Matthew on Money

Matthew wrote his Gospel with a tax collector's precision. Before he followed Jesus, he collected customs at the Sea of Galilee, a job that demanded exactitude with money, calculation of debts, and intimate knowledge of economic exchange. Lawrence Keister argues that this former profession never left Matthew, and that the First Gospel bears the unmistakable mark of a man who understood money deeply and wrote about it with the discrimination of someone accustomed to its possession and use. This book traces how financial concerns thread through Matthew's narrative: the magi's gifts, the temple tax, the parables of the talents and the unmerciful servant, the widow's mite. Keister illuminates what it means when the Gospel's most meticulous author turns his eye toward wealth and generosity. For readers seeking to understand how Jesus spoke about money, and why his followers have wrestled with those words for two millennia, this theological exploration offers a sustained, thoughtful reading of Scripture through the lens of economics and ethics.