Heads Up

Some thirty years passed between chapters 2 and 3 of Matthew, during which Jesus lived in Nazareth and worked as a carpenter. But the time came for Him to begin His public ministry which would culminate at the cross. For over 400 years, the nation had not heard the voice of a prophet. Then John…

How should we handle this verse? First, we should note that Matthew introduces the verse by referring to prophets (plural, “through the prophets”), rather than saying, as he does in other instances, “This took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet” (Matt. 1:22) or “For this is what the prophet has…

The second of the three incidents in Matthew’s Gospel is the account of the slaughter of Bethlehem’s young children, those “two years old and under” (v.16). It is a brief account, for apart from the note that Herod determined the age span for the slaughter “in accordance with the time he had learned from the…

One striking feature of Matthew’s presentation of the birth and early childhood of Jesus in the first two chapters of his Gospel is the way he views each step as the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture.

Matthew continually presents Christ as the King, and In Matthew’s Gospel we see the King of the Jews, the King of kings, appropriately being presented with royal gifts of gold, as well as two essential oils.

Burial masks like King Tutankhamen’s were designed in the image of the pharaoh. It was believed that this would help identify them in the afterlife so the soul recognized the right body. The mask weighs twenty-five pounds, is two-feet tall, and is made of a variety of gemstones and two shades of gold (18k and…