Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. Today’s podcast begins the Gospel of Matthew, and as Margie not only lays the groundwork, providing a wealth of information, she also goes far beyond with cultural, historic facts and comparisons of aspects between the Gospels, which kept me riveted. Listen closely how this Jewish writer, a tax collector, becomes the bridge between Old and New Testament with an introduction typical to the Jewish culture. Oh, thank you, Pastor Tony. Yes, today we begin the Gospel of Matthew, and the big idea? Who begat who?

I haven’t done it, but my kids have, taking the genetic test 23andMe. There’s so many genealogy sites and options for DNA testing now: MyHeritage, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Findmypast, and there are many free platforms to collect records from the Immigration, military, Ellis Island, even some access to European sites, all to aid in tracing one’s family tree. By now, most of us have heard stories of how people uncovered things they find fascinating or delighted them about their family history, and things that devastated them or broke their hearts. One man wrote, My wife and I are the poster children for DNA testing. I was crushed to find out that my father, who raised me, was not my biological father. I also found out that my cousin is my sibling, a half-sister who had been adopted and raised by my aunt and uncle.

And it turns out that I unknowingly attended boarding school and church with yet another half-sibling. Meanwhile, my wife, who had never known her father… Found him through Ancestry.com because his mother and his brother had already been tested. Now she’s getting to know her grandma, aunts, uncles, and extended family. Crazy loco, right? The truth is, most family trees have some pretty unusual stories, some tragic, some beautiful, all hidden within those tangled branches.

And that goes for the family tree of Jesus as well. It too is full of lies and adultery, even stories of murder. But it also has tales of love, glory, and miracles. But before we get to that, let’s cover the introduction and the background of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is the first book in what is called the New Testament. Quick reminder: testament means covenant.

To the Hebrew, there’s just one covenant book full of Jewish history, poems, laws, and prophecy. But to the Christian, there are two covenant books, most commonly referred to as the Old Testament and the New Testament. Speaking of Old Testament, the last book in the Hebrew text is a prophetical book, Malachi, written some 400 years before the Gospel of Matthew. And in between, there was no word from God. Nothing. Nada.

Nunca. And then the silence was broken with the cry of a babe. And not just any baby, the long-awaited Messiah, the Anointed One, the King of the Jews, which is the good news, the Gospel message of Matthew. In Hebrew, Matthew means the gift of Yahweh. The disciple Matthew has been widely accepted as the Gospel’s author since the second century. Matthew was also called Levi, most likely because he was a descendant of the Hebrew priestly tribe of Levi, who was the third of Jacob’s twelve sons.

We’re told in chapter 10 that Matthew was a tax collector, or a customs officer, when he was first called by Jesus. Now, this is important information because tax collectors in that day were despised. A tax collector was a Hebrew who worked for the Romans, therefore considered to be a traitor by the Jews. Tax collectors were not only working for the enemy by collecting taxes, but they were usually lining their own pockets by adding percentages to keep for themselves, so stealing from their own people. Therefore, we can assume that Matthew would have been an outcast, a Jew rejected by the Jews. Writing about a Jew rejected by the Jews.

W. Graham Scroggie writes in his book, A Guide to the Gospels, There’s more frequent mention of money in this gospel than any of the others. More and rarer coins are introduced. For example, Mark only refers to three coins, and those being the poorest. But Matthew, who’s in the habit of handling money, refers to the coins of the highest value at the time. There’s still some debate on when this gospel was authored and distributed, but a number of factors indicate that it was written somewhere between 60 and 70 A.D.

The Gospel of Matthew is the perfect book to bridge the gap between the Old and New Testament because he was a Jew writing to the Jews about a Jew. Matthew’s Gospel beautifully connects the Old Testament to the New Testament with the emphasis on the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies. That is a huge theme in this Gospel. The phrase, This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet, is mentioned at least ten times in this Gospel. His Jewish audience would have been quite familiar with those Messianic prophecies. As you listen to the podcast, please note things that appear to be Jewish, for the Hebrew character and intention of this book are obvious in many ways.

For an example, the phrase Kingdom of Heaven, rather than the Kingdom of God, occurs 32 times and is not found in any of the other Gospels. Jesus as that long-awaited King or Messiah is mentioned 16 times. Jesus as the Son of David, which is classic Old Testament language, occurs nine times in Matthew and is only found six times in the other three Gospels combined. The words righteous and righteousness occur more times in Matthew than the other three Gospels combined. Matthew quotes more Old Testament prophecies than any other Gospel or New Testament writer. Of the 300 Old Testament references mentioned in the Gospels, Matthew includes 129, 53 direct quotes and alludes to 76 more.

You see, Matthew’s goal was to prove Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. His aim was to give evidence to Jesus’s royal lineage and his Messiahship. In order to do that, Matthew began his Gospel with Jesus’s ancestry, which was a very Jewish thing to do. Matthew traced Jesus’s lineage and genealogy back to the two most significant Hebrew leaders, Father Abraham and King David. And he did it through both of Jesus’s earthly parents, his adopted father Joseph and his biological mother Mary. And that leads us back to the big idea of who begot who, because today we are examining Jesus’s family tree.

Last month, while I was gobbling up a yummy bumbleberry parfait and looking through photographs from a grand family reunion, a lovely lady said to me, I’ve tried to read the Bible, and then I get to that part where this guy begat that guy who begat another guy who begat some other guy. It’s just too hard to follow, and what does that matter anyway? Well, I’m glad she asked. And it is true that when it’s not our history, it is harder to follow. And let’s be honest, it’s not usually quite as interesting to us either. But the lineage has always been interesting, important, or one might say crucial to the ancient Jew for establishing one’s identity, religious roles, and inheritance rights.

Matthew gives very little background on this list of characters because his audience is Jewish. They already know the ancestral stories. He was just providing the framework as evidence of Jesus’s history, inheritance, legitimacy, and tribal affiliation. All of that to prove that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. One commentator made an interesting point concerning the lineage of Christ, that since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 72 A.D., Jesus’s genealogy is most likely the only surviving written historical document from that time period to prove someone’s Jewish heritage. In other words, when the temple was destroyed, so were all of the written evidence of everyone’s family trees, the actual proof that they are who they say they are.

And Jesus has not one, but two recorded documents from that time period, one by Dr. Luke and one by Matthew, to prove who he is historically and religiously. It’s important to remember that the Jewish lineage mattered to the Hebrew. In Bible times, to be bar mitzvahed, meaning the son of the commandments, occurred at age 13. A young man was required to know his family tree by heart. Since most folks were illiterate, the Jewish law, traditions, and family genealogy was passed down verbally.

So Matthew, beginning by introducing Jesus’s lineage, was in keeping with tradition. As a Jew, writing to Jews, about a Jew. I marvel at Jesus’s lineage. I mean, honestly, this odd, peculiar, sinful, imperfect group of people used for his perfect purpose. Some of Jesus’s descendants were what the Jewish audience would consider to be the heroes of faith, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, and some were sketchy, like downright evil, like Abijah, Manasseh, Jehoiakim, and his brothers. And some of them, well, were rather ordinary.

The point is that God’s work in history and through the Messianic line was not limited by human success, failure, sin, or circumstances. He worked through ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and He still does. If you are a Jesus follower, then this is your family tree too. You have been grafted in. If you’re not, then you might want to find out something about these folks, why they are listed here, why they mattered to the Jewish audience, and what they did. As a woman, I love the fact that there are several women mentioned in Christ’s lineage: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and of course, Mother Mary.

Jesus elevated women, despite their background or their circumstance. You can clearly see that God loves, honors, and uses women. Now, let’s take a closer look at some of those characters. I mean, ancestors of Jesus’s, beginning with Abraham. He is referred to as the father of the Jewish faith, and for very good reason. He faithfully trusted, honored, and obeyed God, but he was not perfect.

Abe lied twice to save himself and asked his wife Sarah to lie for him. And the whole world still observes and suffers the consequences of another of Abraham’s bad choices. Rather than wait for God’s promised child Isaac, Abe had an illegitimate son, Ishmael, with his wife’s servant. Today, Ishmael’s descendants Are many of the Arab tribes and the Muslim nations still at war with the descendants of Isaac. Even still, God made a covenant with Abraham, promising ancestors, the Holy Land, and the Messiah, who would bless the world. Next, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel after wrestling with God, known as the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

But before that, he was also known as a liar. Jacob means deceiver, and deceive he did. He deceived his twin brother by tricking him out of a birthright. He deceived his blind and dying father. He deceived his father-in-law out of some sheep. You get the picture.

And many question Jacob’s parenting to boot, because he clearly had a favorite child, son Joseph. Even still, God loved him and blessed him abundantly. Now for Judah, the fourth of Jacob Israel’s twelve sons. Nearing the end of his life, Jacob blessed all twelve sons, but declared Judah’s tribe the royal line, the kingly line, from which the promised Messiah would come. Not because Judah was any kind of a prize. He too was a mess.

Judah was a philanderer and a promise breaker. He and two of his rotten sons cheated his daughter-in-law, Tamar, the first lady mentioned in Jesus’s lineage, out of an heir and an inheritance. So Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself as a, wait for it, prostitute sitting by the city gates. Apparently Judah had an eye for the ladies. He did not recognize her, and the result of their union was twins.

By the way, a decision neither God nor Judah condemned her for. As a matter of fact, Judah declared, She is more righteous than I. Now I’m going to jump to another lady in the lineage story, and this is Rahab. I am sure at some point you have heard of the Battle of Jericho. When the walls came a-tumblin’ down. Well, Rahab lived in Jericho and was a prostitute, not pretending to be, maybe actually a madam of a brothel.

Anywho, she had heard of God and had a wholesome fear of Him. So when the Israeli spies showed up in town, she hid them in exchange for her life and the life of her family. As a Jewish convert, she married Prince Salmon, or some people say Salmon, which brings us to our joke. They call him Salmon because he was kind of fishy. Ba-dum-bum. He was apparently a good, godly guy and the father of Boaz, who married Ruth, the next lady in the lineage.

Ruth was a Moabitess. Her people were the enemies of Israel. Side note: the Moabites were descendants of Lot and his daughters. Ick. Anyway, Ruth’s son, Obed, was the grandfather of, Pastor Tony, drumroll please, King David. Notice in the genealogy that he is the only one called king in that extensive lineage of kings.

Because David was considered to be the best king of Israel, God made a special eternal covenant with David concerning his descendant, the King of Kings, the Messiah, the Anointed One, Jesus. David was called a man after God’s own heart, and yet he wasn’t perfect either. He broke Commandment number 10 and coveted the wife of one of his soldiers, Bathsheba. He broke Commandment number 7 and committed adultery with Bathsheba. He broke Commandment number 6 and plotted Uriah’s murder, the husband of Bathsheba. She was the fourth lady mentioned in this tangled family tree.

But David was still considered a man after God’s own heart. He repented of his wrongs. He recommitted. He worshipped. He truly loved God. He also gathered all of the necessary items to prepare to build the temple, God’s temple, which ended up being the job of his son, Solomon, who is next on our list.

Solomon was considered the wisest king of Israel, maybe the known world, because he asked God for wisdom. Arguably, Solomon was the most successful and profitable king of Israel. However, he got complacent and became an idolater. He followed and worshipped the gods of his 700 wives and 300 concubines. A little side note, isn’t it odd that out of all of those women, he only had one heir, whose name was Rehoboam, and his mother was Naamah. She was also a child of incest.

Though Rehoboam’s father was wise, he clearly was not. Under his reign, the kingdom became divided. From here on, the kingdom of Israel became two kingdoms: the northern kingdom that kept the name Israel, made up of ten tribes, and the southern kingdom called Judah, which only had two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Matthew’s record only follows the kings of Judah because that was the lineage of the prophesied Messiah. FYI, there were no good kings in the northern kingdom of Israel, and there were only eight good kings out of the twenty kings in Judah. Those were Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah.

They were all listed in the family tree, and though they were considered good, they all had flaws and shortcomings during their reigns. And that leads us to King Manasseh. He was considered pure evil. He put the idols back in the kingdom of Judah. He even put an Asherah pole in the temple. He practiced witchcraft and divination.

He made his children pass through fire. In other words, he sacrificed them. And yet, in 2 Chronicles 33, we read that he repented, was forgiven, and was restored as the king of Judah. And now I’m skipping way ahead to verse 16. It says, Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Messiah, the Anointed One. Notice Matthew said, husband of Mary.

The fifth lady mentioned, not the father of Jesus, because Jesus was supernaturally conceived by God, not naturally conceived by man. Then there’s this extra caveat in verse 17. It has to do with begatting and begotting. It says, there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and fourteen generations from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen generations from the exile to the Messiah. Now, this seems like an odd observation to us, but in ancient civilizations and in ancient languages, it was common to use a numerical system to make a point. It is called the gematria, basically attaching a numerical value to each letter of the alphabet, in this case, the Hebrew alphabet.

Matthew, the numbers guy, was using gematria as more evidence to prove to the Jewish reader that Jesus was the Messiah and a direct descendant to King David and to Father Abraham. Anywho, as you can see, Jesus had a family tree full of drama, betrayal, and heartache. Flawed, sinful folks used to accomplish God’s will. Perfect Jesus’s ancestry was littered with imperfect people. However, a tarnished genealogy did not define Jesus. It was his relationship with God the Father that defined him, that gave Jesus his identity, his purpose, not his ancestry.

Some of those stories are horrific, sad, brutal, uncomfortable, and painful, and I’m sure some of yours are as well. But they do not need to define you. We are not defined by the sins, the choices, and the mistakes of our forefathers. It is our relationship with God that defines us and gives us an identity and a purpose. He gives us a new name, a new life, a new heritage, a new lineage, a new beginning, and a new story. Stop looking in the past and look to the future.

In Christ, we are not defined by our history, but by His story. Remember, the heritage you received is not nearly as important as the legacy you leave. This is Share the Word. I’m Margie. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Margie.

There were so many things that stuck with me, but as I listened, I realized how much emphasis we allow our family’s history to dictate our daily walk. I was forgetting that God uses even the most flawed and sinful to accomplish the most amazing feats. I was so focused on looking at life through the rearview mirror that I was missing what God had in store for me right in front of me. The lineage that Matthew writes is a testimony to what God does. Today, I realized how little I knew about my family’s history. I uncovered those in my lineage that I now consider heroes of faith.

What we do know is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And as you go through this gospel, I challenge you to look through the lens of this tax collector, who started off despised by his people, who followed and believed in Christ, and continues even now to bring the lost to Christ. If you’re new to Share the Word, check out and compare some of the other gospels. For example, episodes 1 to 22 is the Gospel of John. Episodes 23 to 46 is the Gospel of Luke. And episodes 141 to 158 is the Gospel of Mark.

It’s free for you to download and share. Thanks for listening.