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If you only took a quick look at Matthew 5, it could seem like Jesus is discrediting the Old Testament.

But trust me, he's not.

When we look at the book of Matthew as a whole and seek to study its context,

there are several things distinguishing it from the other gospels. As we talked about earlier

this week, Matthew was written to the Jews, an audience very familiar with the Old Testament.

Now, Matthew, the author of the book, writes as a teacher. He puts a heavy emphasis on Jesus'

sermons, which makes a lot of sense because today we're starting to read Jesus' most famous

sermon, the sermon on the Mount. And the key word for the book of Matthew is fulfilled. Keywords

simply capture major themes, big ideas, repeated phrases.

So the keyword for Matthew is fulfilled because Matthew shows us Jesus didn't come to discredit the instruction God had given Israel or throw out the Old Testament laws and prophecies.

He came to fulfill them.

This fulfillment means that Jesus is a picture of God keeping the promises he made to the Jews

back in the Old Testament. Interestingly, we see this keyword implied in the first two verses

through an idiom. Jesus opened his mouth. That's the idiom. An idiom is a significant phrase that

has an underlying meaning attached to it.

And many scholars believe opened his mouth or opened his mouth and began to teach

is an idiom Matthew's Jewish audience would have been very familiar with.

But when we read the words opened his mouth, we think, okay, Jesus started to speak. He started to talk. But Matthew's

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