I didn't immediately start Matthew but when I decided it was time I started there. I read about half of it before attending a Bible Study at my church where they were finishing up with John. So I concluded John with them, went back and read all of John for completeness, and after went back again and finished Matthew. It is for this reason that I combine these books into one section on my first dive into the Gospel.
For those who don't know, the Gospel are four books which are different accounts of the ministry and death of Jesus. Matthew jumps directly into the teachings of Jesus without setting you up with a lot of narrative details. This is really good because you can absorb many things Jesus wants you to know without reading a lot of text. John by comparison has a lot of narrative details, like exactly how was Jesus crucified, and who are people Jesus knew and had encounters with, like Lazarus, and Thomas. Both are good for different reasons.
Something that struck me while reading these books is the common theme where Jesus is frustrated with the Pharisees and how they strictly enforce the rules of the Sabbath while at the same time often being hypocrites themselves and having no love for the common people.
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
This was particularly interesting for me because, though I was raised without religion, in my adulthood many members of my family converted to a sect of Christianity called the Seventh Day Adventist church. Though I have never participated in this religion, I have been surrounded by it for many years. And without realizing it, many of the doctrines they have shaped my view of what Christianity is.
One of the things about them is an obsession with the Sabbath: That is the idea that God created all things in six days and on the seventh day he rested. And on that seventh day, the people of Israel are not supposed to labor. And while nothing I read in the Gospel indicates that Jesus didn't think Sabbath was important, he does repeatedly criticize the enforcement of that specific law by the priests of that time. And it's not something mentioned in passing. It's a repeated theme that Jesus doesn't want the Sabbath to be used to oppress people who are suffering, who have a more difficult time observing the rule strictly.
And yet the SDA church would have you believe that following the laws about Sabbath strictly is the most important part of the religion. I was left with a feeling like, "Did my Mom even read these books?"
Of course I love my Mom and she does very much love and trust in God, perhaps sometimes more than I do. But her view on the specifics of God, which according to her come only from the Bible, are sometimes perplexing how she can hold them in spite of what it says.