Matthew 1:1-17

Matthew 1:1-17

A book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.  Abraham begat Isaac.  And Isaac begat Jacob.  And Jacob begat Judah and his brothers.  And Judah begat Perez and Zerah out of Tamar.  And Perez begat Hezron.  And Hezron begat Aram.  And Ram begat Aminadab.  And Aminadab begat Nahshon.  And Nahshon begat Salmon.  And Salmon begat Boaz out of Rahab.  And Boaz begat Obed out of Ruth.  And Obed begat Jesse.  And Jesse begat David the king.  And David begat Solomon out of the woman of Uriah.  And Solomon begat Rehoboam.  And Rehoboam begat Abijah.  And Abijah begat Asaph.  And Asaph begat Jehoshaphat.  And Jehoshaphat begat Joram.  And Joram begat Uzziah.  And Uzziah begat Jotham.  And Jotham begat Ahaz.  And Ahaz begat Hezekiah.  And Hezekiah begat Manasseh.  And Manasseh begat Amos.  And Amon begat Josiah.  And Josiah begat Jechoniah and his brothers upon the deportation to Babylon.  And after the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah begat Shealtiel.  And Shealtiel begat Zerubbabel.  And Zerubbabel begat Abiud.  And Abiud begat Eliakim.  And Aliakim begat Azor.  And Azor begat Zadok.  And Zadok begat Achim.  And Achim begat Eliud.  And Eliud begat Eleazar.  And Eleazar begat Matthan.  And Matthan begat Jacob.  And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary – out of whom Jesus, the one who is being called Christ, was being born.  Therefore, every generation from Abraham until David was fourteen generations.  And from David until the Babylonian deportation was fourteen generations.  And from the Babylonian deportation until the Christ was fourteen generations.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

I don’t know many people who really enjoy reading the parts of the Bible that are all genealogies.  But as I’ve studied God’s Word I’ve grown to have an appreciation for them.  After all, as we look through this genealogy we see God’s hand at work in a very large scale.  It all started with the calling of Abraham.  Remember all the stories of faith that come out of Abraham and his progeny?  Then we arrive at the familiar name of Boaz.  Remember Boaz and Ruth and the incredible story of love and faithfulness that we hear there?  Or what about David, the king after God’s own heart?  And then there is Solomon, whom God gave an incredible amount of wisdom.  What about Hezekiah, the king under whom most of our ancient Hebrew manuscripts are attributed as having been written?  Then there is Josiah, the great reformer king!  We have Zerubbabel, the king who helps lead the people out of Babylonian captivity and back into the land.  What starts out as a simple list of names suddenly becomes an incredible trip down the memory lane of God’s faithfulness.  Through this genealogy, we see God on display through person after person.

Have you ever thought about genealogies as a testimony to God’s faithfulness?  Is this true about your own genealogy?  How can you do your part to make it true going forward?

Second Thought:

Of course, we also see the human side of the genealogy.  There is Abraham, the man who tried to bring about God’s promise through Hagar and their offspring Ishmael.  And then there is Jacob, whose early stories indicate why it is that the name Jacob means deceiver!  What about Judah, who conceived a child through his own daughter-in-law?  Or what about David, who as the genealogy notes took another man’s wife?  What about Solomon, who took several hundred wives and several hundred more concubines in addition to being the king who brought the foreign gods back among God’s people?  Or what about Manasseh, who is the most evil king to ever rule over Judah – even if 2 Chronicles 33 does tell us of his repentance?  Genealogies also remind us of the human element.  We all have skeletons in the closet of our genealogy.  But God calls us to be more than the sum of our parts.  God calls us to rise up above the human sinfulness of our past.  Of course, we are will human and therefore we will still fall to sin occasionally.  But that’s my point.  God calls us to rise above the sin.

Third Thought:

Finally, I want to examine how Matthew talks about Joseph and Mary.  Because Matthew has done a great amount of historical research to have Joseph’s family tree present here.  But Matthew knows what we also know: none of Joseph’s genetics were involved in the conception of Jesus.  So look at what he says.  Joseph was the husband of Mary, out of whom came Jesus.  Matthew makes it quite clear that Joseph did not have a part of Jesus’ conception.  Jesus was the husband, but Jesus came out of Mary.  This says two things to us.  First, it asserts the divinity of Christ as God truly was the father, not Joseph.  But even more subtly, it asserts the validity of adoption.  Jesus wasn’t biologically related to Joseph; but Jesus does still have the right to Joseph’s genealogy.  The reason that this is cool is because this is exactly what God does to us, too.  We have no right to be children of God.  But God adopts us into the family.  Just as His own Son was adopted into the line of David, so we can be adopted into the line of Christ.  Amen.

Have you ever considered that Jesus was technically adopted into the great lineage of David through Joseph?  How does that bring meaning to your own relationship with God?

Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 1:18-19