Category Archives: Matthew

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The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew

Some notes on Jesus’ background from the first chapter of Matthew:

Ancient biographies often opened with the noble background of their subject, background that would shed light on the identity or character of the person about whom they wrote. By tracing Jesus’ royal ancestry, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus comes from a lineage of kings. This is not Jesus’ genetic line through his mother, but the legal line of Joseph; yet for kingship, it was the legal line that counted. (For that matter, most Roman emperors in this period were adopted relatives of their predecessors, not their genetic sons.)

Like a good rabbi skilled with words, Matthew plays on a couple names in a way that hints that Jesus’ character transcends that of his legal ancestors. Although it is not obvious in most translations, he changes the letters in a couple names. The evil king Amon becomes Amos—alluding to the prophets. The better king Asa becomes Asaph, one of the psalmists, alluding to the Psalms. Jesus’ heritage is not only royal; it evokes the entire heritage of earlier Scripture, the law and prophets and writings.

The opening words of Matthew’s Gospel are literally, “The book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ.” Matthew borrows these words from genealogies in Genesis, especially the genealogy of Adam, for which the Book of Genesis was named (not only in English but also in Greek).

The genealogy that follows is striking, however: whereas the phrase in Genesis identifies a person’s descendants, here it identifies Jesus’ ancestors. In ancient thought, people depended in some sense on their ancestors for their significance; but here, their ultimate descendant heads the list. Matthew does not use the genealogy merely to identify Jesus in terms of his ancestors. Rather, Matthew reads Jesus’ ancestors in terms of him. Jesus is the climax and goal of Israel’s past history; as such, even his famous ancestors depend on him for their ultimate significance.

 

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Overcoming prejudice: the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:5-13

The Gentile mission was at most peripheral to Jesus’ earthly ministry: he did not actively seek out Gentiles for ministry (Mt 10:5), and both occasions  on which he heals Gentiles he does so from a distance (8:13; 15:28). The Gentile mission became central  to  the  early  church, however,  and  early  Christians  naturally looked to accounts of Jesus’ life for examples of ministry to the Gentiles (compare 1:3, 5-6; 2:1-2, 11; 3:9; 4:15).

The significance of Matthew 8:5-13 is clarified by some basic information about  Roman centurions  and what  they represented to Jewish  people in the first century.  In this period soldiers in the Roman legions served twenty years. Unlike aristocrats, who could become tribunes or higher officials immediately, most centurions rose to their position from within the ranks and became members of the equestrian (knight) class when they retired. Roman soldiers participated  in pagan religious oaths to the divine emperor.

Matthew here demonstrates that a call to missions work demands that disciples first abandon ethnic and cultural prejudice. His Jewish readers would be tempted to hate Romans, especially Roman soldiers, and perhaps their officers even more; this would be especially true after A.D. 70. Jesus’ teaching about accommodating a Roman soldier’s unjust request (5:41), paying taxes to a pagan state that used the funds in part for armies (22:21) or paying a temple tax that the Romans later confiscated for pagan worship (17:24-27) would seem intolerable to anyone whose allegiance to Christ was not greater than his or her allegiance to family and community. But Jesus is not satisfied by our treating an enemy respectfully; he demands that we actually love that enemy (5:44). No one challenges our prejudices— and sometimes provokes our antagonism more than a “good” member of a group that has unjustly treated people we love. This narrative challenges prejudice in a number of ways.

“Exceptions” can make a difference. When one white minister living in the U.S. South was experiencing the deepest trauma of his life, some African-American Christians took him under their wing and nursed him back to spiritual and emotional health. The white minister began  to experience the spiritual resources and strength that the black American church had developed through slavery, segregation and contemporary urban crises and was eventually ordained irl a black Baptist church. Subsequently he discovered slave narratives and other accounts that brought him face to face with what people who looked like him had done to the near ancestors of his closest friends. He became so ashamed of the color of his skin that he wanted to rip it off. But the love of his African-American friends and the good  news of Christ’s love restored him, and soon he began to feel part of the community that had embraced him.

He often joined his friends in lamenting the agony of racism and its effects. But one day after a Sunday-school lesson, a minister friend said something about white people in general that he suddenly took personally. “I didn’t mean you,” the black minister explained quickly. “You’re like a brother to me.• The black minister made an exception because he knew the white Christian, but the white Christian wondered about all the people who didn’t know him. He had experienced a taste of what most of his black friends regularly encountered in predominantly white circles.

The next week the ministers were studying together the story of the centurion’s servant in Luke, and they noted that the centurion’s Jewish contemporaries viewed him as an exception  to the rule that Gentiles were oppressors. They also noted that the Gospels tell this story because that exception in Jesus’ ministry points to a huge number of Gentile converts pouring in at the time when the Gospels were being written.

If even a few people  become exceptions and really care enough about their brothers and sisters of other races to listen, these exceptions can show us that the racial and cultural barriers that exist in our societies do not need to continue. If we are willing to pay the price-which will sometimes include hints of rejection from people  we have come to love-we can begin to bring down those barriers.

(Adapted from Matthew: The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Buy the book here.)

 

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You will know them by their fruits – Matthew 7:16-20

The false prophets in Matthew 7:15  claim  to have  prophesied, exorcised and  effected miracles by Jesus’ name (v. 22). Although Matthew is surely charismatic in a positive way (compare, for example, 5:12; 10:8, 40-42; 23:34), here he challenges false Christian charismatics  whose disobedience Christ will finally reveal  (10:26). Although  some  could  prophesy and  work signs by demonic power  (for example, 2 Thess 2:9; Rev 13:13-16; compare Jer 2:8; 23:13), one could also manifest genuine gifts of God’s Spirit yet be lost (1 Sam 19:24).

Once  we  acknowledge that God  can  inspire  people  to speak  his message   (and   this  would   apply   to  gifts  like  teaching   as  well  as prophecy), how  do  we  discern  his genuine representatives?  Like  his follower Paul, Jesus subordinates the gifts of the Spirit to the fruit of the Spirit (compare 1 Cor 13)  and  submission  to Jesus’  lordship  (1  Cor 12:1-3). Jesus’ words about fruit thus refer to repentant works (Mt 7:21; 3:8, 10), recalling Jesus’ ethical teachings in 5:21-7:12.

Much of today’s church may miss out on prophecy altogether, which is not a healthy situation  (1 Thess 5:20). Prophecy  remains a valid gift until Jesus’ return (1Cor 13:9-12), and we should seek it for our churches (1 Cor 14:1, 39). But wherever the real is practiced,  the counterfeit will also appear  (a phenomenon I as a charismatic  have  witnessed  frequently;  compare 1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:21).

An adulterous minister may exhibit many divinely bestowed gifts— sometimes because God is answering the prayers of people in the congregation— but such ministers are unworthy of our trust as God’s spokespersons  as long as they continue in sin. Yet Jesus wants us to look even closer to home. Do we become so occupied with “the Lord’s work” that we lose sight of the precious people God has called us to serve? Do we become so preoccupied with our mission and our gifts that we neglect a charitable attitude toward our families and other people around us?

Yet the image of the tree and the fruit also reminds us that behavior flows from character, and in Christian teaching character comes through being born again rather than merely through self-discipline. Our own best efforts at restructuring unregenerate human nature  are  doomed  to  failure (Gal  5:19-21). By contrast, a  person transformed by and consistently dependent on the power of God’s Spirit will live according to  the traits of God’s character because of God’s empowerment, just as trees bear fruit according to their own kind (Gal 5:18, 22-23).

(Adapted from Matthew: The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Buy the book here.)

 

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God does miracles only when we need them — Matthew 14:13-21

The miracle of the “feeding of the five thousand” in Matthew 14:13-21 is greater than the manna of the exodus, since none of the manna would be left over. But manna was never left over because it was to be provided every day, whereas this miracle is a rare one. So much was left over that each of the twelve disciples gathered food in his wicker basket (v. 20). The leftovers stress the lavish abundance of God’s miraculous power in Christ; many people felt that a good  host should  provide enough food  that some would always be left over.

Yet the gathering of the leftovers (compare 2 Kings 4:7, 44; 7:1-2, 16-20; 1  Kings 17:16; Jn  6:12) teaches us something further. Most moralists condemned wastefulness and emphasized thrift. Jesus trusted that God’s provision would always be available when it was needed (compare 16:9-11), but like most moralists he refused to squander what was available. The extra  bread, which was more than the amount started with, could be used for other meals.

Everett Cook, a retired Pentecostal minister running a street mission, confronted an associate who had a growth on his nose but refused to see a doctor. “God will heal me,” the man insisted.

“If you needed a miracle, God would give you one,” Everett retorted, “but right now he’s given you a doctor and medical insurance. You need to use what he’s given you.”

The next time they met the man’s growth was much bigger, but the man still insisted, “I am healed.” The third time they met the growth had spread further, and finally the man was thinking that perhaps he needed to see a doctor.

God performed a miracle when he created the world and set its laws in motion, and we are often wise to start with natural means when those are available. God performs miracles to meet our genuine needs, but he will not perform them merely to entertain us.

God is not intimidated by the magnitude of our problem. The disciples saw the size of the need  and  the littleness of the human resources available; Jesus saw the size of the need and the greatness of God’s resources available. Often God calls us to do tasks for him that are technically impossible-barring a miracle.

The day before I was going to call my prospective Ph.D. program to say I was not coming because I had no money, God unexpectedly met my need. And in the summer after I finished my Ph.D., I found myself still unable to locate a teaching position for the fall. After much prayer, one night I finally determined the bare minimum I needed to live on and to store my research that year, and I cried out in despair. Barring a miracle, I thought, I will be on the street this year. Less than twenty-four hours later Rodney Clapp called from InterVarsity Press and offered me a contract to write the IVP Bible Background  Commentary: New Testament I had proposed-plus an unexpected advance that was, to the dollar, what I’d decided I needed for the year. Undaunted by the magnitude of my need, God was teaching me that he alone has the power to meet my needs.

Another lesson in the miracle is this: God often begins with what we have. Jesus often takes what we bring to him and multiplies it (vv. 16-19). When Moses insisted that he needed a sign to take with him, God asked him what was already in his hand and  then  transformed it (Ex  4:1-3), using what  had  been  merely a shepherd’s rod even to part the sea (Ex 14:16). When a widow needed financial help, Elisha asked what she had in her house; she responded that she had only a small amount of oil, so he commanded her to borrow jars into which to pour the oil and then multiplied it until all the jars were  full (2 Kings 4:1-7).

Although God  created  the universe from nothing, he normally takes the ordinary things of our lives and transforms them for his honor (see, for example, Judg 6:14; 15:15-19). The narrative does not even report that Jesus prayed for the food to multiply; confident that he represents the Father’s will, he merely gave thanks (the meaning of the Greek expression that some translations render “blessed”; “blessing” food merely means giving thanks for it), which was the standard Jewish custom before and normally after meals.

(Adapted from Matthew: The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Buy the book here.)

 

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Mary, Joseph, and the virgin birth of Jesus — Matthew 1:18-25

Ancient biographers sometimes praised the miraculous births of their subjects (especially prominent in the Old Testa­ ment),  but there are no close parallels to the virgin  birth.  Greeks told stories of gods impregnating women, but the text indicates that   Mary’s conception was not sexual; nor does the Old Testament  (or Jewish tradition) ascribe sexual characteristics to God. Many miraculous birth stories in the ancient world (including Jewish  accounts,  e.g., 1 Enoch 106) are heavily embroidered with mythical imagery (e.g., babies filling houses with light), in contrast with the straightforward narrative style  of this passage.

1:18.    Betrothal (erusin) then was more binding than most engagements are today and was normally accompanied by the groom’s payment of at least part of the bride price. Betrothal, which commonly lasted a year, meant that  bride and groom were officially  pledged to each other but had not yet consummated the marriage; advances toward anyone else were thus regarded as adulterous (Deut 22:23-27). Two witnesses, mutual consent (normally) and the groom’s declaration were necessary to establish Jewish  betrothals (in Roman betrothals, consent alone sufficed).

Mary would  have probably  been between the ages of twelve and fourteen (sixteen at the oldest), Joseph perhaps between eighteen and twenty; their parents likely arranged their  marriage, with Mary and Joseph’s consent. Pre­marital privacy between  betrothed persons was permitted in Judea but apparently frowned upon in Galilee, so Mary and Joseph may well not have had any time alone together at this point.

1:19.    The  penalty for adultery under Old Testament law was death by stoning, and this penalty applied to infidelity during betrothal as well  (Deut 22:23-24). In New Testament times, Joseph would have merely been required to divorce Mary and expose her to shame; the death penalty was rarely if ever executed for this offense. (Betrothals were so binding that if a woman’s fiancé died, she was considered a widow;  betrothals could otherwise be terminated only by divorce.) But a woman with a child, divorced for such infidelity, would be hard pressed ever to find another husband, leaving her without means  of support if her  parents died.

But because divorces could be effected by a simple document with two witnesses, Joseph could have divorced her without making her shame  more widely known.  (It was necessary  to involve a judge only if the wife were the one requesting  that the husband divorce her.) Much later rabbinic tradition charges  that  Mary slept with another man, but Joseph’s marrying her  (v. 24) demonstrates that he did not believe this was the case.

1:24-25.   Joseph acts like Old Testament men and  women of God who obeyed God’s call even when  it went against all human common sense. Marriage consisted of covenant  (at the betrothal;  the marital contract also involved a monetary transaction between families), a ceremony and consummation, which ratified  the marriage, normally on the first night of the seven-day wedding. Joseph here officially marries Mary but abstains from con­summating the marriage until after Jesus is born. Jewish teachers thought that  men  had  to marry young because they could not resist temptation (many even blamed a woman’s uncovered hair for  inducing lust).  Joseph, who lives with Mary but exercises self-control, thus provides a strong role model for sexual  purity.

(Adapted from The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)

 

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Enemy soldiers torture and mock Jesus in Matthew 27:27-34

Over six hundred Roman soldiers were staying at the Fortress Antonia and at Pilate’s palace (which once belonged to Herod the Great).  Not recognizing that the true king of Israel and humanity stood before them, they mocked him as a pretend king.  Roman soldiers were known for abusing and taunting prisoners; one ancient form of mockery was to dress someone as a king.  Since soldiers wore red robes, they probably used a faded soldier’s cloak to imitate the purple robe of earlier Greek rulers.  People venerating such rulers would kneel before them, as here.  Military floggings often used bamboo canes, so the soldiers may  have had one available they could use as a mock king’s sceptre.  “Hail!” was the standard salute people gave to the Roman Emperor.

Spitting on a person was one of the most grievous insults a person could offer, and Jewish people considered the spittle of non-Jews particularly unclean.  Romans stripped their captives naked–especially shameful for Palestinian Jews; then they hanged the convict publicly.

Normally the condemned person was to carry the horizontal beam (Latin patibulum) of the cross himself, out to the site where the upright stake (Latin palus) awaited him; but Jesus’ back had been too severely scourged beforehand for him to do this (27:26).  Such scourgings often left the flesh of the person’s back hanging down in bloody strips, sometimes left his bones showing, and sometimes led to the person’s death from shock and blood loss.  Thus the soldiers had to draft Simon of Cyrene to carry the crossbeam.  Cyrene, a large city in what is now Libya in North Africa, had a large Jewish community (perhaps one quarter of the city) which no doubt included local converts.  Like multitudes of foreign Jews and converts, Simon had come to Jerusalem for the feast.  Roman soldiers could “impress” any person into service to carry things for them.  Despite Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:24, the soldiers had to draft a bystander to do what Jesus’ disciples proved unwilling to do.

Crucifixion was the most shameful and painful form of execution known in the Roman world.  Unable to privately excrete his wastes the dying person would excrete them publicly.  Sometimes soldiers tied the condemned person to the cross; at other times they nailed them, as with Jesus.  The dying man thus could not swat away insects attracted to his bloodied back or other wounds.  Crucifixion victims sometimes took three days to finish dying.

The women of Jerusalem prepared a pain-killing potion of drugged wine for condemned men to drink; Jesus refused it (cf. 26:29).  The myrrh-mixed wine of Mark 15:23, a delicacy and possibly an external pain reliever, becomes wine mixed with gall in Matthew; cf. Ps. 69:21 and the similarity between the Aramaic word for “myrrh” and Hebrew for “gall.”  Even without myrrh, wine itself was a painkiller (Prov 31:6-7).  But Jesus refused it.  Though we forsook him and fled when he needed us most, he came to bear our pain, and chose to bear it in full measure.  Such is God’s love for us all.

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The kingdom prayer in Matthew 6:9-13

Many pagans added up as many names of their deities as possible, reminding the deities of all their sacrifices and how the deities were therefore obligated in some sense to answer them.  Jesus, however, says that we should predicate our prayers instead on the relationship our heavenly Father has given us with himself: we can cry out to him because he is our Father (Matt 6:7-9).

Jesus used some things in his culture, which was already full of biblical knowledge.  Jesus here adapts a common synagogue prayer, that went something like this: “Our Father in heaven, exalted and hallowed be your great and glorious name, and may your kingdom come speedily and soon…”  Jewish people expected a time when God’s name would be “hallowed,” or shown to be holy, among all peoples.  For Jewish people, there was a sense in which God reigns in the present, but when they prayed for the coming of God’s kingdom they were praying for him to rule unchallenged over all the earth and his will to be done on earth just as it is in heaven.  Jesus therefore taught his disciples to pray for God’s reign to come soon, when God’s name would be universally honored.

To ask God for “daily bread” recalls how God provided bread each day for Israel in the wilderness; God is still our provider.  To ask God to forgive our “debts” would stir a familiar image for many of Jesus’ hearers.  Poor peasants had to borrow much money to sow their crops, and Jesus’ contemporaries understood that our sins were debts before God.  To ask God not to “lead us into temptation” probably recalls a Jewish synagogue prayer of the day which asked God to preserve people from sinning.  If so, the prayer might mean not, “Let us not be tested,” but rather, “Do not let us fail the test” (compare 26:41, 45).

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Keeping God’s Word in Matthew 5:18-19

In 5:18, Jesus says that not the smallest letter or mark will pass from God’s law.  He probably refers at least partly to the yod, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet.  Later rabbis told the story that when God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, the yod that was removed complained to God for generations till he reinserted it, this time in Joshua’s name.  Some teachers also said that Solomon tried to uproot a yod from the Bible, whereon God announced that a thousand Solomons would be uprooted, but not a single yod.  Jewish teachers used illustrations like this to make the point that the law was sacred and one could not regard any part as too small to be worthy of keeping.

When Jesus goes on to say that breaking the least command makes one least in the kingdom whereas keeping it makes one great in the kingdom, a prosaic modern reader might ask, “What happens if you break one and keep another?”  But such a question misses the point of this typically Jewish language.  Later rabbis decided that the greatest commandment was honoring one’s father and mother, and the least, respecting a mother bird; they reasoned that both merited the same reward, eternal life (based on “life” in Ex. 20:12; Deut. 22:7).

Thus if one broke the least commandment, one would be damned; if one kept it, one would be saved.  Yet these same sages recognized that everyone sinned, including themselves.  They were not saying that some people never broke any commandments; rather, they were saying that people could not pick and choose among the commandments.  One could not say, “I am righteous because I do not kill, even though I have sex with someone I am not married to.”  Nor could one say, “I am godly because I do not steal, even though I cheat.”  All of God’s commandments are his word, and to cast off any is to deny his right to rule over us, hence to reject him.  Thus Jesus was saying in a similarly graphic way, “You cannot disregard even the smallest commandment, or God will hold you accountable.”

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How to make disciples according to Matthew 28:18-20

The immediate context of 28:18-20 provides us examples for how to testify about Christ (28:1-10) and how not to testify about Christ (28:11-15).  But the context of the whole Gospel of Matthew further informs how we should read this passage, especially because it is the conclusion of the Gospel and readers would have finished the rest of this Gospel by the time they reach it.

The command to “make disciples” of all nations (KJV has “teach” them) is surrounded by three clauses in Greek that describe how we make disciples of the nations: by “going,” “baptizing,” and “teaching.”  Jesus had spoken of “going” when he had sent his disciples out even within Galilee (10:7), but here disciples must go to other cultures and peoples because they will make disciples of the “nations.”

Making disciples of the “nations” fits an emphasis developed throughout this Gospel.  The four women specifically mentioned in Jesus’ ancestry (1:2-17) appear to be Gentiles: Tamar the Canaanite, Rahab the Jerichoite, Ruth the Moabitess, and the “widow of Uriah” the Hittite (1:3, 5-6).  Ancient Jewish genealogies normally emphasized the purity of one’s Israelite lineage, but this genealogy deliberately underlines the mixed-race heritage of the Messiah who will save Gentiles as well as Jews.

When many of his own people ignored or persecuted him, pagan astrologers from the East came to worship him (2:1-12).  God and his Son could raise up Abraham’s children even from stones (3:9), work in “Galilee of the Gentiles” (4:15), bless the faith of a Roman military officer (8:5-13), deliver demoniacs in Gentile territory (8:28-34), compare Israelite cities unfavorably with Sodom (10:15; 11:23-24), reward the persistent faith of a Canaanite woman (15:21-28), allow the first apostolic confession of Jesus’ Messiahship in pagan territory (16:13), promise that all nations would hear the gospel (24:14), and allow the first confession of Jesus as God’s Son after the cross to come from a Roman execution squad (27:54).  Matthew probably wrote to encourage his fellow Jewish Christians to evangelize the Gentiles, so the Gospel fittingly closes on this command.

“Baptizing” recalls the mission of John the Baptist, who baptized people for repentance (3:1-2, 6, 11).  Baptism in Jewish culture represented an act of conversion, so as “going” may represent crosscultural ministry, we may describe Jesus’ command to “baptize” as evangelism.  But evangelism is not sufficient to make full disciples; we also need Christian education.  “Teaching” them all that Jesus commanded is made easier by the fact that Matthew has provided us Jesus’ teachings conveniently in five major discourse sections: Jesus’ teachings about the ethics of the kingdom (chs. 5-7); proclaiming the kingdom (ch. 10); parables about the present state of the kingdom (ch. 13); relationships in the kingdom (ch. 18); and the future of the kingdom and judgment on the religious establishment (chs. 23-25).

But in Matthew’s Gospel, we do not make disciples the way most Jewish teachers in his day made disciples.  We make disciples not for ourselves but for our Lord Jesus Christ (23:8).  This final paragraph of Matthew’s Gospel fittingly concludes various themes about Jesus’ identity in this Gospel as well.  John (3:2), Jesus (4:17), and his followers (10:7) announced God’s kingdom, his reign; now Jesus reigns with all authority in all creation (28:18).  Further, we baptize not only in the name of God and his Spirit, but in the name of Jesus (28:19), thereby ranking Jesus as deity alongside the Father and the Spirit.  And finally, Jesus’ promise to be with us always as we preach the kingdom until the end of the age (28:20) recalls earlier promises in the Gospel.  Jesus himself is “Immanuel,” “God with us” (1:23), and wherever two or three gather in his name he will be among them (18:20).  To any ancient Jewish reader, these statements would imply that Jesus was God.

Does the promise that Jesus will be with us “till the end of the age” (28:20) imply that once the age ends he will no longer be with us?  Such an idea would miss entirely the point of the text.  Jesus is promising to be with us in carrying out his commission (28:19); that must be accomplished before the age ends (24:14), so the nations can be judged according to how they have responded to this message (25:31-32).  Taking this passage in the context of the entire Gospel provides us plenty of preaching material without even stepping outside Matthew!

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Who are “the least of these” in Matthew 25:40?

Many people today emphasize the importance of caring for the poor by reminding us that Jesus warned us we would be judged by how we treat “the least of these” Jesus’ brothers (25:40, 45).  Elsewhere in the Bible, how we treat the poor does speak of how we treat the Lord (Prov 19:17: one who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord). The question is whether this is the meaning in this passage. While it is true that God will judge us according to how we treat the poor, is the “poor” what Jesus means here by his “brothers”?  Will the nations be judged (25:32) only for this?  The immediate context does not settle the issue, but the broader context of the Gospel tradition may help more.  What does Jesus mean elsewhere by “brothers” and by the “least”?

Because ancient readers would unwind a scroll from the beginning, the first readers would have already read the preceding chapters before coming to Matthew 25.  Thus they would know that Jesus’ brothers and sisters included all those who did his will (Matt 12:48-50), that all Jesus’ disciples are brothers and sisters (23:8), and, before they finished the Gospel, would know that Jesus’ disciples remained his brothers after his resurrection (28:10).  (Because of the way the Greek language works, “brothers” often can include “sisters” as well, but in 28:10 the women disciples are addressing specifically the men disciples.)  When Jesus speaks of the “least” in the kingdom, he sometimes also refers to some disciples (11:11).

Who then are the least of these disciples of Jesus that the nations accepted or rejected?  It is at least possible that these are messengers of the gospel, “missionaries,” who bring the gospel to all unreached people groups before the day of judgment; certainly the message about the kingdom would be spread among all those people groups before the kingdom would come (24:14).  These messengers might be hungry and thirsty because of the comforts they sacrificed to bring others the gospel; they might be imprisoned because of persecution; they might even be worn down to sickness by their efforts (like Epaphroditus in Phil 2:27-30).  But those who received such messengers would receive Jesus who sent them, even if all they had to give them was a cup of cold water to drink–as Jesus had taught earlier (10:11-14, 40-42).  It is possible, then, in light of the entire Gospel of Matthew, that these “least brothers and sisters” are the lowliest of the missionaries sent to the nations; the nations will be judged according to how they respond to Jesus’ emissaries.