The Triumph over Death: The Discipleship in Matthew's Gospel.

摘要

This thesis re-visits the topic of Matthean discipleship under the theme of death and resurrection. In the ending of Matthew's Gospel (Mt 28:19), the evangelist uses the verb "make disciple" (mualphathetaetatauepsilon u&d12;o) instead of its noun "disciple" (o mualphathetaetatau h&d12;zeta), which signifies the importance of mission to make disciples. During the Jesus' earthly ministry, with the predictions of death and resurrection of the Son of Man, the disciples were summoned to take up the cross, to follow his footsteps and to be ready to die for him (Mt 10:38-39 & 16:24-25). After Jesus' resurrection, the risen Lord commanded the apostles to make discipleship of all the nations (Mt 28:18-20). Jesus' death and resurrection seem to be the turning point for his disciples. Matthew attempted to persuade the readers that the ultimate goal of disciples' life would be following Jesus, and the disciple will be resurrected and will have rewards. Discipleship is portrayed similarly as a victorious ending - like Jesus who defeats death. Therefore, in this thesis, the author attempts to argue that in Matthew's Gospel the discipleship signifies a triumph over death.;A combination of redaction criticism, literary criticismand words analysis will be applied in this study, in order to seek a more holistic understanding on the theme of death and resurrection vis-a-vis discipleship. The first part begins with words analysis, to demonstrate that the insertion of the word 'disciples' and the arrangement of 'following' intertwines and interconnects with Matthew's framework of death and resurrection. The second part includes chapter 5 to 7. Chapter 5 focuses on Mathew 10:16-42, suggesting the analogy between Jesus' fate and the disciples' ending (Mt 10:24-25), while Jesus' destiny and the meaning of taking up the cross are still ambiguous in Matthew's narrative strategy. Chapter 6 demonstrates that the three Jesus' predictions of death and resurrection serve as a progressive disclosure of his fate to his disciples. Chapter 7 proves that the future life and rewards of the disciples' life after death (Mt 18:1-9; 19:27-30) substantiated the ultimate concern of discipleship. Matthew portrays the glorious ending of Jesus' who defeats death. After His resurrection, Jesus affirms his disciples that he will always be with them (Mt 28:20). Matthew narratives the Jesus' death and resurrection is an analogy to his disciples and it creates a rhetoric purpose: an ideal disciple should follow the footsteps like Jesus' death. In fact, death is not the end, but resurrection. By setting forth the basic concept of Jesus/disciple triumph over death, Matthew endeavours to set up on a new way of life which the Matthean community should adopt - the newly elucidated discipleship on how to overcome the fear of death and persecution through the victorious ending of Jesus.