What Is Matthew Doing?

Matthew is not noting how like, hey, there are all these prophecies and you should have known that this was Jesus. What Matthew is doing is he's sort of lining up a bunch of episodes or moments in the sort of the journey of Israel. And we think about what Jesus is doing, Jesus's actions. He's reaching out to the Gentiles, he's regathering and recreating an Israel, 12 followers. Of course, Jesus is acting as God, he's forgiving sins. The chief agent who brings in the rule of God. That's what Jesus isdoing.