Matthew 8 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 8:1-4
Large crowds follow after Jesus. A leper comes to Him, asking to be made clean. Jesus touches and miraculously heals the leper instantly. This is Matthew’s first specific account of Jesus miraculously healing someone.
Matthew 8:5-13
Matthew gives his second account of a specific miracle of Jesus. Jesus heals the servant of a Roman centurion of great faith. Jesus marvels at this centurion’s faith and makes an important and stunning point to His disciples.
Matthew 8:14-17
Matthew records his third account of a specific miracle. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever. Later that evening some people bring Him many who were demon-possessed. Jesus frees them from their spiritual bondage.
Matthew 8:18-22
As the crowds gather around Jesus, He gives orders to His disciples to go “to the other side” of the sea of Galilee where the Gentiles live. Two disciples come to Him, one who expresses willingness to follow, the other who mentions an obligation.
Matthew 8:23-27
Jesus gets into the boat to go to the other side of the sea and His disciples follow Him. As they cross the sea, a great storm arises and threatens to sink their boat and drown them all. Jesus is fast asleep. The disciples wake Him and ask Him to save them.
Matthew 8:28-34
Jesus and His disciples arrive on the other side of the sea on the eastern shore in the Greco-Roman province called the Decapolis. Two violent, demon-possessed men come out to meet them and shout at Jesus, calling Him the “Son of God.”
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.
Matthew continues to present Jesus as the God-man sent from heaven, as Israel’s Messiah, and as the long-awaited King, the Son of David. He shares three examples of Jesus miraculously healing people during His ministry in Capernaum. Jesus then decides to take His ministry to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee to the Greco-Roman province called the Decapolis. On the way He quiets a terrible storm. Upon arrival He casts out demons from two demon-possessed men. Throughout these episodes we see Jesus’s power over sickness, His power over a storm, and His power over the spiritual realm.
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