Abstract
Heil, professor of New Testament at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, investigates the topic of worship in the Gospel of Matthew by means of a narrative-critical, audience oriented exegetical methodology. His focus is on the responses expected by the implied or ideal audience members, the audience presupposed by the text, as they hear the narrative unfold and develop.
He treats Matthew’s twenty-eight chapters in eight of his own according to the following outline: worshiping the infant king (Matt 1–2), the foundation for worship in the kingdom of heaven, teaching about worship in the kingdom of heaven, inviting people to worship in the kingdom of heaven, failures to repent and parables for worship in the kingdom of heaven, worshiping in the kingdom of heaven, worship and the coming kingdom of heaven, and worshiping the risen king. Each chapter is divided into several subsections and concluded by a detailed summary. The latter consists more or less of a paraphrase of the narrative action along with various indications of how the section under view connects with other passages in the Gospel, accenting throughout how the theme of worship is operative.
The final chapter offers a synthetic overview of the key dimensions of the worship theme in Matthew, gathering up the observations made in the running narrative analysis regarding Jesus as the object of reverential and supplicatory worship; Jesus as a teacher of worship with respect to prayer, ritualistic practices, and ethical behavior; and Jesus as a worshiper with regard to his own prayerful, ritualistic, and ethical actions.
H. concludes by identifying Matthew’s objective as encouraging its audience to practice the true, authentic, and holistic worship required for believers in Jesus to live in the kingdom of heaven. He suggests that a compassionate mercy toward all is the distinctive and noteworthy hallmark that characterizes the theme of worship in the kingdom of heaven according to the Gospel of Matthew. Though the constant focus of the narrative on worship at times seems artificial, engineered by H.’s decision to perceive all of Matthew’s text through this lens, the result is a readable and immersive experience of the theological presentation centered on worship that grows out of Matthew’s characters and storyline.