Here are some reasons I got after listening from a sermon:
- In the early days of Christianity, many people thought that the Gospel of Matthew was the first written.
- The early Christians rightly saw the Gospel of Matthew as important, because it has some significant portions of Jesus’ teaching that are not included in other gospels, such as a fuller version of the Sermon on the Mount.
- It was the only one of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to have an apostolic author – Matthew.
- “Matthew’s Gospel was in fact far more quoted in Christian writings of the second Christian century than any other.”(France)
- The Jewish flavor of the Gospel of Matthew makes for a logical transition between the Old and New Testaments. For these reasons, the early church placed it first in order among the four gospel accounts.
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