Chapter 1
www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%201&version=ESV
STUDY:
- What is the list of names in this chapter referring to?
- How many generations were detailed here?
- What event was mentioned in verse 12?
- What was Mary and Joseph's relationship?
- What was Joseph's plan when he learned that Mary was pregnant even though they didn't have sex?
- What changed Joseph's mind?
- What did the angel say to Joseph?
- Why was the baby to be called Jesus?
- What did Joseph do once he awoke from his sleep?
DIG DEEPER:
- Who were the 5 women included (although 1 not mentioned by name)?
- Why was this unusual for the women to be mentioned?
- Why were genealogies so important to the Jews?
INTERESTING NOTES:
- Genealogies were of extreme importance to the Jews for in it, was their heritage, inheritance, legitamacy and rights.
- The reason the first line in Matthew 1 says, "the son of David, the son of Abraham" is because God made covenants with each of these men that were of great importance to the Jews. The covenant was that a Savior would come from their family line and when Jesus came to earth, the covenants were fulfilled.
- Usually, women were not mentioned in genealogies, only the men. However, in this genealogy Matthew mentions five: Tamar, Rahab, the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba), Ruth and Mary. A brief intro to these lovely women: Tamar trying to continue the family line, deceives her father-in-law by dressing as a prostitute, tricking him into having sex with her and then giving birth to twins. (Read about it in Genesis 38: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2038&version=ESV). Rahab was a prostitute who hid two spies that were on their way to Jericho. She married a man named Salmon, then bearing their son, Boaz. (Read about it in Joshua 2: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=joshua%202&version=ESV). Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon, although she did not get pregnant from her husband Uriah. David who was king at the time, saw Bathsheba taking a bath and desired her, sending her husband to the front of the army, in hopes that he would be killed. And so he was. (Read more about it in 2 Samuel 11: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel+11&version=ESV). Ruth was a Moabite, a people group who worshipped other gods besides God. Ruth met Boaz, who was an honorable man, they married and had Obed. (Read about it in Ruth: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ruth&version=ESV). And lastly, Mary. Mary was a teenager and, much more importantly, a virgin, when she was engaged to Joseph and conceived a baby, who was Jesus. We will be reading more about it in the upcoming chapters of Matthew and other Gospels. Although the following transcript by Mark Driscoll is from a sermon on the Gospel of Luke, you can still read it as it includes some interesting stuff on the birth of Jesus. (Read about it here: marshill.com/media/luke/jesus-birth#transcript).
- There is another genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%203&version=ESV. However, this one and the one in Matthew look somewhat different. Here's some info on why they are different, taken from Mark Driscoll's sermon transcript (marshill.com/media/luke/jesus-is-man#transcript):
LUKE’S GENEALOGY COMPARED TO MATTHEW’S GENEALOGY
Now for those of you who are Bible students or you’ve studied Scripture or are studying Scripture at college, there will be this notation made that there are distinctions between Matthew’s genealogy and Luke’s. First, as I told you, Luke goes back to Adam. Matthew only goes back to Abraham. Luke goes from son to father. Matthew’s goes from father to son. Matthew’s works forward from Abraham to Jesus. Luke works backward from Jesus to Adam. And some of the names are common, and many of the names are not common. So you’ll find lists in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 that are not all together congruent. And the question is why.
Scholars have given four potential reasons. One, it is supposed that maybe one of the genealogies is Joseph’s line, Jesus’ father, the other is Mary’s line, Jesus’ mother. It is true that generally speaking the genealogies are traced what we’ll call patriarchally, through the male line. But if Mary had no brothers then she would be the one inserted in the genealogy. So this may be two genealogies, one for Jesus’ adoptive father, the other for his mother. Number two, some presuppose that maybe these are not complete genealogies, that there may be some people who are missing. Thirdly, some would say that maybe one is a biological line: everyone born into a family. And then the other is just the legal line: those who had rights legally to the family name and inheritance. So one is complete and the other is legal. Some would offer, fourthly, this explanation that one of the genealogies includes not just those who are biologically born as direct descendants, but also those who are adopted in, as Jesus was. In that day the mortality rate was high, and if someone died and they had children, those children would be adopted by the closest living relative. So that may explain some of the distinction between the two genealogies. One has some of the children that were adopted in, and the other just has biological. All of that to say there are ways to consider how these might work together. For those of you who are more studious, that would be some fun for you. Or maybe not.
PRUNING ME
His Family Line
09/07/2012 05:51
A prostitute. A hero. An adulterer. A man. A woman. A murderer. A liar. A faithful servant. These are the types of people that are in Jesus' family tree. How does your family tree look? Do you have murderers, adulterers, prostitutes, liars or heros? The great thing about this geneaology, is that it is made up of people. Of course, you say! By that, I mean ordinary men and women. People who had a hard time trusting God, people who chose to walk in sin, people who didn't believe in God. Yet God used them all to bring forth Jesus. If Jesus came from messy people, it has to be said that He cares for the messy people. Throughout the Bible, Jesus astonishes people because He chose to love the unlovely, serve when He should have been served, forgive when He should hate.
God does everything for, and with a purpose. He didn't randomly pick people that would be a part of Jesus' family tree. He chose them. He called people to Himself, He asked people to trust Him, He even used people that turned from Him. It was part of God's plan. Why? Well I believe it teaches us one thing. Jesus is the Savior of all. He didn't come to save the self-righteous. He didn't come to just save the smart, or the rich, or the successful. He came to save the prostitutes, the heroes, the adulterers, the men, the women, the murderers, the liars and the faithful. In Genesis 3, God curses the serpent, Eve and Adam. In His speech to the serpent, He said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and your shall bruise his heel." This reference to "her offspring" and "he shall bruise your heel" is a foretelling of Jesus. God also made a promise to Abraham, back in Genesis 12. He promised Abraham, "I will make of you a great nation, and I wil bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and to those that dishonor you, I will curse, and in your all the families of the earth shall be blessed." In 2 Samuel 7, God made a covenant with David saying, "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." In order to keep His promise to Abraham, fulfill his covenant with David and accomplish what He said to the serpent, Jesus needed to come through Abraham's family line. If you read through the Old Testament, you will see how God has His hand in building the family genealogy right from the start.
God still does everything for and with a purpose. He didn't randomly create you- you were put on earth for a purpose. He doesn't randomly pick who He draws to Himself- He carefully chooses them. A testimony is the name for the story we have of how God chose us. It often explains the time of conversion where we passed from death to life and also includes things that God is doing currently in our lives. A testimony often briefly describes our old creation: the prostitute, the adulterer, the murderer, the liar and then goes into detail of how God took our sin and used it for His glory: the hero, the faithful servant. We all have a story. If Jesus, in His perfection came from a line of imperfect people, it's safe to say that He loves imperfect people. The church is full of imperfect people- and the ones that think they are perfect, are the most imperfect ones. Romans 3:10 says, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." But I have good news! In verse 22-25 says, "(There is) righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." FOR ALL HAVE SINNED- even the "heroes" in the Bible have a past. David, "a man after God's own heart" slept with another man's wife! Then because she got pregnant, tried to make it look like it was her husbands by asking him to come home from the army for a bit, thinking that he would have sex with his wife while home. In honor to his soldiers, he didn't- since they were without their wives. David was in a bit of a predicament then, wasn't he? Instead of confessing his sin before men, and dealing with the consequences, he sent Uriah- Bathsheba's husband- to the front lines of the battle field, expecting him to die, which he did. Even after all this, God used David to do great things. If God saved and used people like David, regardless of his mess and sin, God can save you and use you regardless of your mess and sin. Jesus doesn't ask that we try to clean up our mess before we surrender to Him. We won't do a good job of cleaning it up. Jesus wants us to come to Him with our messes, so He can clean it up. Jesus wants to use your for His purposes. He wants to take you and make you a new creation. He wants you to be apart of His family.
Got a mess? Let Jesus clean you up. Got a past? Let Jesus be your future.
On Matthew Chapter 1
- Leanne