Matthew is Dense

I have lately been amazed by the Gospel of Matthew. In just a few short passages, Matthew launches a barrage of just one jaw-dropping, infamous line after another. I am talking about passages that are near and dear to the hearts of many, repeated ad infinitum throughout the last 2,000 years--and here they appear in quick succession.

Take Chapter 7, the close of the Sermon on the Mount. It starts with "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged," quickly elaborated with: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?" A couple sentences later there is, "do not throw pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you."

What's the next line after this famous line?

"Ask, and it will be given you, search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you."

It isn't 2 lines later that you hear:

"In everything do to others as you would have them do to you"

The very next sentence begins:

"Enter through the narrow gate . . . for the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

There is a famous passage about good trees yielding good fruit--a common Matthean theme that a tree is known by its fruit, then it goes to:

Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."

These read like Bartlett's Book of the most famous quotations in western civilization, and they appear virtually one after the other in a few short passages in the Book of Matthew. I don't have much commentary on this, only to remark that this is a stunning achievement by anyone's measure.

(Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version)