THE COMPLETE MATTHEW STUDY
For two years a group of believers has been meeting to study and discuss the gospel of Matthew. Now more than 100 hours of lecture, discussion and insights is available on a single disc with the study guides. You will learn more about Matthew than you could imagine, bringing you an encounter with Yeshua in his own time and culture.
This disc is a special order, produced one at a time.
Thank you Skip.
I have been following the study since the mid-thirty sessions till the very last bit of it. The process has made me humble, because of how little I knew of the truth, and joyful for the understanding more of it. I sincerely thank you for your effort and generosity of making it available to the public.
You have mentioned about “study questions” in the disc, what kind of question should we expect from it?
The study questions are self-directed hints at the meaning of each verse. There are 29 Word files (28 chapters and 1 introduction) with questions for each discussion verse.
It was a phenominal study. A real unveiling from the one sided western evangelical view most have grown learning. Jesus did say beware the leaven of the religious system. You know the times I visited Beth Messiah in Houston I never remember them teaching from a Hebrew perspective. It truly is key to understanding all scriptures.
Have you done any other studies? What do you see on the horizon?
My request would be Acts just because it to has a very western side of thought and it is like part two in a way to the story after Matthew. It also has the whole key Jewish council on the matter of what the Gentiles should keep on Torah. This was almost the first split in the Church.
Thanks for your obedience to Father. 😉
Brian
Great study. I knew I had a lot to learn about the Tanach, but I thought I had a pretty good handle on the NEW Testament. Turns out I was wrong.
One comment about the genealogy in Matthew 1. The genealogy that Matthew presents could be Mary’s lineage and the Luke genealogy then could be Joseph’s lineage. This would make both of Yeshua’s parents of the tribe of Judah and of the lineage of King David. Wouldn‘t that be just like YHVH to make sure both parents fulfilled the prophecies. According to the Aramaic- English New Testament by Andrew Gabriel Roth, the word that is translated as “husband” in verse 16 “designates a male protector or guardian” and can be translated as “father”, making the number of generations in that group 14, and making this Mary’s genealogy. This is an entirely different word in Aramaic than the one translated as husband elsewhere in the text. I know the words are the same in Greek, but what if this text wasn’t written in Greek? Just a thought.
I am pretty sure that the original Matthew text was written in Hebrew and later translated to Greek. An Aramaic text would also necessarily be a translation, although the thought categories would be much closer to the original than those in Greek.
I can only hope for your sake this is not a weekly thing…..but I have been listening carefully to the chapter 3 study. I love the insight you bring to the text. Thank you for making your study available. I have been sharing it with some friends, and it is certainly eye opening.
A couple of comments. Would it be possible in future studies for you to repeat the questions asked by your group before answering them? While I can usually tell the question from your answer, the questions are hard to hear and sometimes the question would be helpful. That might be more trouble than it is worth, not sure.
Second, there is a man who has done some mechanical translations of the Bible and has done a Greek to Hebrew reference book, which is available as an e-book. His web site is http://www.ancient-hebrew.org. If his research is correct, the word translated as “repent” in Matthew 3:2 from the Greek G3340 is not Strongs H7725 shuwb, but from H5162, meaning to be sorry, console oneself, repent, regret, comfort, be comforted. It is TWOT 1344. If I understood it correctly, according to the TWOT, this is typically used as either about repentance on YHVH’s part or about comfort for His people.
I am not necessarily a “two house” believer, although there were, clearly, two houses at one point, and 10 or so tribes that were never brought back into their land, but were the “strangers scattered throughout” (1 Peter 1:1) and the “12 tribes scattered among the nations (James 1: 1). It seems to me that the Kingdom of the Heavens is all of His chosen children living under His rule and reign, which would include:
. Those of the house of Judah
. Those of the house of Israel
. The foreigner living among them
If that is the case, then I think it is possible that Matthew could have been alluding to John saying the Kingdom was at hand because YHVH was repenting of His divorce from the house of Israel and He was getting ready to bring about the Kingdom of (the) Heaven(s) right here on earth (as it is in the Heavens). The only thing that stood in the way was that He divorced the house of Israel for her adulteries. SO, maybe YHVH was about to repent his divorce from the house of Israel, allowing the Kingdom of (the) Heaven(s) to come. Then that Kingdom truly was at hand .
Problem was, by His own instruction, one could not re-marry a former spouse once they were divorced because of adultery. Then, this verse might also speak of the annulment of the divorce that comes about through Yeshua’s sacrifice, allowing the lost sheep of the house of Israel, who had been scattered throughout the nations after the Assyrian captivity, to come back into covenant. That annulment is also alluded to in the beginning of Romans 7, and it seemed to me that it might fit here as well.
Looked at this way, the weeping of Rachel also makes more sense to me. Rachel’s children were Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph’s children were Manasseh and Ephraim. The blessing was given to Ephraim, and that is how YHVH refers to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. They are Ephraim. They were, in fact, no more, and yet they were to be again. They would be brought back into covenant by that sacrifice that was to come, when the bridegroom died, annulling the divorce, and then was raised again to be re-united in a covenant relationship with His bride.
Just another very long small thought.
Thank you for helping to bring truth back to the Word.
I’m sorry about the questions. We changed microphones about mid=way through the study to fix this problem.
I am familiar with the mechanical translation, but I doubt there is much case to be made for revising shuv. It is used hundreds of times in the Tanakh and therefore, in the LXX. Not much wiggle room in this case.
Finally, Matthew can’t be alluding to John since John was written 30 years after Matthew. Remember your chronology when you do exegesis. Hosea makes it pretty clear that YHWH woos Israel back in spite of its adultery. He doesn’t need to wait for the New Testament times to do it. The Rachel passage in Jeremiah is clearly about the Babylonian captivity, not an allegory about the “two” houses. Try not to get your contemporary theology in the way of the meaning of the text for those who first heard it.
Keep listening. It was a great time for all involved.