weary and heavy-laden’ and by exemplifying it in the humble servanthood of his own life.”16As Paul argues, Christ is our God-given wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30). For Matthew and a few other scribes, this also means that they remember and pass down the sayings and deeds of Jesus. They inscribe them for generations to come.17
Practical Wisdom
Second, a discipled scribe is a true interpreter of the law who understands the relationship between the new and the old (practical). They realize that they can only understand if wisdom is revealed to them. So they pray for understanding and call on God for a spirit of wisdom (Wis. 7:7); they ask God for daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil (Matt. 6:11–13). “The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction” (Wis. 6:7). In Matthew, the crowds don’t understand Jesus’s teaching (13:13–15), and the opponents are blind leaders (15:14; 23:16, 24), but they ask questions not to understand but to trap Jesus. Though the Pharisees and Sadducees search the Scriptures, they don’t find life in them because they don’t understand that Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets.
However, a trained scribe is one who realizes that Jesus brings forth treasures both new and old, for they now understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (13:11, 51–52). They appreciate that the kingdom spreads slowly, it is carried along by words, and there will be evil in its midst. They know that Jesus fulfills the law, his yoke is easy, he has come to welcome all those who have faith in him, he is the new Moses who brings them on the new exodus, and he must be the rejected king who is strung up on a cross. They understand that the presence of Jesus is the presence of the kingdom, but most of all they realize that Jesus has conquered death by his resurrection. A new exodus and return from exile has come through following this rabbi. The messiah unifies all of the Jewish ancient texts because he is the one to whom they pointed all along. True disciples let Jesus complete the Torah and then live into the Torah by the power of the Spirit. A discipled scribe understands, interprets, and communicates the relationship between the new and the old through the lens of Jesus.
Ethical Wisdom
Third, a discipled scribe is someone who practices justice and mercy––not hypocrisy (ethical). They don’t merely rightly interpret the law but rightly live it; this is wisdom. In a text parallel to Matt. 13:52, Jesus says, “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil” (12:35; cf. 7:15–23). The good person has a good treasure, while an evil person has an evil treasure. Those who don’t know Jesus are workers of lawlessness (Matt. 7:22–23). Sirach says, “If you desire wisdom, keep the commandments, and the Lord will lavish her upon you. . . . Do not be a hypocrite before others. . . . Do not exalt yourself” (Sir. 1:26, 29, 30). The scribes who follow Jesus are not hypocrites, like Judas, who sought the riches of the earth rather than the treasures of the kingdom of heaven.
The trained scribes perform their righteousness, not to receive praise from others, but to receive a reward from their Father in heaven. They don’t neglect “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). As Luz asserts, the definition of discipleship in Matthew can be summed up in the phrase “doing the will of God” (cf. 12:50).18 Jesus called his disciples to pray that God’s will would be done (6:10). Disciples are to take Jesus’s yoke because he is meek and humble (11:29). To understand requires more than merely intellectual effort; understanding involves the heart. “This people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear” (13:15a), yet it is with the heart that people understand (13:15b). The one who understands is also the one who brings forth fruit (13:23). Understanding therefore means doing—or as Jesus summarizes, it means being whole (τέλειος, cf. 5:48). This is the wholeness that Jesus calls his disciples to in the Sermon on the Mount. The purpose of wisdom is to impart “righteousness, justice, and virtue” (Prov. 1:3b AT).
I began the book by saying that the purpose of scribal training is the formation of a certain type of community, a certain type of individual.19 Scribes were the teacher-king’s representatives, who shaped ideal humanity after the image of the king.20 They would copy the king’s texts and thereby train others as they transmitted the εὐαγγέλιον (good news) of the king. They would therefore (1) learn, (2) write/interpret, (3) distribute, and (4) teach. Andrew Lincoln argues that in Matthew the disciples are models for teachers.21 “Matthew’s gospel should be read as a story for would-be teachers. The implied author is in effect saying to the implied reader, ‘So you want to be a teacher? Let me tell you a story.’”22
As Philip Davies notes, “The scribal duties embraced a range of activities, amounting to a good deal of ideological control.”23 Their tasks naturally concerned the past, present, and future: “archiving (possession and control of the present), historiography (possession and control of the past), didactic writing (maintenance of social values among the elite), predictive writing (possession and control of the future).”24 This may be why Matthew portrays his task as a scribe with respect to the new and the old (13:52). If the scribes’ task necessarily related to the future, what did Matthew learn about the future? One way to explore this is to juxtapose Matthew’s learning with the frustration expressed by the Qohelet in Ecclesiastes. The Qohelet says that everything is meaningless because of injustice, death, and time. Even wisdom becomes meaningless because of death.
But I also understand that the same fate awaits both of them. I said to myself, “Even I will meet the same fate as the fool, why then have I become so wise?” So I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the memory of neither the wise nor the fool endures forever. The days arrive only too soon when both will be forgotten. How will the wise person die? Like a fool! (Eccles. 2:14b–16 AT)
Matthew’s teacher of wisdom also died like a fool. But death was not the last word. While death has always rendered wisdom lifeless, through Jesus’s resurrection, wisdom was vindicated. Matthew learned from his sage that the future of wisdom is life because life and wisdom come only by enduring and bearing death, not bypassing it.
Though scribes molded and interpreted the content to suit their purposes, they were not always the originators of the content, and boundaries were in place to make sure they would faithfully communicate the message of the king or sage. They were essentially mediators between the people and the ruler, and so is Matthew. That is why in Matt. 23:34 Jesus says, “I send you prophets and wise men and scribes” (emphasis added).25 In this passage Jesus looks back on the history of Israel, but in Matthew’s Gospel the statement also points to the present and future, where Jesus will also send his “prophets and wise men and scribes.”26 First Enoch 12.4 says, “Enoch, scribe of righteousness, go and make known.” Likewise, the commission given to Matthew is to teach righteousness on the basis of the revelation of the secrets of his sage (13:11). The message of Matthew can be partly understood by drawing a line under the following three Greek words:27
μάθετε ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ
Learn from me. (11:29)
πᾶς γραμματεὺς μαθητευθεὶς . . . ἐκβάλλει ἐκ τοῦ θησαυροῦ
Every discipled scribe . . . brings out treasure. (13:52 AT)
πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. (28:19)
Matthew stood in the gap between his teacher and the nations of whom Jesus had commanded Matthew to make disciples.28 As the scribe Ben Sira said,
How different the one who devotes himself
to the study of the law of the Most High!
He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients,
and is concerned with prophecies;
he preserves the sayings of the famous
and penetrates the subtleties of parables.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If the great Lord is willing,
he will be filled with the spirit of understanding;
he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own.
(Sir. 38:34b–39:2, 6)
It is hard to imagine that Matthew did not see himself fulfilling the command to make disciples by the writing of his ancient biography laced with the Hebrew Scriptures so that other followers of Jesus might also gain wisdom.
1. As noted earlier in the book, what is secret or hidden is regularly connected to wisdom.
2. Not all of my examples will pertain specifically to scribes but apply more generally to those who oppose Jesus and his ministry.
3. Matthew uses the phrase “their synagogue(s)” five times (4:23; 9:35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54) and “your synagogue” once (23:34) to emphasize the distance between Jesus and the current synagogue community.
4. Longman (Fear of the Lord Is Wisdom, chaps. 1–3) argues that although wisdom has been portrayed as mainly practical in the past, it is theological, ethical, and practical. Though these three realities can be distinguished, they ultimately interweave. The foolish scribes lack righteousness and wisdom because they are not following their messiah. They are twisted interpreters because they are hypocrites, and they can’t rightly interpret the new and the old because they don’t accept Jesus as the embodiment of wisdom.
5. Longman, Fear of the Lord Is Wisdom, 13.
6. Dave Bland (Proverbs and the Formation of Character) has argued that the proverbs lead to a change of character that reshapes the inner person.
7. Deut. 16:19; Ps. 37:30; Prov. 1:3; 9:9; 10:31; Eccles. 7:16; 9:1; 10:2; Jer. 23:5; 1 Cor. 1:30.
8. Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 51.
9. “For those who despise wisdom and instruction are miserable. Their hope is in vain, their labors are unprofitable, and their works useless” (Wis. 3:11).
10. J. Brown, Disciples in Narrative Perspective, 145.
11. He gives the examples of Elijah and Elisha, Elisha and the sons of the prophets, Isaiah and his disciples, Jeremiah and his followers, Ezekiel and his followers, Jesus ben Sira and his “sons,” the righteous teacher and the Qumran community, and the rabbis and their pupils. Byrskog, Jesus the Only Teacher, 36–53.
12. Byrskog presents a whole chapter arguing that Matthew’s presentation of Jesus reflects didactic motives of transmission. Byrskog, Jesus the Only Teacher, 237–308.
13. The reference could also more generally refer to Jews in Chorazin and Bethsaida who have rejected him (11:21).
14. Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom, 32; Betz, “Logion of the Easy Yoke.”
15. Luz, Matthew, 163.
16. Barton, “Gospel Wisdom,” 98.
17. Overman (Matthew’s Gospel, 135–36) argues that Matthew idealizes the disciples. While his case is overstated, there is some truth to his argument. “In his idealizing of the disciples and their emergence in the Gospel as followers who truly learn, understand, and now teach others, Matthew provides a model for the life and behavior of the community member. While Jesus is the hero and agent of God in Matthew’s story, it is really the life and ministry of the disciples, centering as it does on learning, understanding, and instruction, which constitutes the primary focus of the member’s own ministry in the present. The community members are to identify and emulate the disciples of Jesus as they are portrayed in the Gospel.”
18. Luz, “Disciples in the Gospel,” 123.
19. Bird (Gospel of the Lord, 64–66) is right to note that the Jesus tradition belonged not to individuals but to communities, and thus acting as custodian of the Jesus tradition was a community effort. One should also look to the “social memory” school on this point: Tom Thatcher, Jens Schröter, Alan Kirk, Chris Keith, Anthony Le Donne, and Rafael Rodríguez.
20. Hannan (Nature and Demands of the Sovereign Rule of God) asserts that Matthew’s Gospel becomes a manual of instruction on the nature and demands of God’s sovereignty.
21. Minear (Good News) argues similarly that Matthew’s Gospel is a training manual.
22. Lincoln, “Matthew,” 124–25.
23. P. Davies, Scribes and Schools, 75.
24. P. Davies, Scribes and Schools, 75.
25. Patte (Gospel according to Matthew, 199) even claims that Matthew’s entire Gospel is aimed at training scribes for the kingdom, though Patte overstates his case if he means it in a technical sense. My perspective is more that Matthew provides a portrait of wisdom through his presentation of Jesus that trains others in how to become disciples.
26. Juce (“Wisdom in Matthew,” 135) ties the three offices (prophets, wise men, and scribes) to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures. I am not entirely convinced, though it is an intriguing suggestion.
27. I copied this helpful chart from Jeff Blair, “Cultivating a Culture of Wisdom,” 99.
28. Justification for linking Matt. 13:52 with 28:18–20 comes not only conceptually but also linguistically. Matthew uses the verbal form μαθητεύω only in 13:52; 27:57; and 28:19.