Short answer: Evangelicals most often attribute Matthew 22:37–39 to the apostle Matthew (also called Levi), the tax collector who became one of Jesus’ Twelve. They treat the Gospel of Matthew as an apostolic, eyewitness-based account inspired by God and therefore fully authoritative for faith and practice.
Key points evangelicals emphasize
– Who Matthew is
– Identified in the New Testament as Matthew/Levi (see Matthew 9:9 // Mark 2:14 // Luke 5:27–28).
– A former tax collector who became one of Jesus’ Twelve disciples and an eyewitness of Jesus’ life and teaching.
– Traditionally understood to have written the Gospel that bears his name.
– Early church testimony
– Early Christian writers (e.g., Papias as quoted by Eusebius, Irenaeus, Origen, and others) attribute the first Gospel to Matthew, which evangelicals treat as important historical support for Matthean authorship.
– Why evangelicals favor Matthew’s authorship
– Apostolic authority: an apostle’s authorship carries weight for the Gospel’s authority and reliability.
– Eyewitness connection: Matthew’s position as a disciple explains the detailed teaching and Jewish interest in Jesus’ ministry.
– Early and consistent church tradition: patristic testimony is seen as confirming the Gospel’s origin.
– Harmonizes with the Gospel’s internal marks (Jewish concerns, fulfillment citations, teaching emphasis) that fit a disciple-writer addressing Jewish-Christian readers.
– Relationship to modern critical views
– Some modern scholars argue for anonymous composition or literary dependence on Mark and Q; many evangelicals engage those arguments but still prefer the traditional attribution to Matthew while recognizing that the evangelist could have used sources and eyewitness memory in composing his Gospel.
– Implication for Matthew 22:37–39
– Because evangelicals regard Matthew as an apostolic eyewitness and the Gospel as divinely inspired, Jesus’ summary of the law—“Love the Lord your God… Love your neighbor as yourself”—is read as an authoritative, central teaching of Jesus and a foundation for Christian ethics and discipleship.
Further reading (evangelical-friendly)
– R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT)
– Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew (New American Commentary)
– D. A. Carson, Matthew (in various evangelical collections and articles)
If you’d like, I can: (a) summarize what Matthew 22:37–39 means theologically from an evangelical standpoint, (b) give a short profile of Matthew’s life and how his background shapes his Gospel, or (c) show how evangelicals apply these verses in discipleship and ethics. Which would you prefer?