Matthew 4 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 4:1
Following His baptism by John, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Matthew 4:2-4
The devil approaches Jesus with the first of three temptations. He asks Jesus to use His divine powers to turn stones to bread after Christ had fasted forty days and nights in the wilderness. Jesus uses scripture to refute the devil.
Matthew 4:5-7
For the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus to the top of God’s Temple in Jerusalem and tells Him to jump. The devil argues that this will publicly proclaim Jesus’s identity as the Divine Messiah.
Matthew 4:8-11
The devil tempts Jesus a third time by offering Him immediate power and glory in exchange for worshiping him. Jesus rebukes him to depart and quotes Deuteronomy a third time. The devil flees and Jesus is ministered to by angels.
Matthew 4:12-16
To temporarily avoid trouble with the religious leaders of Jerusalem, Jesus moves to Capernaum north of Galilee to begin His ministry. Matthew notes this fulfills yet another prophecy from Isaiah.
Matthew 4:17
King Jesus begins His earthly ministry by announcing His Kingdom.
Matthew 4:18-22
Jesus begins to recruit His disciples. As Jesus walks along the shore of Galilee He sees two sets of brothers who are fishermen: Simon and Andrew, and James and John. Jesus calls each pair to leave their livelihood and follow him. They do so immediately.
Matthew 4:23-25
Jesus’s ministry begins. He not only teaches the gospel in synagogues to Jewish audiences, but also heals disease and demon-possession from among Jews and Gentiles.
Additional Resources
The Gospel of Matthew was written to demonstrate to the Jews of Jesus, the Messiah’s generation that He was indeed the Christ. Matthew thematically substantiates the Messianic identity of Jesus beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which ran from Abraham, the father of Israel’s people through King David who was promised to have a son who would be on Israel’s throne forever. Throughout his Gospel account Matthew makes use of numerous prophecies both explicitly stated and by way of subtle allusion to support his thesis. Matthew further makes use of parallel events in Jesus’s life to those of Messianic figures from the Old Testament (Moses, Joseph, David, etc.) to bolster his argument.
Jesus came to offer the Jews the chance to participate in the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. To do this, they would have to receive and follow Him as their Messiah. Jesus’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Ultimately, they rejected Him as their Messiah and condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah opened the door for Gentiles to enter the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12, 22:1-10). Matthew’s Gospel is therefore a call for the Jews repent of their murder of Jesus and to embrace Him for the divine Messiah He is.
Matthew shows how their rejection of Him and His brutal death was predicted not only by Jesus Himself, but also was foretold in the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah.
The main proof that Jesus was the Messiah was “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4). This was Jesus’s death and resurrection from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
Because Matthew’s Gospel was written to people who were already members of God’s eternal family by virtue of their faith in God’s promise to send the Messiah, Matthew emphasizes the “reward of eternal life” (aka “The Prize of Eternal Life”) rather than “the Gift of Eternal Life”. In other words, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on how to “enter the kingdom” rather than how to “be born again”.
Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill the law and open a way for God’s people to participate in the Messianic kingdom if they would follow His example of worshiping God from the heart by forgiving and serving others.
For “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If we have faith to follow the example set forth by the resurrected Messiah, whom all authority on heaven and earth has been granted (Matthew 28:18) and take up our cross for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25), then we will become great in His kingdom (Matthew 20:26).
Finally, Matthew provides extensive samples of Jesus’s teachings including “the Sermon on the Mount”, “the Little Commission”, and “the Olivet Discourse” and many parables, alongside accounts of numerous miracles and wonders, personal moments with His twelve disciples, interactions with seekers, and increasingly as his Gospel account progresses: challenges and confrontations with His adversaries – the Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests.
Immediately following His baptism, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where He fasts for forty days and nights. At the end of His fasting, Jesus is tempted by the devil three times. Each time, He resists the devil. Jesus chooses to rely on God and His word, quoting Moses from the book of Deuteronomy to resist each temptation. Afterwards, Jesus briefly returns to His hometown in Nazareth before moving to the village of Capernaum on the shore of Galilee. There, He begins proclaiming the kingdom and miraculously healing people. Jesus calls four fisherman to be His disciples and crowds begin to seek Him out.
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