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

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the scope of this thesis to conduct a detailed Christology, examining the person andlife of Jesus, particularly as it relates to His position of authority to give this sermon,will prove to enhance the understanding of Matthew 6:19-34.The third motif to be explored will be the God of the sermon. Jesus through out theSermon makes reference to God. Several times referring to Him as Father and alsomaking reference to the providential way God works. It will be shown that the wayJesus spoke of God as Father and encouraged His disciples to speak of God asFather was unique in Judaism. Further references to God providing for His peoplewould need to be understood in light of what a Jewish audience would have alreadyknown about the way God provides.Fourthly, Jesus talking of laying up treasure in Heaven merited discussion in theliterary analysis. Thus the theme of rewards for a disciple’s obedience to God will beexplored. Again this is a theme which was briefly touched upon briefly, but will beexplored in greater detail here.Fifthly, as was mentioned in the first chapter, the SOM is addressed to the ChristianDisciple. Also, the historical context showed one of the purposes of the gospel ofMatthew is instruction in discipleship. Thus the theme of Christian Discipleship and inparticular how it is practised in the context of the church community will be explored.Further, the nature of what discipleship is intended to be will be explored.6.2. The <strong>Theological</strong> Themes6.2.1 The Kingdom of Heaven and His RighteousnessAs Jesus in Matthew 6:33 instructs His disciples to seek first God’s Kingdom and HisRighteousness, the questions to be answered in this section are what is this kingdomand how does it look once it is found or arrived? Further highlighting the importanceof this motif is that it was concluded in the literary analysis that by Jesus instructingHis disciples to seek “first” the Kingdom He was advocating that they prioritise thisactivity over and above the accumulation of wealth. It was already stated in chapter 5that the kingdom and God’s righteousness were used synonymously in Matthew69
6:19-34 and that this chapter would seek to more clearly define what the Kingdom is.To begin with the New Testament makes reference to both the kingdom of God andthe kingdom of Heaven (Mattt.3:2; Mark 1:14). Matthew prefers to use Kingdom ofHeaven over Kingdom of God (Lioy 2004:86). There are two possible reasons forthis. Matthew may have been following the typically Jewish position of notmentioning the name of God. In Jesus time this was done by some to avoidattaching any sort of irreverence to God’s name (Gundry1994:113). Secondly, byusing Heaven it puts the focus on the “transcendence and sovereignty as well asactive lordship and rule of God both in heaven and earth (Lioy 2004:86-87).”Lioy (2004:87) favours the later view. He argues so by giving attention to the Greeknoun basileia from which kingdom is translated (Lioy 22004:87). Basileia refers tothe reign of God as a sovereign God. Thus by using kingdom of Heaven as opposedto Kingdom of God the focus is put on something of the nature of God’s Kingdom,that of God’s sovereign universal reign. Further, giving credence to this view, it isnoted that there are time that Matthew uses God’s name (Gundry 1994:113).Jesus does not give a clear and concise definition as to what the kingdom of God is(Young 1995:75). Scholars have presented the following views as to what theKingdom of God is: Firstly Weiss argued that the Kingdom of God is solely aneschatological term referring to the Day of Judgment (Young 1995:75).Weiss’s (Goppelt 1981:52) view argued that Jesus based His ideas on the Kingdomof God from Jewish apocalypticism, which taught that the Kingdom of God wasimminent. It would come through a “cosmic catastrophe” and would happen “withinthat very generation.” The moments in scripture where Jesus speaks about thekingdom of God in the present are in this view argued away by saying Jesus washaving a moment of “prophetic enthusiasm.”Secondly, dispensationalists, similar to Weiss, have an eschatological take on theterm (Young 1995:75-76). They argue for the Kingdom as something that will notappear until the millennium and the end of the church age. Thirdly, there is theKingdom Now Movement (p.76). This view says that the kingdom of God is to be70
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A BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF
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ACKOWLEDGEMENTSI am eternally grate
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TABLE OF CONTENTSCHAPTER 1: Introdu
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6.2.5 Discipleship and Community…
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sinfulness and pushes people toward
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discourses in Matthew, is meant to
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Christian disciple and money was an
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NT text actually did occur and did
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to have used it as a source (France
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almost no evidence outside of the N
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addressed.Jesus says things in the
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The Jewish community was taxed very
Page 25 and 26: finding the origin and purpose of M
Page 27: instruction for the believing commu
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Page 35 and 36: etween 6:19-24 and 7:1-11 that is c
Page 37 and 38: would not have ever found such a li
Page 39 and 40: and 7:7-11 are worth noting:a) Both
Page 41 and 42: appealing. He seems to at times ack
Page 43 and 44: three parts.While the literary appr
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Page 47 and 48: common to a teacher like Jesus woul
Page 49 and 50: treasures would be, but agrees that
Page 51 and 52: Blomberg (1992:123) shows that the
Page 53 and 54: Talbert (2006:122) argues this by r
Page 55 and 56: for God’s kingdom, it is in a bad
Page 57 and 58: The statement that one cannot serve
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Page 61 and 62: Moses. Even more significant is tha
Page 63 and 64: ightly notes that humans are more v
Page 65 and 66: Secondly, Henry’s argument that o
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Page 83 and 84: “our Father,” i.e. the Father o
Page 85 and 86: It must be noted that the Father-So
Page 87 and 88: Matthew 25:31-36 presents Jesus as
Page 89 and 90: unanimous among scholars. These rea
Page 91 and 92: Unger and White (1985:171) note tha
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Page 95 and 96: examples of how a disciple may prov
Page 97 and 98: Chapter SevenConclusion7.1 Introduc
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Page 107 and 108: captivity to sin. The SOM itself wa
Page 109 and 110: APPENDIX ONETALBERTS FORMAL DIVISIO
Page 111 and 112: BIBLIOGRAPHYAchtemeier PJ, Green JB
Page 113 and 114: Clowney EP 1988. Church. In SB Ferg
Page 115 and 116: Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishi
Page 117 and 118: Peter Laing Publishing.Lloyd-Jones
Page 119 and 120: 73-97.Smith KG 2008. Academic Writi
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