Friday November 19, 2010

Read Luke 3:23-38,  Read Matthew 1:1-17

Oh No! Not more genealogies! Yes more genealogies. But rather than be half hearted let’s look into these two genealogies and find out why and how they are different.

Just quickly glance at where the two genealogies occur in the respective gospels.  Why does Matthew start his gospel with the genealogy while Luke puts it just before the commencement of ministry of Jesus?  Maybe it’s because Matthew is writing to Jews and wants his gospel to be accepted as authoritative.  Starting with Jesus’ link to Abraham would give great credibility to a group of people that saw Abraham as their founding Father. Luke on the other hand, is a Gentile, writing to a non Jewish audience. He wants them to see that Jesus, the Son of God is the one ministering grace to the world.

Why does Matthew take his genealogy from Abraham, effectively ignoring Genesis 1-11? Yet Luke, for his part, takes the genealogy back to Adam and then calls Adam the Son of God. Just note that if evolution were true this statement is ridiculously false and the entire history of Jesus is false which makes His claim to deity very sceptical. Rather than   reading ‘...the Son of Adam, the Son of God’ at the end of Luke’s genealogy we should have  ‘the son of Adam, the son of a monkey, the son of a... (lower life form and so on) ad nauseum until we get to ‘...son of lifeless protein, the son of God.’ Luke is very deliberately linking Adam with God at the creation because Jesus came to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Luke is showing that God cares for the whole world while Matthew is writing to Jews about the Messiah. Amazing what a genealogy can tell you isn’t it?

Did you also notice that Luke doesn’t make mention of the women that Matthew does? It must have been a shock to the Jews to see the women in the genealogy especially prostitute women and adulterous women! But for Luke, writing to non Jews the shock value simply isn’t there. There’s nothing to be gained by mentioning these women  so he omits them. Luke wants to link Jesus to God through Adam so he gets there as quickly as he can.

Finally look again at the names in the genealogy from Jesus onwards or downwards. Matthew says that Jacob was the father of Joseph who was the legal father of Jesus. Luke says it was Heli and the two names go off in different directions. Now before you go and throw your Bible in the bin declaring, “It’s totally full of contradictions and can’t be trusted” think about this! In Bible times the family unit was far wider than our small enclave of dad, mum and the 2.3 kids. Fathers often considered their son-in-law as their own sons. They were literally adopted into the family. Luke is sharing the genealogy from Mary’s side! And low and behold, you’ll see that they converge at the great King David. Jesus is the descendant of David (from both sides of the family line) who will sit for all eternity on the throne of  God! There has been no compromise from God’s point of view.

Who’d have thought that a list of names could be so fascinating !

Prayer:-

> Spend time praising God for His salvation through the sending his son to die on the cross for the sins of the world.

> Pray that you will have opportunities to share the good news with people in your world that don’t yet have Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

> Pray for our brothers and sisters in Vietnam as they celebrate the birth of Jesus. Pray for courage & for open doors to share their faith.