4
seen as a local community but rather be likened to a trans-local, predominately Jewish-
Christian "target audience."
12
What exigence were Jewish Christians facing that Matthew felt compelled to
address? Messianic Jews were grappling with three fundamental tensions. Since they
have not broken with their ethnic heritage, they were struggling with their Jewish self-
understanding and how they fit within the boundaries of Judaism while maintaining strong
allegiance to the Lord Messiah, Jesus the Son of God. They were contending, perhaps
intensely, with Pharisaic authority (those they believed to be illegitimate spokespersons)
over the religious life of Israel and the Pharisee's increasing charges of blasphemy and
heresy. Jewish Christians were stretching to comprehend their part in salvation-history
and their engagement with the Gentiles for the sake of the gospel of the kingdom.
13
Exacerbating the confusion from the theological and sociological stresses, many if not
most Jewish Christians were also pained by the lack of socio-economic or socio-religious
stability having being scattered in various Syro-Palestinian synagogue communities.
Matthew's Gospel arranges Jesus words and deeds relevantly to speak to this
exigence encouraging faith and new covenant faithfulness as a minority within
mainstream Judaism. If, therefore, Matthew's audience judged his rhetoric to be
persuasive, his audience would have been constrained to adhere to Jesus, thus
answering the over-aching Matthean rhetorical problem of how Jesus was as the crucified,
12
Bauckham mused, "That someone should write one of the most sophisticated and carefully
composed of early Christian literary works--a Gospel--simply for the members of the community in which he
was living, with specific, local issues in view, thus becomes a quite implausible hypothesis" (3). In rejecting the
popular notion of "gospel communities" Bauckham recognized that each Evangelist wrote with "certain types
of people in mind" (5). Highlighting the inadequacy of the "gospel-communities" approach, Keener noted, "[It]
is correct that Matthew must intend a wider circulation than a single house church of fifty or so members. How
wide an audience Matthew intended is unclear, but within a few decades after publication this Gospel was the
favorite in the Eastern churches" (2). It could also be noted that this target audience of messianic Jews was a
moving, or moved, `target' considering the persecution that necessitated their diaspora-like experience as
evidenced in Acts 8:1b, 11:19 and the social setting of the Epistle of James.
13
Keener held that: "Matthew probably functions as a discipling manual, a `handbook' of Jesus' basic
life and teaching, relevant to a Jewish-Christian community engaged in the Gentile mission and deadlocked in
scriptural polemic with their local synagogue communities" (48-49). See also Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-
13, vol. 33A and Matthew 14-28 , vol. 33B of Word Biblical Commentary (Word, 1993, 1995), lvii-lix; Leon
Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (Eerdmans, 1992), 2-3, 11; D. A. Carson, Matthew in Expositor's