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A Study of the Discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew

The disciples of Jesus in the gospels are depicted as very important figures, though they are a foil to Jesus' earthly ministry. However it is pretty interesting to see that they are described differently in each gospel, although they are same people, doing same things along with Jesus their Master. Thus this article launches to delve deeply into this question, particularly in the gospel of Matthew. It is now generally acknowledged that the disciples in Mark's gospel are described badly, so that they appear as deterrent model who is not to be followed but avoided in the community of Mark's gospel. On the contrary, the disciples in Luke's gospel are depicted positively, so that they function as ideal model whom the christians in the Luke's community should imitate in their way of being followers of Jesus Christ. As for Matthew's gospels, the disciples are introduced neither good nor bad, but just in between, which makes the disciples in Matthew's gospel to be a representative of common christians who are sometimes not only applauded for their good works but also scolded for their unfaithfulness. The features of discipleship in each gospel appear also different; in Mark's gospel it is heroic discipleship that means that the christians in Mark's community should risk their lives in order to keep their faith on the verge of death and suffering. Regarding Luke's gospel it turns out to be ethical discipleship, which means that Luke's contemporaries should take heed of Jesus' admonitions for the sake of the poor and needy in their community. In Matthew's gospel, however, learning or education is regarded as a crucial element of discipleship which dictates that the christians in Matthew's community are supposed to learn ardently Jesus' teachings introduced in 5 volumes of sermon, i.e., the sermon on the mount (chs. 5-7), the sermon in sending them out for evangelism (ch. 10), the sermon of the parables about the kingdom of God (ch. 13), the sermon for church's life(ch. 18), the sermon on eschatology (chs. 24-25). The reason why Matthew accentuated learning as a feature of discipleship is because Matthew's church was expelled out of Jewish synagogues due to their faith in Jesus Christ, so they needed to ascertain their christian identity which they recently acquired as they came to believe Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.