While we were talking about whether this was something we wanted to do, we talked specifically about Mt 1 – did we want to start there, or did we want to start by memorizing Mt 2? If you haven't done so already, click the link for Mt 1. As you can see, the first 17 of the 24 verses are a genealogical list. You can probably guess why we had this discussion. One one hand, ch 1 is as much the Word of God as is any other chapter of the Bible; on the other hand, ch 1 is ... boring, to be frank. I don't feel very close to God after reading Mt 1:1-17.
We did decide to start with ch 1: we figured that God is smarter than us and knew what He was doing when He decided to have Matthew include Jesus' genealogy. Unfortunately, we didn't make beyond the first chapter, but some good did come out of it: we did memorize some of the first chapter, and we became very familiar with the book as a whole.
There is a lot of detail that I can go into about these first 17 verses, but I think the main thing I want to focus on is v 1. It says, "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:" (NIV). It may be because we've read it so many times, but this was a lightening bolt of a sentence for Matthew to start the book off with.
The phrase "Son of David" was a Messianic title. We see later in the same book that Matthew quotes other people as using "Son of David" as a synonym for Messiah (Mt 12:23 and Mt 21:9). The people did this because they knew their OT (passages such as Is 9:7, among others, teach that the coming Messiah will be the Son of David.) By calling Him the Son of David, Matthew was saying that Jesus is the One for Whom the Jews had been waiting for thousands of years.
The other phrase Matthew applies to Jesus is "Son of Abraham." There are some significant things to point out with Abraham. Gn 1-11 chronicle the beginnings of God's dealings with our world, with man, and with everything we know. The continuous narrative of God's story that ends with Rev 22 began in Gn 12. So it all began with God and Abraham (back when he was Abram). God made a covenant with Abram (recorded in Gn 15).
The beginning of the continuous story of God's dealings with man start with God approaching Abram. Here is what he says in Gn 12:1-3.
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
"I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you." (NIV, emphasis mine)
The Heb word translated to "peoples" here is משפחה (mish·pa·kha), which literally means "families" but can also be used as "extended families," meaning "tribes" or "clans" (BLB). In other words, there's no one left out: from the Abzinz of Russia to the Zuni of the southwest United States, and everyone else in between. Today, we might use the phrase "ethnic group;" you can use whatever word you want, because truth doesn't change.
Matthew is very clear in his intentions with the book (and he elaborates on them throughout the book): Jesus is the Jewish Messiah Who has come to bless all of the families or extended families or clans or tribes or ethnic groups or nations. He is the the Savior of the World!
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