In comparison to Mark and Luke, the First Gospel contains a striking preponderance of economic language in passages dealing with sin, righteousness, and divine recompense. For instance, sin is described as a debt, and righteous deeds are said to earn wages with God or treasure in heaven. This study analyzes Matthew s economic language against the backdrop of other early Jewish and Christian literature and examines its import for the narrative as a whole. Careful attention to this neglected aspect of Matthew s theology demonstrates that some of the Gospel s central claims about atonement,...