St. Matthew's Favorite Passage

I did an interview on Issues, etc. on St. Matthew's propers where I suggested that Hosea 6:6a “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” might be St. Matthew’s favorite Bible passage. There wasn’t time in the interview to get into the thought behind that so here it is.

Both Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39 also record the account of Matthew’s call away from the tax collecting booth. Both include Our Lord eating with sinners and the detail that the meal was actually at Matthew’s house. Both Mark and Luke record, as does Matthew, the Pharisees’ complaint about the company Jesus keeps and His response that those who are well do not need a physician and that He has not come to call the righteous but sinners. In other words, other than the detail of whose house it was, the accounts are practically identical in all three accounts, but both Mark and Luke leave out the Hosea 6:6 passage: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” which is central in Matthew 9:9-13.

Matthew has Hosea 6:6 in the Lord’s mouth another time in 12:7. This was in response to when the Pharisees complained about the disciples gleaning on the Sabbath. Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5 both record what seems to be the same event, but neither includes the quote of Hosea 6:6 as Matthew does.

I don’t know how many Bible passages Matthew records Jesus citing more than once, but it can’t be many. Since this passage was used by Jesus to directly defend Matthew, I suspect that it made a deep impression upon him. I also suspect that even if the Pharisees failed to go and learn what the passage means that Matthew took it to heart and therefore that he was highly aware when Jesus cited it again and Matthew naturally recorded it.

Of course we can’t be dogmatic about what Matthew’s favorite passage was and in some sense it doesn’t really matter. At the same time, I find in interesting, and, at the very least, I think we do well to pay attention to the details of these accounts and how Scripture is used by Jesus and how the Evangelists weave it in.