This study on the Gospel of Matthew is not, in its current form, an interpretative commentary, neither as a whole nor on any single part of this Gospel.

In this phase of our effort to achieve a deeper understanding of this text as a whole, what we aimed for was, through longer or shorter thematic units, narrative and teaching sections of Matthew, to present this Evangelist as an interpreter and theologian on very serious issues that occupied the Church of his time in his region.

Is the spectrum of problems complete? Even if it is not complete, and even if it leaves some gaps, it covers a significant part of the themes of the text, so that this study may provide the reader with perhaps an adequate taste of the purposes intended by the author.

[Excerpt from the text of the preface]