Welcome to our Form Now Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. I'm Tim Gray, president at the Augustin Institute.

And joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, who's a professor of scripture here at the August Institute.

And we're going to continue our ongoing Bible study. So open your Bibles and join us at Matthew chapter 26.

So Matthew chapter 26. And of course, Michael, this sets up. We just heard Jesus' last major discourse of the gospel.

There's five major discourses as we've spoken about before throughout Matthew's Gospel.

We just finished the last one, the Sermon on the Mount of Olives.

And it's significant that the way the chapter begins is when Jesus had finished all these sayings.

In other words, now we have the completion of those

five discourses that really form, it's one way to read the gospel, but I think it's very helpful.

So you have, you know, a discourse in chapters three and four, eight and nine, eleven and twelve,

14 through 17, 19 to 23. Well, actually, no, I'm sorry, I'm doing that

backwards. I'm doing the narrative parts. The discourses are in 5 and 7 and 10, in 13, 18, and

23 to 25. And so, yeah, when he says he finished all these sayings, it seems like, okay,

now we've completed those major discourses.

Yeah, and now that Jesus has completed his teaching, Matthew's going to show it. Now he's ready

to embark on the last stage of his mission. So he's been Jesus, the teacher, the rabbi,

giving incredible teaching, and now it's time for the last actions of our Lord and the last

things he's going to give his disciples. And so that sets us up because it's the time for the last actions of our Lord and the last things he's going to give his disciples.

And so that sets us up because it's the time for the Passover. And so chapter 26 begins when

Jesus had finished these saints, as you mentioned. He says, you know that after two days,

the Passover is coming and the son of man will be delivered to be crucified. So we turn right

to the passion narrative. Right.

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