This highly insightful and useful commentary comes from a skillful and multicompetent scholar. Samson Uytanlet attends to literary dimensions of this Gospel as well as displaying sensitivity to, and competence in, both the ancient setting of Matthew’s Gospel and modern Asian contexts. He seamlessly and brilliantly weaves these elements together (along with some insights from the history of Christianity). Uytanlet properly highlights relevant issues of honor, shame, kinship, colonial contexts, and so forth and provides insights on Matthew’s Gospel from which readers in many cultures, including Western ones, will learn much. All this in a work that is well-laid out and very understandably written!
Craig S. Keener, PhD
F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary, USA
Matthew the Evangelist was spiritually sensitive and multiculturally fluent, so he was able to use Hebrew Scripture and Greco-Roman tradition to introduce and explain Jesus’ extraordinary identity and world-changing mission to his Jewish and Gentile readers in the first century with great adeptness and profound impact. In his commentary on Matthew, Dr. Uytanlet has demonstrated the same spiritual sensitivity and multicultural fluency in clarifying the significance of Jesus Christ, underscoring the messages of Matthew, and even more impressively, highlighting the relevance of the Gospel to Asian people, both in the embedded essays and in his running comments.
Dr. Uytanlet’s expert knowledge of current Matthean scholarship produces many exegetic insights on Matthew’s text and his immersed experience in Asian life and culture, Chinese language, and Filipino customs in particular, brings Asian readers into exciting and creative conversations with this Christian Scripture, yielding much wisdom and faith challenges. is commentary is engagingly written, easy to read, and hard to put down. Lay readers, seminarians, preachers, and scholars will all find it informative and valuable. I highly recommend it.
Rev. John Y. H. Yieh, PhD
The Molly Laird Downs Chair, Professor of New Testament, Virginia Theological Seminary, USA
Samson Uytanlet and Kiem-Kwok Kwa admirably assist readers of the Gospel of Matthew with their faithful attention to the Gospel narrative and keen awareness of similarities between the first-century New Testament world and twenty-first century Asia. This splendid study serves well the aims of the Asia Bible Commentary.
Joel B. Green, PhD
Provost, Dean of the School of Theology, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA
Samson Uytanlet has gifted us with a different kind of commentary on Matthew. Emphasizing a cyclical relation among the commentator’s tasks of “observation, interpretation, and application,” Uytanlet’s commentary not only acknowledges that readers come to Matthew with their present contexts but also addresses how Matthew may speak to the particularities of today’s Asia. is contextual-specific commentary will be a great resource to those who are interested in Matthew and committed to Asia.
Tat-siong Benny Liew, PhD
Professor, Religious Studies Department, College of the Holy Cross, USA
