Integrating Scripture: Case Study in Matthew 25

After a person has interpreted a particular biblical text, the next step is to integrate it with the rest of Scripture, to find a Scriptural center, as it were. I've been working on a sample "advanced Bible study" for my classes at IWU. I've already created a sample "introduction" to Matthew of a couple pages (I'm aiming at Sunday School literature lengths) and a sample of the "interpretation" of Matthew 25:31-46 (Sheep and Goats).

Here is my sample integration section for the Bible study lesson:__________

We find the idea that God’s people should help those in need both explicitly and implicitly in both the Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament. For example, in the Old Testament, the prophetic idea of justice repeatedly centers on the failure of Israel to care for the downtrodden in its midst. In Isaiah 1 the LORD expresses His disinterest in the multitude of sacrifices brought to Him (1:11). What He wants is for Israel to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:17). Micah 6 similarly expresses the LORD’s apathy toward sacrifices—even the sacrifice of one’s firstborn child will not get His attention. What the LORD wants is for Israel to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

The book of Deuteronomy roots such an attitude toward the disempowered and the stranger in part in the memory that the Israelites were also once slaves in Egypt. “You will not deprive a stranger in the land or an orphan of justice. You will not take a widow’s garment as a pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there” (Deut. 24:17-18). As virtuous ancients, both Abraham (Gen. 18) and Lot (Gen. 19) take strangers into their homes and protect them from potential violence at the hands of others. By contrast, the Benjamites (Judg. 20), not to mention the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19), experience severe penalty because of the way they treat strangers in their land.

The theology of Joshua and Ezra do stand in some tension with the bulk of Old Testament Scriptures in relation to the stranger in the land. For Joshua, all non-Israelites must be obliterated: women, children, and even animals (e.g., Judg. 6:21). From the point of view of the book, it is disgraceful that the Gibeonites trick Israel into making peace with them (Judg. 9). Similarly, Ezra enjoins Israel to divorce foreign wives and put away the children from such unions (Ezra 10). Yet even as we integrate the Old Testament teaching on the stranger—before we ever get to the New Testament—these passages at best relate to key transitions in Israel’s history. In terms of the Old Testament as a whole, they do not reflect the normal mode of Israel’s operation. They certainly cannot survive the universal scope of the gospel in the New Testament, where in terms of potential salvation there is “neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28).

When we get to the New Testament, we find a unanimous verdict with regard to what a believer’s attitude should be toward those who are disempowered such as the poor, widows, and orphans. In this regard, certainly James stands in closest relation to Matthew and may in fact allude to the same Jesus material. James 2:14-17 ponders a person who would simply tell a naked or hungry “brother or sister” to “Go in peace; keep warm and be filled”—without actually doing anything about it. Such a person has as much faith as the demons have and, by implication, has as much reason to shudder as the demons do. James here seems to have believers in particular in mind. 1 John also emphasizes the need to “love” the Christian brother in a material way (2:10; 3:14-15): “Whoever has the materials of the world and sees his brother in need but turns off his compassion from him, how does the love of God remain in him?” (3:17).

Luke-Acts presents concern for individuals like the poor, the disempowered, and women as a major theme for both Jesus and the early believers. While Matthew and Mark tell of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth further on in his ministry, Luke presents a visit at the very beginning where Jesus gives a sort of “inaugural address” for his earthly ministry. He draws on Isaiah 61 to declare that “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to preach release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send off those who have been oppressed in release, to preach the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). With this statement at the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, Luke has edited the rest of the gospel to bring this theme out with greater prominence than even Matthew and Mark do.

So Luke has a few parables on the topic of the rich, the poor, and women, that are not in the other gospels: The Rich Fool, The Rich Man and Lazarus, The Persistent Widow. We should probably see Luke’s noticeable attention to women in this same vein, since they were certainly among the disempowered of the ancient world. When John the Baptist sends some of his followers to Jesus to inquire if he was the Messiah, Jesus recaps the topics of Isaiah 61 again: the blind see, the lame walk, good news is proclaimed to the poor (Luke 7:18-23). And while Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), Luke bluntly has “Blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20).

The book of Acts continues this theme in its portrayal of the early church. The Jerusalem believers hold their possessions in common and sell their possessions to help those who are in need (2:44-45). Peter and John, as well as Paul, continue the healing ministry of Jesus through the power of the Spirit (e.g., 3:1-10; 14:8-10). In Acts 6 we learn that the Jerusalem church has systems in place to take care of widows in its midst. When a problem in this distribution arises, the church moves to address the situation (6:3).

Even the apostle Paul, who arguably had more significant resources to draw on than most people in his day, pays attention to the poor. When he visits Peter and James for the second time, they encourage him to remember the poor (Gal. 2:10). Paul claims strongly that he was already inclined to do so. Indeed, Acts includes a story where he and Barnabas take famine relief down to Jerusalem from Antioch (Acts 11:27-30). Paul himself went to great pains to raise an offering for “poor among the saints in Jerusalem” (Rom. 16:26). This offering seems to have created a good deal of pain for Paul in his relations with the Corinthian church (2 Cor. chaps. 8-9; 12:17-18). But Paul articulates the general idea to them: “At this present time your abundance will supply what they are lacking so that their abundance might supply what you are lacking" (2 Cor. 8:14). Each in the church has something to share with the other parts, and we are obligated to do so.

The only potential wrinkle in this New Testament consensus comes in 1 Timothy, whose tone and teaching with regard to widows stands in significant tension with things Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7. 1 Timothy 5 draws a distinction between “true widows” and younger widows whom the church begins to support, only for them to remarry, apparently breaking a vow to remain unmarried for the rest of their lives (5:11-12). Yet even here, 1 Timothy does not negate the importance of their material needs being met. He simply shifts the responsibility to the families of younger widows until they remarry (5:8, 16). The fundamental need to care for “true widows” remains (5:3).

The unanimous concern of the New Testament for the impoverished within the Christian community does not surprise us when we remember that the love commandment stands as the central ethic of the New Testament. Jesus himself in Matthew 22:37-40 indicates that all the Law and the Prophets—in other words, the entire Old Testament—hangs on the commands to love God and one’s neighbor. Jesus commanded love of one’s neighbor. Yet he also commanded love of one’s enemy (e.g., Matt. 5:43-48). These two categories effectively cover all humanity, which is made in the image of God (cf. Jas. 3:9).

Paul also reduces the law to “one word: You will love your neighbor as yourself” (Rom. 13:8-10; cf. Gal. 5:14). James 2:8 refers to this command as the “kingdom law according to Scripture.” Although there is debate, James probably included the commands he then mentions—adultery, murder—as subheadings of this “law of freedom” (Jas. 2:12). 1 John similarly defines God as love (4:7-8) and indicates that the person who does not love by implication is someone who remains in death (3:14) and is not destined for eternal life (3:15). 1 John explicitly understands such love in terms of material assistance to brothers in need (3:17).

The command of believers to help Christian brothers and sisters in need is pervasive throughout both the Old and New Testament. Indeed, it is so pervasive that it is difficult to find any passages that might qualify or temper this injunction. While most of the biblical texts aim at helping either those within Israel or those within the community of faith, those texts that impinge on the topic of outsiders almost without exception point to the same course of action. We are not surprised at this fact, for love of one’s enemy would demand that we treat those outside our community with the same manifestations of love that we show toward those within our fellowship. In the case of Matthew 25 and the story of the sheep and goats, this need to show mercy to the needy in general is particularly clear.

Before we end our integration of Matthew 25:31-46 with the rest of Scripture, we should mention the matter of justification by faith versus works. The Gospel of Matthew often presents difficulties to those who have a certain understanding of Paul’s theology, particularly the idea of justification by faith. Certainly Matthew, like James, is far more concerned with human deeds than with faith--particularly faith as some belief that does not manifest itself in life (cf. Jas. 2:14-26). Yet it is important to realize that works play a role in justification for Paul as well—final justification. Believers may initially be justified before God strictly on the basis of faith, but Paul also has expectations of human works thereafter. On the Day of Judgment, “God will give to each person according to what they have done” (Rom. 2:6), and each will receive appropriately “for the things they have done in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 4:10). The conflict thus does not lie with Matthew’s theology so much as with a prevalent misunderstanding of Paul’s.