Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Introduction].
author, if not Matthew) had any title at all. The use of
"according to" makes it plain that the meaning is not "the Gospel
of Matthew," but the Gospel as given by Matthew, \secundum
Matthaeum\, to distinguish the report by Matthew from that by
Mark, by Luke, by John. Least of all is there any authority in
the manuscripts for saying "Saint Matthew," a Roman Catholic
practice observed by some Protestants.
The word Gospel (\Euaggelion\) comes to mean good news in
Greek, though originally a reward for good tidings as in Homer's
_Odyssey_ XIV. 152 and in 2Ki 4:10. In the New Testament it is
the good news of salvation through Christ. The English word
Gospel probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon Godspell, story or
narrative of God, the life of Christ. It was early confused with
the Anglo-Saxon godspell, good story, which seems like a
translation of the Greek \euaggelion\. But primarily the English
word means the God story as seen in Christ which is the best news
that the world has ever had. One thinks at once of the use of
"word" (\Logos\) in Joh 1:1,14. So then it is, according to the
Greek, not the Good News of Matthew, but the Good News of God,
brought to us in Christ the Word, the Son of God, the Image of
the Father, the Message of the Father. We are to study this story
first as presented by Matthew. The message is God's and it is as
fresh to us today in Matthew's record as when he first wrote it.
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Word Pictures in the New Testament
(Matthew: Introduction)