This study is part of our series of verse by verse studies of Matthew, the 40th book in the Bible. Taught by our pastor, Simeon Forder, at our Sunday morning service on the 13th April 2025.

About this book

The gospel of Matthew was aimed primarily at the Jew who was familiar with the Old Testament, quoting it more than any other of the gospels. And in its 28 chapters it presents Jesus as the Messiah, the King of the Jews, with Matthew wasting no time, starting with Jesus’ royal lineage back to king David of Israel in the opening chapter. But as well as looking back, it looks forward too, being the only gospel to mention the church by name. And so make no mistake, this is a very necessary book for us to read too.

About this passage

In the opening 4 verses we’ll see the disciples ask who the greatest will be in the kingdom of heaven, supposing it might be one of them, or at least one of the heroes of the faith, but Jesus’ answer wasn’t any of them, but rather He pointed to the simple faith of children.

From verses 5-7, Jesus then spoke of our responsibility toward children, that no-one lead them astray, that no-one cause them to sin — before, in verses 8-9, Jesus explained just how seriously we should take the issue of sin in our own lives.

In verse 10 onwards, we will get to the well known parable of the lost sheep, then from verse 15 on we will see Jesus speak on how we should deal with sin toward us, and finally, in verses 21-35 (which we’ll get to next time), we will read the parable of the unforgiving servant, which should cause all of us to sit up and pay attention as to how we forgive others.

Application questions

• Is there any pride in your life that you need to root out?
• How urgently are you dealing with sin in your life?
• What are you doing to pursue unity and restoration in the church?