Matthew Devotionals
One for each chapter. Want to test what you read? Take the Matthew quizzes.
- Matthew 1: A Savior for Sinners
Matthew begins with a long list of names, from Abraham through King David, down to the exile in Babylon, and on to Joseph, the husband of Mary (1:1-17). It is not a polished list.…
- Matthew 2: The King No Tyrant Could Stop
Two responses to the newborn King fill Matthew 2. Magi from the east come asking where he is, so they can worship him (2:2). When they find the child with Mary, they bow down and…
- Matthew 3: Standing in the Beloved
John appears in the wilderness with a blunt message: turn back to God, because the kingdom of heaven has come near (3:2). Crowds confess their sins and are baptized (3:6). To the…
- Matthew 4: Tested and Found Faithful
Right after the Father calls Jesus his beloved Son, the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to face the devil (4:1). After forty days without food he is hungry, and the tempter…
- Matthew 5: Blessed Before Anything Else
Jesus sits down on the mountain and begins, not with a command, but with a blessing. The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, those who come to God with empty hands…
- Matthew 6: The Father Already Knows
Matthew 6 keeps returning to the Father. Jesus warns against giving, praying, and fasting in order to be seen, because the attention of other people is the only reward such acts…
- Matthew 7: A Foundation That Holds
Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount with a series of contrasts: two gates, two kinds of trees, two kinds of followers, two houses. The most sobering is the third. Many will call…
- Matthew 8: Authority That Needs Only a Word
Coming down from the mountain, Jesus touches a man with leprosy and makes him clean (8:3). In Capernaum a centurion asks help for a servant lying paralyzed at home. When Jesus…
- Matthew 9: Compassion for the Scattered
Matthew 9 is crowded with people in need. Friends carry a paralyzed man to Jesus, and before anything else Jesus tells him his sins are forgiven (9:2). A tax collector named…
- Matthew 10: Worth More Than Sparrows
Jesus sends out the twelve with his own authority to heal and to announce that the kingdom has come near (10:1, 10:7). He does not pretend the road will be easy. He is sending…
- Matthew 11: Rest Offered to the Burdened
Matthew 11 opens with a question from prison. John the Baptist sends to ask whether Jesus is the one they have been waiting for (11:2-3). Jesus does not scold him. He points to…
- Matthew 12: Gentle with the Nearly Broken
Opposition to Jesus turns serious in Matthew 12. The Pharisees accuse his hungry disciples of breaking the Sabbath, and Jesus answers that someone greater than the temple has come…
- Matthew 13: A Treasure Worth Everything
Jesus sits in a boat and teaches the crowd in parables (13:2-3). Seed falls on a path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil, and Jesus explains that fruit comes where…
- Matthew 14: Caught While Sinking
Herod has John the Baptist beheaded to keep an oath made before his guests (14:9-10). When Jesus hears, he withdraws to a solitary place. Yet when the crowds follow, he has…
- Matthew 15: No Claim but Mercy
The chapter begins with teachers from Jerusalem whose worship, Jesus says, is words without hearts (15:7-9). Then it turns to a woman with no claim at all. She is a Canaanite from…
- Matthew 16: Truth the Father Reveals
Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him, and the answers are respectful but wrong: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, another prophet (16:13-14). Then he asks…
- Matthew 17: Lifted by His Touch
On a high mountain, Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. His face shines like the sun, his clothes become white as light, and Moses and Elijah appear, talking with…
- Matthew 18: A Debt Too Large to Repay
The disciples want to know who is greatest in the kingdom, and Jesus stands a little child in front of them (18:1-2). Like a shepherd who leaves the flock to search for one stray…
- Matthew 19: Possible Only with God
In Matthew 19, Pharisees test Jesus on divorce, and he takes them back to the beginning, when God made man and woman and joined the two into one (19:4-6). When the disciples turn…
- Matthew 20: Grace That Ignores the Ledger
Jesus tells of a landowner who hires workers at daybreak, agreeing on a denarius for the day. He keeps going back to the marketplace, until the last group is hired with only an…
- Matthew 21: Praise from Unlikely Voices
Jesus enters Jerusalem as the prophet foretold the king would come, gentle and seated on a donkey (21:4-5). The crowds spread cloaks and branches on the road and shout praise to…
- Matthew 22: Gathered In from the Crossroads
A king prepares a wedding feast for his son, and everything is ready (22:2-4). Yet the invited guests refuse to come. Some go off to their fields and businesses, and others seize…
- Matthew 23: Longing to Gather Them In
Jesus' sharpest words fill Matthew 23. He warns the crowds and his disciples about the scribes and Pharisees, teachers who load heavy burdens on others without lifting a finger to…
- Matthew 24: Ready at an Unknown Hour
As the disciples admire the temple buildings, Jesus tells them every stone will be thrown down (24:1-2). Then he describes what is coming: deceivers using his name, wars and…
- Matthew 25: A Kingdom Prepared in Advance
Matthew 25 holds three pictures of the end. Ten young women wait for a bridegroom, and the door is shut on those who were not ready (25:10-12). Servants entrusted with their…
- Matthew 26: Poured Out for Failing Friends
Matthew 26 is full of people failing Jesus. Judas agrees to hand him over for thirty pieces of silver (26:15). Peter insists that even if everyone else falls away, he never will…
- Matthew 27: The Innocent for the Guilty
Matthew's account of the crucifixion keeps returning to one fact: Jesus is innocent. Judas, seized with remorse, admits he has betrayed innocent blood (27:3-4). Pilate's wife…
- Matthew 28: With Us to the End
As the first day of the week dawns, the ground shakes, an angel rolls back the stone and sits on it, and the guards collapse in fear (28:2-4). The angel tells the women that Jesus…