Day #275

Sermon - Audio
Matt 1 & Luke 2:1-38 - Reading
Matt 1 & Luke 2:1-38 - Audio

Daily Insights - Please Comment

Matthew 1

The genealogy we find in Matthew 1 traces Jesus’ human ancestry back to Abraham, through David, whose offspring was promised an eternal throne. Matthew referred to acknowledged messianic passages to show that the details of Jesus’ birth were in full harmony with the Old Testament.

With Matthew’s account, we can clearly come to understand that he is describing Jesus as truly a King, but a King who came to suffer and to serve.

What is interesting is the inclusion of four Old Testament women: Tamar (prostitute), Rahab (prostitute), Ruth (foreigner), and Bathsheba (adulteress). All of these women (as well as most of the men) were questionable in some way. Matthew may have included these women in order to emphasize that God’s choices in dealing with people are all of His grace.

Verses 18-23 must be read in context. After marriages were arranged by the parents, their children were considered married. But a one-year waiting period (kind of like an engagement) must take place to demonstrate faithfulness and purity. Mary and Joseph were in the one-year waiting period when Mary was found to be pregnant. This may help you understand that Joseph violated all custom by immediately taking Mary into his home rather than waiting till the one-year time period. The whole thing looked illegitimate, but God was using them for his plan.

Luke 2:1-38

Had there been newspapers in the Roman Empire almost 2,000 years ago, some of the headlines that month might have been:

KING ARTAXUS NEAR DEATH -- GRAIN SHIPS DOCK, ROME RIOTS END -- NINE PIRATE SHIPS SUNK BY SIXTH FLEET -- ATHENS STUDENTS CLASH WITH POLICE -- OLYMPIC WRESTLER STILL IN COMA -- REPORT ANGELS SIGHTED IN JUDEA

Such headlines look very much like the headlines in our newspapers today. For the world of the New Testament was a world very much like ours. There were wars. There was sickness. There was poverty and injustice. There were people who struggled to keep on living, living by habit long after they had lost any sense of purpose, meaning, or goal.

It was a world like ours, populated with people like ours. But God had made preparations. God was about to burst into this world of men. Jesus was about to be born, and after His birth our world, despite all its poverty and injustice, wars and terrorists, has never been the same.

In the birth of Jesus, God acted decisively to bring new life to individuals and transformation to human cultures. In the person of Jesus, God has extended humanity an invitation to new life.

--Bible Knowledge Commentary -- Teacher’s Commentary--