Today's Scripture Passage: Matthew 1
Hi Girls!
We've come to our last book of our study, and the main reason we chose this particular chronological study this year, for we LOVED how we would end the year by spending the Christmas season in Matthew; reflecting on not only Jesus' birth, but His life, ministry, death AND resurrection!
Oh! I pray this will be the absolute BEST Christmas season you've ever had as we spend some time pouring over all Matthew has to tell us about the long awaited Messiah!
More than 400 years have passed since the last of the Old Testament prophecies had been written, and faithful Jews were still waiting, wondering, and watching for the Messiah that God had promised. Unfortunately, when Jesus did appear many refused to believe that He truly was their King and Messiah, perhaps because He didn't fit into their narrative, but Matthew has come to set the record straight, and portrays Jesus as their king throughout this book.
Oh, this is going to be good, girls, for just look how Matthew chooses to start his book:
I loved how this chart broke it down for us; showing us that there had been 14 generations in three different time periods of their history. And isn't it also interesting to note that even though the Jewish nation hadn't heard from God, by means of written prophecy for 400 years, they were still keeping track of the genealogy of David?
I'm sure if anyone of us were to start looking up our genealogy we'd find a few interesting characters in our family and I love that Jesus has a few as well. There are actually five women listed among Jesus' family line (4 listed in pink plus Mary).
There's:
- Tamar who had a sexual relationship with Judah, her father-in-law {Genesis 38}
- Rahab was a harlot, or prostitute {Joshua 2:1}
- Ruth was a foreigner {Ruth 1:4}
- Bathsheba is identified here as Uriah's wife (1:6) for she had committed adultery with David and once finding out that a baby had been conceived, David made sure Uriah would be killed in battle;
- And Mary, though she was a fine, godly woman, she had a problem with her public reputation because of her pregnancy before her marriage to Joseph.
All of these women we plan to study in great detail next year, but for now, what's interesting to note is that in all these names we find broken, flawed people; "sinners", both men and women; some faith-filled and some faithless, AND not all were of Jewish heritage.
Several interesting facts jump out to me as I look over Jesus' genealogy, besides the fact that He is most definitely the promised Messiah:
1.) This demonstrates that all people are welcome into God's family. I truly believe Matthew chose to included each of these flawed individuals to illustrate God's grace towards all of us, which gives us all hope.
2.) To show us that God will always accomplishes His will in spite of our flaws.
3.) And probably most importantly, He is always faithful to His promises.
As a sweet sister once wrote, "If God used all these people in order to carry out His perfect plan, His most beautiful promise, Jesus, I can rest assured that my life also fits into His perfect will. He can take my flaws and brokenness and use them for His glory!"
Blessings as we begin our study in Matthew,
sue
