Bev Franco Essay - San Francisco Theological Seminary

money in his gospel, while Luke has 22 and Mark only 6. In the story of the Pharisees’
question about paying taxes to Caesar, Luke uses the native Greek word φόρον (20:22),
while Matthew uses the Roman term for poll tax, κ νσον. (22:17) Only Matthew tells the
story of the temple tax in which Peter, on Jesus’ instructions, miraculously pulls up a fish
with a coin it its mouth. The writer called the coin a στατ ρα, a “stater,” exactly the
amount needed to pay the temple tax for two people (17:24-27). 7
If the author of Matthew was interested in money, the community seems to have
been also. Based on clues within the gospel and writings from the outside, Jack Dean
Kingsbury theorizes that the Matthean Community was prosperous (as evidenced, for
example, by the use of many denominations of coinage in the gospel), and urban (as
evidenced by the frequency of the use of the word “city” in contrast with the other
synoptics). 8
Urbanization meant prosperity, as the economy would be changing from
agricultural to trade based. Urbanization meant that Matthew’s community was likely
moving from “an ethnically homogeneous constituency that was largely unlearned,
relatively poor and of low social status to an ethnically heterogeneous one that included
people more educated, more financially secure and successful, i.e., persons of higher
status.” 9 Therefore, it is not surprising to find these warning against materialism in the
middle of the Sermon on the Mount. The same message is given in other parts of the
gospel. Jesus says in the Parable of the Sower, “but the cares of the world and the lure of
wealth choke the word” (13:22). The Rich Young Man goes away grieving because he
7 Marx, 148-157.
8 Kingsbury, 152.
9 Michael H. Crosby, House of Disciples: Church, Economics and Justice in Matthew. (Maryknoll,
NY:Orbis Books, 1988): 39.
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