Episode 2: The kingdom is at hand
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ sermon about the kingdom of heaven doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Matthew tells the story of Jesus in such a way that the kingdom is the theme right from the start, in the genealogy of chapter 1, the beloved Christmas story of chapter 2, and even the temptation story of chapter 4. And both John the Baptist and Jesus preached that the kingdom of heaven had come near. All of this comes before the Sermon on the Mount, as Matthew’s lead-in.
