O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

same way the Christian community would look to Christian teachers of the law to dowhat their OT “counterparts” did (Green 2000:28). Thus Green believes it likely thatMatthew may have been a manual for Christian Scribes.Guthrie (1976:28) suggested that the idea of Matthew having a Catechetical purposecould be entertained; he believes that while it cannot be established that acatechetical purpose is present in Matthew, Matthew would suit the Catecheticalneeds of a congregation.2.5.2 Matthew as Instruction for DiscipleshipThe instruction found in the great commission at the end of Matthew makes itobvious that Matthew is meant for instruction in discipleship (Nolland 2005:21). Asnoted earlier the command to teach disciples relates back to the five discourses ofwhich the SOM is one.As already mentioned there is correspondence in Matthew of Jesus with Moses. Onesuch corresponding role would be that of a teacher to God’s people, for example theSOM begins with Jesus going up the Mountain and ends with Jesus coming down;this serves to promote Jesus as the New Moses, i.e. amongst other roles as the newteacher of Israel (Achtemeier, Green & Thompson 2001:100).The SOM discourse must be understood in relation to Jesus’ authoritative positionwhich is outlined in Ch’s 1-4 (Achtemeier et al 2001:101). Matthew 1:1 places Jesusas God’s long expected King who would come to establish God’s rule on earth. Inthe first four chapters Jesus is seen as obedient to God in getting baptized and istemped but does not sin (Mtt 3:15; Mtt 4). I.e. Matthew portrays Jesus as the Christwho embodies his own commands, and expects his followers to do the same(Achtemeier et al 2001:101). The theological theme of the person of Christ and it’spertinence to this thesis will be explored in greater detail in chapter six.The fact that Matthew is the only Gospel to contain the Greek word for “church”shows the author is concerned with the church community and discipleship (Drane2001:206). Matthew records a collection of Jesus’ teachings in order to provide19