Who Are the “Brothers and Sisters” in Matthew 25:31–46
(avg. read time: 3–6 mins.)
One of the most popular texts used in support of this or that social program or social/economic agenda—in which the government may or may not be involved—is the judgment scene of Matt 25:31–46. Likewise, the text often serves as a support for various social visions. In particular, the focus is on vv. 34–40, since what follows is the negative reinforcement of the same point. I quote from my own translation here with the words in brackets being supplied for a smoother English translation, as these words are gapped in the Greek (or the words may provide extra words from the Greek that do not fit smoothly in English):
34 Then the king will say to the ones on his right, “Come, blessed ones of my Father, inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me [food] to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me [something/water] to drink, I was a stranger and you brought me in, 36 [I was] naked and you clothed me, [I was] sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” 37 Then the righteous will answer him [saying], “Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and gave you [something/water] to drink? 38 Or when did we see you as a stranger and brought you in, or naked and we clothed you? 39 Or when did we see you sick or in prison and we came to you?” 40 The king will answer them [saying], “Truly I say to you, what you did to/for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to/for me.”
I once accepted the view that Jesus’s “brothers and sisters” (ἀδελφῶν) simply were whoever one identified as the generic “least.” They were whoever were the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick, and imprisoned. That view may have an air of plausibility in light of OT texts about how God cares for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien. It also fits with other instructions about caring for such people in our midst. Of course, this reading has added forcefulness among those who hold to some form of liberation theology or emphasize some form of universal “brotherhood of humanity” ideology. The problem: that is not what the text says.
Jesus refers to “one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine.” Prima facie, the sort of reading I once accepted is unlikely and rests on not paying close attention to the wording for it to survive. More importantly, Jesus never uses the term ἀδελφός in such a manner as to imply this meaning. In Matthew alone, which well represents the other Gospels in this regard, the term applies either to blood brothers (1:2, 11; 4:18 [2x], 21 [2x]; 10:2 [2x], 21 [2x]; 12:46–47; 13:55; 14:3; 17:1; 19:29; 20:24; 22:24–25 [4x]) or to fellow disciples/believers (5:22–24 [4x], 47; 7:3–5; 12:48–50; 18:15 [2x], 21, 35; 23:8; 28:10). In the rest of the NT, the term typically has the latter sense with the former sense still appearing, but there are also cases in which the extended kin group of Jews is in mind, especially in direct address (Acts 2:29, 37; 3:17, 22; 7:2, 23, 25, 37; 13:26, 38; 22:1, 5; 23:1, 5–6; 28:17, 21; Heb 7:5), and one could argue that this was the original application of the Sermon on the Mount, but otherwise, the two aforementioned senses define the scope of meaning in the NT.
Two texts from elsewhere in Matthew are particularly illuminating of how Jesus is talking here about “brothers and sisters” as his followers. One is his closing statement in Matt 10:40–42:
40 The one who receives you receives me, and the one who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous one in the name of a righteous one will receive a righteous one’s reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you that he will by no means lose his reward.
The same kind of link is operative here with Jesus’s disciples whom he sent out as messengers as in Matt 25. The other relevant text is 12:46–50, where he explicitly identifies his brothers and sisters as those who do the will of his Father. He thus has a broad understanding of who are his family, but it is not the kind of broadening the aforementioned interpretation of Matt 25 needs.
This interpretation also helps to clarify a problem that people have when encountering this text. It seems as if the brothers and sisters are a third group that is not subject to judgment while those represented as “sheep” and “goats” are. The sheep are those who received properly the brothers and sisters, which was accounted to them as receiving the Lord they proclaim, even if they themselves did not see it that way at the time. These various descriptors historically have characterized the state of believers, as can be seen already in the first century for hunger (1 Cor 4:11; Phil 4:12; Rev 7:16), thirst (1 Cor 4:11; Rev 7:16), having to live as strangers (Heb 13:2; 3 John 5; cf. Heb 11:13), being naked (1 Cor 4:11; 2 Cor 11:27; Jas 2:15), being sick and weak while proclaiming the gospel (Acts 20:35; 2 Cor 11:21, 29; 12:10; 13:9), and suffering imprisonment (Acts 5:17–21; 8:3; 12:1–11; 16:23–26; 22:4; 26:10; 2 Cor 6:5; 11:23; Heb 10:34; 13:3; Rev 2:10). These actions are those inflicted or permitted by the goats who do nothing to help one of the least of the brothers and sisters. The responses both groups give are demonstrations of their orientation to the gospel that the brothers and sisters proclaimed. The sheep are among those who respond positively and thus are of one family with the brothers and sisters, while the goats are excluded because of their rejection of the brothers and sisters with their gospel.
If this is the point of the judgment, why are the sheep treated separately from the brothers and sisters? It is not because the brothers and sisters themselves will not be part of the judgment, as this is indicated elsewhere in Matthew. It is rather that, like Matt 10, this teaching is indicative of an earlier time in Christian teaching, coming from Jesus himself, on the subject before the Christian movement, properly speaking, started. As such, the focus is on how the many that Jesus’s disciples will proclaim to will respond to the message. This also fits with contemporary notions of how the nations would be judged by how they treated Israel (1 En. 62:9–13; 90:17–42; 103:7–104:5; 2 Bar. 72:2–6). But such notions did not mean that Israel would be exempt from the final judgment, as we see judgment, eschatological and temporary, involving both Israel and the nations (with consideration of how the nations treated Israel) in the prophetic books of the OT.
Update (4/11/24): After reading a book I will be reviewing after the listed date, I had to revisit my translation. Rather than revising what I have already written, I want to address it separately here. A better translation that preserves the word order is “one of these brothers and sisters of mine, the least.” That is, the genitive is an appositional genitive for which one could infer “who are” after the comma before “the least.” It does not fundamentally change my argument because I do not depend on any sense of a subset (if anything, by that translation, what applies to the subset would apply to the rest), but it avoids the sense of a partitive genitive that indicates some subset of the brothers and sisters who are the least as distinct from the others. The brothers and sisters are described in terms of “the least,” but they are not identified with some generic sense of who “the least” are. It is still the identification as brothers and sisters that is determinative with the “least” being further indicative of who they are (as in the referenced text from Matt 10 or in 25:45).