The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to understand how theories of organizational culture canenrich our understanding of Matthew’s group, his parable speech and the parables of thekingdom of heaven. I argue that Matthew edited and constructed the parable speech to fit hisintentions so that he could call for righteous behavior from the members of his group. I thenargue that the parable speech can be viewed as a regulatory document that addresses externalproblems of adaption and internal problems of integration that Matthew’s group had to face.I also argue that the parables of the kingdom of heaven are related to externaland internal problems and that the parables can be understood as artifacts that express thepreferred behavior applied by the leaders of Matthew’s group.My conclusion is that the theories of organizational culture give us a betterunderstanding of the complex situation of Matthew’s group and that the parable speech isrelated to these issues and addresses the group. It can therefore be considered a regulatorydocument. The parables of the kingdom of heaven can be understood as stories that call forrighteous behavior and persuade the Jewish people to join Matthew’s group through followingthe law according to view held by Matthew’s group.