Life together under the King: the community discourse of Matthew 18

Matthew 18 is the fourth of the five discourses that structure the Gospel, and it is the one most concerned with the life of a community of disciples. The Gospel is traditionally attributed to the apostle Matthew, the tax collector. Many scholars think an unnamed Jewish Christian wrote it in Greek, probably in the 80s of the first century, and others argue for an earlier date. Its first readers were most likely Jewish-Christian congregations in a Greek-speaking city who needed guidance on how to live together. Matthew is the only Gospel that uses the word 'church' (ekklesia), and it appears here (18:17) and at 16:18.

The chapter gathers material that appears in different places in the other Gospels, which fits the view that Matthew arranges sayings by theme. The question of who is greatest, the child, and the warnings about stumbling are in Mark 9:33-50 and Luke 9:46-48. The parable of the lost sheep is in Luke 15:3-7, where it answers complaints about Jesus' welcome to sinners; in Matthew it concerns the care of the church for its members who wander. The saying on forgiving a brother who sins appears in Luke 17:3-4. The procedure for confronting a brother (18:15-20) and the parable of the unforgiving servant (18:23-35) are found only in Matthew. Many scholars attribute such shared sayings to Q or to Mark and think Matthew added material of his own, though others suggest other explanations.

The setting is Capernaum, shortly after the temple tax scene (17:24-27). The disciples have followed Jesus through the confession at Caesarea Philippi, the Transfiguration and two predictions of his death, yet they are still asking who ranks highest. The chapter answers a question of status with a call to humility, and the call to humility with concrete teaching on how to treat one another.

The chapter is a discourse of teaching with two parables, and it must be read as a connected argument. The opening question of rank leads to the child, the child leads to the 'little ones' who believe, and the little ones lead to the lost sheep and then to the brother who sins. The question about forgiveness rounds the discourse off. A stated theme runs through it: the humble, vulnerable disciple is precious to God, and the community must handle each other accordingly.

Three interpretive cautions are needed.

• First, the extreme language about cutting off a hand or gouging out an eye (18:8-9) is hyperbole, as in 5:29-30, meant to stress that nothing is worth more than entering life. It is not a literal rule.
• Second, 18:19-20 is often quoted on its own, but it comes in the middle of the instruction on church discipline. The 'agreement' and the gathering 'in My name' belong to that context of decisions made by the community. They also state a general truth about Jesus' presence with his people, and they are best read as both.
• Third, the parable of the unforgiving servant works by contrast and exaggeration. The sum of ten thousand talents, a talent being a very large amount (some six thousand denarii, where a denarius was roughly a day's wage), stands against a hundred denarii. The point is the scale of the debt owed to God against any debt owed by a fellow human, and it is not a theory of how salvation is earned.

Verses 1–5

The disciples ask who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus stands a child among them and says that unless they change and become like little children they will never enter the kingdom. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest. A child had no social standing. The point is not innocence but lowliness and dependence. Whoever welcomes such a child in Jesus' name welcomes Jesus.

Verses 6–10

Anyone who causes one of 'these little ones who believe in Me' to stumble would be better off with a large millstone hung around his neck and drowned in the sea. The 'little ones' are believers, who are humble and vulnerable like children. The millstone is the large type turned by a donkey. Stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the one through whom they come. If a hand, foot or eye causes you to sin, Jesus says, remove it; it is better to enter life maimed than to be thrown into the fire of hell (Gehenna). Verse 10 warns against despising any of the little ones, for 'their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father'. The saying draws on the Jewish belief that angels watch over God's people (Psalm 91:11; Daniel 10; Acts 12:15). Verse 11, 'the Son of Man came to save what was lost', is absent from the earliest manuscripts and probably came from Luke 19:10, which is why the numbering skips from 10 to 12.

Verses 12–14

A man with a hundred sheep, one of which goes astray, leaves the ninety-nine on the hills and goes to find the one. When he finds it he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine. 'In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.' The shepherd image draws on Ezekiel 34:11-16, where God promises to search for his scattered sheep himself. Here it applies to the Father's will for each vulnerable believer.

Verses 15–20

'If your brother sins against you, go and confront him privately.' If he listens, you have won your brother. If not, take one or two others, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses', citing Deuteronomy 19:15. If he refuses them, 'tell it to the church', and if he refuses the church, 'regard him as you would a pagan or a tax collector'. The aim at each step is restoration. The language echoes Leviticus 19:17. The final instruction does not necessarily mean contempt, since Jesus welcomed tax collectors, and Matthew himself was one; it means treating him as outside the fellowship until he repents. Jesus then repeats the promise given to Peter in 16:19: whatever the disciples bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever they loose will be loosed. The community that follows his procedure acts with his authority. Verse 19 says if two agree about anything they ask, it will be done by the Father, and verse 20 says that 'where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.' A rabbinic saying in the Mishnah (Avot 3:2) says the Shekhinah, the divine presence, rests where two sit together with words of Torah. Jesus takes to himself what Jewish tradition said of God's presence.

Verses 21–22

Peter asks how often he must forgive a brother who sins against him, up to seven times. Jesus answers, 'not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!' The Greek can also be read as seventy times seven. Either way, the number is meant to be beyond counting. It reverses Lamech's boast of vengeance seventy-sevenfold in Genesis 4:24.

Verses 23–35

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts. A servant is brought in who owes ten thousand talents, an impossible sum. He cannot pay, and the master orders him and his family to be sold. The servant falls down and begs for patience. The master has compassion and forgives the whole debt. That servant then finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, chokes him and has him thrown into prison. Other servants report this to the master, who summons the first servant, calls him wicked, and asks, 'Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?' In anger he hands him to the jailers 'until he should repay all that he owed.' The conclusion: 'That is how My heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.' The parable shows the kind of person who has received mercy and refuses to give it. Forgiveness 'from your heart' is the mark of someone who has known what was forgiven.

Several doctrines intersect here.

• The first is humility as the mark of greatness in the kingdom. The pattern of Christ's own life, in which the one with every right takes the lowest place, is the model (Philippians 2:3-8).
• The second is God's care for the vulnerable. The Father is unwilling that any of the little ones perish, and the shepherd imagery picks up the Old Testament portrait of God as the shepherd of his people (Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34).
• The third is the nature of the church. It is a community with real accountability, in which sin is addressed with a patient order designed to win the person back, and it has authority from Christ.

• The fourth is the presence of Christ with his gathered people. Jesus promises to be with those gathered in his name, and this fits the name Immanuel, 'God with us' (1:23) and the promise at the end of the Gospel (28:20).
• The fifth is forgiveness. The debt owed to God is beyond payment, and God forgives it by mercy. Those who receive forgiveness are expected to give it. The Lord's Prayer ties the two together (6:12, 14-15), and Paul urges believers to forgive as God in Christ forgave them (Ephesians 4:32). The parable also warns that judgment awaits the one who refuses mercy.

In this chapter Christ is present directly. Welcoming a child in his name is welcoming him (18:5). Believers are 'little ones who believe in Me' (18:6). Where two or three gather in his name, he is with them (18:20). These are claims no mere teacher could make. The promise echoes his name Immanuel, 'God with us' (1:23), and it forms a frame with his closing words, 'I am with you always' (28:20). The Jewish saying that the divine presence rests among two who study Torah is applied to Jesus himself.

The shepherd searching for one lost sheep echoes the promise in Ezekiel 34:11-16 that God himself would seek out his scattered flock. Jesus describes the Father's will in those terms, and in Luke 15 and John 10 he acts as the shepherd. Matthew has already said the crowds were like sheep without a shepherd (9:36). The parable of the unforgiving servant sets the King's mercy at the center. Jesus does not allegorize the parable, but the New Testament makes the connection: his blood is poured out 'for the forgiveness of sins' (26:28). The forgiveness the disciples are asked to share is a forgiveness he has won and will give.

The chapter also holds up the Son's own lowliness as the pattern of greatness: the Son of Man, who is to be delivered into the hands of men (17:22), is the one who humbles himself.