The Gospel of Matthew

I was ready to give this commentary five stars, but it has a couple of shortcomings that caused me to give it a very solid four stars. First, on the positive side: the commentary itself is generally excellent and very solidly Catholic. The sidebars, such as notes on the "Living Tradition" and "Biblical Background" are also a wonderful addition that I found enriching. Even the scriptural notations in the side margins to help you keep up with exactly where they are in the scriptures, are very helpful and a wonderful detail. That is why I was surprised to find there is no concordance in the back. Thus, the negatives are that it is a shame that such a good commentary would not provide an aid such as a detailed concordance to help you quickly locate a subject matter. Likewise, the Contents at the front of the commentary could be a little more detailed as well. The Glossary section could/should be expanded to be three times as what it is now. If those things were done, it would be the finest lay commentary from a Catholic perspective out there! That is not that much to improve upon, so hopefully the future editions will include these improvements. I definitely recommend the series of commentaries, it's just that to look things up, you have to do a bit of digging on your own.One comment on the commentary that bothered me a bit was the authors' statement on the Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents as that it "was not of the magnitude that is sometimes imagined." That may be true as to the actual number of children slain, but I thought the comment was a bit insensitive as to the magitude of the massacre itself. These were wholly innocent infants and toddlers who were not Christian but were slaughtered because Christ came into the world - and the evil one through Herod was trying to kill him. Instead, they were slaughtered. I have always had a deep sympathy for these children and their parents and families because they were killed in Christ's place - so to speak. I would think the authors would have spent a bit more time on that theme and speak a bit about how the Church recognizes that fact and honors them deeply with a feast day of their own. This is mentioned, but is brushed over a bit cavalierly in my opinion, as if it were no major deal. That aside, I truly do love the commentary(ies), and I am collecting them as they are written and refer to them often in my studies. I don't mean to sound overly critical of the few negatives, but just think that with merely a couple of improvements mainly in the area of aids to help you find things, these would be five star plus commentaries!

Since one intent of this commentary series was to provide a series that was orthodox and in line with the teachings of the Church (Roman Catholic), it is not surprising that this volume is just that. As far as that goes, it is exactly what we would expect. But in this respect, I wonder about the difference between this series and the Navarre series which has similar goals.However, I was a bit disappointed at the rather shallow adherence at times as in the question of Markan priority and Quelle. Though the question is discussed it ends with an explanation that the writers will follow church tradition without mentioning the historical texts such as Clement, Eusebius, or Augustine. We are left with the burden of proof for church tradition without a truly scholarly refutation of Markan priority. It might have been thought that such a refutation would take too much space but even a few examples of the internal comparison of the synoptics could be used to refute Markan priority - not to mention the historical evidence against it in the early church writings mentioned already. But, in light of the fact that many commentaries take Markan priority as a proven fact without challenge. The authors are at least praised for not caving in to the argument based on 'most scholars agree' approach adopted by so many other commentaries. For more on this topic, we would recommend  The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem .Even with that small oversimplification in the introduction, the remainder of the text is as solid and scholarly as most. More detail could be given to the problem of how Matthew uses scripture in a sometimes pescher-like manner (for more on this topic, see, for instance  Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period ) And, despite the minor concern about possible shortcomings, this is still a top notch competitor for the average student of scripture and is very highly recommended especially for the faithful concerned with remaining true to the teachings of the Church.

I love studying the life of Christ. It makes me hungry for more knowledge about my savior. With Lent just around the corner it was the perfect time to read one of the gospels. It makes me realize there's more to life than things. It makes me want to be more like Jesus. I hope to see him when this life is over. This commentary was inspiring.

Most of the book is just like this passage, simply a recitation of what I just read with nothing added. Really, asleep at the wheel.14:24-25 The disciples, meanwhile, struggle against foul weather for much of the night. The wind blows hard against their boat and churns up angry waves on the sea. Though they manage to get a few miles offshore, they have not reached their destination by the fourth watch of the night, a Roman designation for the final hours of darkness between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m. Suddenly they are alarmed to see Jesus walking toward them on the sea.

This commentary of St Mathew’s gospel is a very good accompaniment to readers of that gospel. It is insightful and illuminating, provides context to many of the passages.

What I love most about this book is the in-depth commentary (who, what, where, when, why) with each Gospel passage. And it's not written in high brow terms, although without question, the authors are high brow scholars. It's written in way that delightfully offers the reader "full digestion" of why Jesus did what he did, and why he said the things he said in alignment with his mission to save us.I also love the way the authors bridges the Gospel passages with the Old Testament and St. Paul's epistles. This book will paint a brighter picture of Jesus in your life and in your day.The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Proverbs 9:10

I don't know...I would love to give this five stars, but I think four is fair. I felt that the author offered simplistic explanations after each gospel passage. The author basically repeated in his own words what the gospel just said, rarely was any new insight given. But given that, I think this book would be good for beginners (maybe that was the author's target market?), or for those who do not want to get too "heavy" into Scripture. All in all, I enjoyed the light read into Scriptures, and I did learn from it, and the author did apply the Scripture to Catholic doctrine, which was helpful.

good one

The book I wanted and it arrived on schedule.

In 2023 (2026, …) - Year A in the lectionary - we read through the first gospel. This guide takes us through step by step. It faces the challenges and helps to explain the more baffling parts, always relating the message to life and faith in both the first and twenty-first centuries. The language is American, but intelligible to an English speaker, apart from the odd reference to Texas! The teaching is Catholic.

I had been very much looking forward to this and the other books in the series after reading "The Gospel of Mark" by Mary Healy. This is much less good, and appears to assume a lower level of intelligence in its readers. Far too much of it consists in mere paraphrase of the passage just cited and far too little on going below the surface to expose the less accessible aspects of the text. I really hope that the volumes on the Gospels of Luke and John have more in common with Healy's work than this from Mitch and Sri. Hers was stimulating (while totally orthodox). This is worthy, mundane and dull.