Category Archives: New Testament

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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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Jesus, the living Word — John 1:14-18

Modern writers have proposed many valuable aspects of background for the “Word,” but probably the most obvious is what the “Word” was in the Old Testament: God’s word was the law, the Scripture he had given to Israel.  John probably wrote his Gospel especially for Jewish Christians.  Opponents of these Jewish Christians had probably kicked them out of their synagogues and claimed that they had strayed from God’s Word in the Bible.  Far from it, John replies: Jesus is the epitome of all that God taught in Scripture, for Jesus himself is God’s Word and revelation.

John probably alludes to one story in particular, the account of when Moses went up to receive the law the second time in Exodus 33 and 34.  Israel had broken the covenant and God had judged them; now he gives Moses the law again but does not wish to “dwell” with Israel.  Moses pleads with God to dwell with them, and then pleads with God to show him his glory.  “No one can see my full glory,” God told him, “but I will show you part of my glory, and make my goodness pass before you.”

As God passed before Moses, Moses witnessed an astounding spectacle of glory; but especially God revealed his “goodness,” his holy character, to Moses.  As he passed before Moses, he described himself as “abounding in covenant love and covenant faithfulness,” which could be translated, “full of grace and truth.”  And after God was finished revealing his character, Moses protested, “God, if that is the way you are, then please forgive us and dwell with us.”  And God promised to do so.

Some thirteen centuries later, the apostle John spoke of himself and his fellow eyewitnesses of Jesus in a manner like Moses.  “We beheld Jesus’ glory,” he said, “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).  He builds to a climax in 1:17: “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus.”  To be sure, God revealed his grace and truth to Moses when he gave him the law; but Moses saw only part of God’s glory, only part of his grace and truth.  “No one has seen God at any time,” John reminds us, alluding back to God’s warning to Moses that he could not see all of God’s glory; but now “the only God, who is in the Father’s bosom, has revealed fully God’s character” (1:18).  Moses saw part of God’s glory, but those who walked with Jesus saw all of God’s glory, for to see him is to see the Father (Jn 14:7).

Whole book context explains the point here more fully.  God’s glory is revealed in various ways in Jesus (2:11; 11:4), but the ultimate expression of God’s glory here is in the cross and the events that follow it (12:23-24).  We see God’s heart, and most fully understand what God was like, when we look at the cross where God gave his Son so we could have life.

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A replacement for Judas: casting lots in Acts 1:26

Some interpreters today suggest that the apostles made a mistake in casting lots for a twelfth apostle, even though it was before the day of Pentecost.  The immediate context, however, suggests something positive; the believers were in prayerful unity (1:12-14; 2:1), and now Peter has exhorted them to replace the lost apostle (1:15-26).  Would Luke spend so much space to describe a practice he disagreed with, and then fail to offer any word of correction?

Whole-book context in Acts actually invites us to read Luke and Acts together, for they were two volumes of one work (Acts 1:1-2; cf. Lk 1:1-4).  When we read them together we see that Luke’s Gospel also opens with a casting of lots, in this case, one used to select which priest would serve in the temple (Lk 1:9).  In that case, God certainly controlled the lot, for by it Zechariah was chosen to serve in the temple, and subsequently received a divine promise specifically designed for himself and Elizabeth, the promise of a son, John the Baptist (1:13).  If God controlled the lot in the opening story of volume one, why not in the opening story (after repeating the ascension) in volume 2?  The background would help us further: if God controlled the lot throughout the Old Testament, including for selection of levitical ministries, why should we doubt that he used this method on this one occasion in Acts, before the Spirit’s special guidance inaugurated with Pentecost (2:17).

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Rivers of living water in John 7:37-38

Jesus’ promise of rivers of living water in John 7:37-38, referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit (7:39), is exciting in any case.  But it is especially exciting if one traces through the rest of the Gospel the contrast between the true water of the Spirit and merely ritual uses of water by Jesus’ contemporaries.

John’s baptism in water was good, but Jesus’ baptism in the Spirit was better (1:26, 33).  Strict Jewish ritual required the waterpots in Cana to be used only for ritual waters to purify, but when Jesus turned the water into wine he showed that he valued his friend’s honor more than ritual and tradition (2:6).  A Samaritan woman abandons her waterpot used to draw water from the sacred ancestral well when she realizes that Jesus offers new water that brings eternal life (4:13-14).  A sick man unable to be healed by water that supposedly brought healing (5:7) finds healing instead in Jesus (5:8-9); a blind man is healed by water in some sense but only because Jesus “sends” him there (9:7).

The function of this water is suggested more fully in John 3:5.  Here Jesus explains that Nicodemus cannot understand God’s kingdom without being born “from above” (3:3, literally), i.e., from God.  Some Jewish teachers spoke of Gentiles being “reborn” in a sense when they converted to Judaism, but Nicodemus cannot conceive of himself as a Gentile, a pagan, so he assumes Jesus speaks instead of reentering his mother’s womb (3:4).  So Jesus clarifies his statement.  Jewish people believed that Gentiles converted to Judaism through circumcision and baptism, so Jesus explains to Nicodemus that he must be reborn “from water.”  In other words, Nicodemus must come to God on the same terms that Gentiles do!

But if Jesus means by “water” here what he means in 7:37-38, he may mean water as a symbol for the Spirit, in which case he is saying, “You must be born of water, i.e., the Spirit” (a legitimate way to read the Greek).  If so, Jesus may be using Jewish conversion baptism merely to symbolize the greater baptism in the Spirit that he brings to those who trust in him.  The water may also symbolize Jesus’ sacrificial servanthood for his disciples (13:5).

So what does Jesus mean by the rivers of living water in John 7:37-38?  Even though we will deal with background and translations more fully later, we need to use them at least briefly here to catch the full impact of this passage.  First, in most current translations, at least a footnote points out an alternate way to punctuate 7:37-38 (the earliest Greek texts lacked punctuation, and the early church fathers divided over which interpretation to take).  In this other way to read the verses, it is not clear that the water flows from the believer; it may flow instead from Christ.  Since believers “receive” rather than give the water (7:39), and since they elsewhere have a “well” rather than a “river” (4:14), Christ may well be the source of water in these verses.  (This is not to deny the possibility that believers may experience deeper empowerments of the Spirit after their conversion.)

Jewish tradition suggests that on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, priests read to the people from Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 47, which talk of rivers of living water flowing forth from the Temple in the end time.  Jesus is now speaking on the last day of that feast (7:2, 37), probably alluding to the very Scriptures from which they had read (“as the Scripture said,” 7:38).  Jewish people thought of the Temple as the “navel” or “belly” of the earth.  So Jesus may be declaring, “I am the foundation stone of the new temple of God.  From me flows the water of the river of life; let the one who wills come and drink freely!”

Normally (as we will point out below) one should not read symbolism into biblical narratives, but the end of John’s Gospel may be an exception, a symbol God provided those who watched the crucifixion.  (John uses symbolism a little more than narratives normally do.)  When a soldier pierced Jesus’ side, water as well as blood flowed forth (19:34).  Literally, a spear thrust near the heart could release a watery fluid around the heart as well as blood.  But John is the only writer among the four Gospel writers to emphasize the water, and he probably mentions it  to make a point: once Jesus was lifted up on the cross and glorified (7:39), the new life of the Spirit became available to his people.  Let us come and drink freely.

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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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Loveless Christians in 1 Corinthians 13

We often quote 1 Corinthians 13 as if it is an all-purpose description of love, for weddings, marriage counseling, friendships, and so forth.  The principles in this chapter are in fact universal enough to apply to those situations, but Paul originally wrote them to address a specific situation which many of us today miss.  Paul was addressing the appropriate use of spiritual gifts.

The Corinthian church was divided over a variety of issues.  One such issue, addressed in chapters 12-14, was the use of some spiritual gifts.  Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that the purpose of all publicly used gifts is to build up the body of Christ.  In chapter 14, he emphasizes that prophecy is more important in public worship than tongues, because it builds up the church better (unless the tongues is interpreted).  Between these two chapters is chapter 13, revealing love as the key virtue that moves us to use all our gifts to build up Christ’s church.

Paul emphasizes that even if we have the greatest gifts, we are nothing without love (13:1-3).  He points out that the gifts are temporary, due to pass away at Christ’s return when we see him face to face (13:8-10); love, however, is eternal (13:11-13).  Between these two points he describes the characteristics of love–characteristics which, in the context of the entire book, directly address what the Corinthian Christians lack (13:4-8).  Love is not jealous or arrogant or boastful (13:4), but the Corinthian Christians certainly were jealous (3:3) and arrogant (4:6, 18-19; 5:2; 8:1) and boastful (cf. 1:29; 3:21; 4:7; 5:6).  In short, everything Paul says love is, he has already told the Corinthians they are not!  Paul’s praise of love is simultaneously a gentle rebuke!

But just as love is our first priority, love tells us which gifts to seek most for the building up of Christ’s body.  The verses immediately surrounding 1 Corinthians 13 remind us that we should seek from God for public worship especially the “greater” gifts, those like prophecy which build up others (12:31; 14:1).

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Not under the law but still in the flesh — Romans 7

The whole-book context of Romans teaches us about ethnic reconciliation.  In this context, the specific function of Romans 7 is significant: Paul notes that believers are no longer “under the law” (7:1-6).  But he also notes that the problem is not with the law itself (7:7, 12, 14), but with humans as creatures of “flesh.”  Many people take this chapter as also depicting Paul’s present enslavement to sin, and some even use it to justify living sinfully, saying, “If Paul could not keep from living in sin, how can we?”  Is that really Paul’s point?

In 7:14, Paul declares that he is “fleshly, sold into slavery to sin.”  In surrounding chapters, however, he declares that all believers in Jesus have been freed from sin and made slaves to God and righteousness (6:18-22).  In 7:18, Paul complains that “nothing good dwells” in him, but in 8:9 he explains that the Spirit of Christ dwells in all true believers.  In 7:25 he confesses that he serves with his body the “law of sin”; but in 8:2 he declares that Jesus has freed believers from “the law of sin and death.”

Why this apparent confusion?  Probably only because we have missed the primary issue.  Although Paul speaks graphically about life under the law in Romans 7, he is not implying that this is his typical daily Christian life.  He says that when believers “were” in the flesh (probably meaning, ruled by their own desires), their sinful passions stirred by the law were producing death in them.  By contrast, Paul says, “But now” believers have been “freed from the law,” serving instead by the Spirit (7:5-6).  That is, most of Romans 7 depicts the frustration of trying to achieve righteousness by the works of the law, that is, by human effort (Rom 7 speaks of “I,” “me,” “my” and “mine” over forty times).  When we accept the righteousness of God as a free gift in Jesus Christ, however, we become able to walk in newness of life, and the rest of the Christian life is daring to trust the finished work of Christ enough to live like it is so (6:11).  To the extent that our lives resemble Romans 7 at all, it is because we are trying to make ourselves good enough for God instead of accepting His gracious love for us.

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Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart — Romans 10:9

We often urge people to be converted by believing in Jesus’ resurrection with their heart and confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord.  This summary of how to respond to the gospel is based on Romans 10:9-10, which does in fact discuss salvation.  But it is helpful to examine why Paul specifically mentions the mouth and heart here (rather than in some other passages which emphasize different aspects of salvation).  Certainly Paul would not deny that a deaf mute could be saved simply because they could not confess with their mouth.  He chooses the particular words “heart” and “mouth” for specific reasons evident in the context.

We look first at the immediate context.  Paul believes that we are saved by God’s grace, not by our works.  Contrary to the means of justification proposed by Paul’s opponents (Rom. 10:1-5), Paul demonstrates from the law of Moses itself that the message of faith is the saving word (10:6-7).  As Moses said, “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (10:8); Moses was referring to the law (Deut 30:10-11, 14), but the principle was also applicable to the gospel, which was also God’s word.  In Moses’ day one could not ascend to heaven to bring the law down from above; God in his mercy already gave it to Israel on Mount Sinai (30:12).  Nor was it necessary to descend again into the sea (30:13); God had already redeemed his people and brought them through the sea.  They could not save themselves; they had to depend on God’s mighty grace (cf. Ex 20:2).  In the same way, Paul says, we don’t bring Christ up from the dead, or send him down from the Father; like the law and Israel’s redemption, Christ’s salvation is God’s gift to us (Rom 10:6-7).  Moses declared that this message was “in your mouth and in your heart” (Deut 30:14), i.e., already given to Israel by God’s grace.  Paul explains that likewise God’s message was in your mouth when you confessed Christ with your mouth and in your heart when you believed in Him in your heart (Rom 10:9-10).  Faith could come only from hearing this word, the gospel of Christ (10:17), as we noted above.

The immediate context explains why Paul mentions the “mouth” and the “heart” in this specific passage, but it also raises a new question.  Why did Paul have to make an argument from the Old Testament that salvation was by grace through faith?  Was there anyone who doubted this?  Reading Romans as an entire book explains the reason for each passage within that book.  Paul is addressing a controversy between Jewish and Gentile Christians.

Paul begins Romans by emphasizing that the Gentiles are lost (Rom 1:18-32); just as the Jewish Christian readers are applauding, Paul points out that religious people are also lost (Rom 2), and summarizes that everyone is lost (Rom 3).  Paul establishes that all humanity is equally lost to remind us that all of us have to come to God on the same terms; none of us can boast against others.

But most Jewish people believed that they were chosen for salvation in Abraham; therefore Paul reminds his fellow Jewish Christians that it is spiritual rather than ethnic descent from Abraham that matters for salvation (Rom 4).  Lest any of his Jewish readers continue to stress their genetic descent, he reminds them that all people–including themselves–descend from sinful Adam (5:12-21).  Jewish people believed that most Jews kept all 613 commandments in the law (at least most of the time), whereas most Gentiles did not even keep the seven commandments many Jews believed God gave to Noah.  So Paul argues that while the law is good, it never saved its practitioners, including Paul (Rom 7); only Jesus Christ could do that!  And lest the Jewish Christians continue to insist on their chosenness in Abraham, Paul reminds them that not all Abraham’s physical descendants were chosen, even in the first two generations (Rom 9:6-13).  God was so sovereign, he was not bound to choosing people on the basis of their ethnicity (9:18-24); he could choose people on the basis of their faith in Christ.

But lest the Gentile Christians look down on the Jewish Christians, Paul also reminds them that the heritage into which they had been grafted was, after all, Israel’s (Rom 11).  God had a Jewish remnant, and would one day turn the majority of Jewish people to faith in Christ (11:25-26).  And at this point Paul gets very practical.  Christians must serve one another (Rom 12); the heart of God’s law is actually loving one another (13:8-10).  Ancient literature shows that Roman Gentiles made fun of Roman Jews especially for their food laws and holy days; Paul argues that we should not look down on one another because of such minor differences of practice (Rom 14).  He then provides examples of ethnic reconciliation: Jesus though Jewish ministered to the Gentiles (15:7-12) and Paul was bringing an offering from Gentile churches for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (15:25-31).  In the midst of his closing greetings, he offers one final exhortation: Beware of those who cause division (16:17).

Getting the whole picture of Romans provides us a clearer understanding of the function of each particular passage in the work as a whole.  It also suggests the sort of situation which the letter addresses.  What we know of the “background” sheds more light on this situation: Rome earlier expelled the Jewish Christians (Acts 18:1-3), but now they have returned (Rom 16:3).  This means that the Roman house churches, which had consisted completely of Gentiles for many years, now face conflict with Jewish Christians who had different cultural ways of doing things.  Paul’s letter to the Romans summons Christians to ethnic, cultural, tribal reconciliation with one another by reminding us that all of us came to God on the same terms, through Jesus Christ alone.

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For God so loved the world: what it means to believe in John 3:16

John 3:16 does refer to salvation from sin through faith in Jesus, as we usually expect.  But we do not catch the full meaning of this verse unless we read the Gospel of John the whole way through.  The rest of the Gospel sheds light on what this verse means about the “world” (for instance, it includes Samaritans–see 4:42 in context), on how God expressed his love (by describing the cross), and other issues.  We focus here on what John 3:16 means by saving faith.  Someone may say he believes in Jesus, yet this person may attend church once a year and continue to live in unrepentant sin (let us say this person murders people every other weekend).  Is this person really a Christian?  What does it really mean to “believe” in Jesus?

The rest of the Gospel of John clarifies what Jesus means here by saving faith.  Just before the conversation in which Jesus speaks 3:16, John tells us about some inadequate believers.  Many people were impressed with Jesus’ miracles and “believed” in him, but Jesus refused to put his faith in them because he knew what was really inside them (2:23-25).  They had some sort of faith, but it was not saving faith.

What would happen if someone professed faith in Christ, then later renounced Christ and became a Muslim or worshiped old Yoruba gods?  Would their earlier profession of faith be enough to save them in the end?  The question is not hard to answer in light of the rest of John’s Gospel, though some of us may not like the answer.  Later in the Gospel of John, some of Jesus’ hearers “believed” in him, but he warned them that they must continue in his word, so proving to be his disciples and learning the truth which would free them (8:30-32).  By the end of the chapter, however, these hearers have already proved unfaithful: they actually want to kill Jesus (8:59).  Jesus later warns that those who fail to continue in him will be cast away (15:4, 6).  In John’s Gospel, genuine saving faith is the kind of faith that perseveres to the end.

The purpose of John’s Gospel was to record some of his signs for Christian readers who had never seen Jesus in person, that they might come to a deeper level of faith, the kind of faith that would be strong enough to persevere in following Jesus to the end (20:30-31).  John makes this comment right after narrating the climactic confession of faith in this Gospel.  Jesus summons Thomas to “believe,” and Thomas expresses his faith by calling Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (20:27-28).  Jesus’ deity is an emphasis in John’s Gospel (1:1, 18; 8:58), so of all the other confessions about Jesus’ identity in this Gospel (1:29, 36, 49; 6:69), this is the climactic one: He is God.  The content of Thomas’s faith is correct, but John wants more from his own readers.  Correct information about Jesus is necessary, but by itself correct information is not necessarily strong faith.  Thomas believed because he saw, but Jesus says that he wants greater faith that can believe even before it sees (20:29).  John’s readers believe because he narrates his eyewitness testimony to them (20:30-31), confirmed by the power of the Holy Spirit (15:26-16:15).

In John 3:16, saving faith is not just praying a single prayer, then going on our way and forgetting about Jesus for the rest of our lives.  Saving faith is embracing Jesus with such radical dependence on his work for us that we stake our lives on the truth of his claims.

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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.