Day 275 (Matthew 1, Luke 2) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble (0:01)

Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

Today we dropped in on a new gospel, Matthew. And even though he's a new gospel to us in our reading plan, he's quite possibly the oldest of the four gospels. Most people believe this is Matthew, the apostle slash disciple of Jesus, who was a tax collector before Jesus called him. Given his attention to numbers and money and return on investment, it seems likely. Matthew's unique lens on Jesus is Jesus as King. As a refresher, Luke's lens is Jesus as Man, and John's is Jesus as God. So far, we have Jesus as God, Man, and King.

Matthew starts out by giving us the lineage of Jesus. And if you were with us in the Old Testament, you probably recognized at least a few of these people. Here are three things worth noting about this genealogy. First, it includes women. That's unheard of in ancient Jewish genealogies. So we can see right out of the gate that the message Jesus sent his disciples about women was one of inclusion. Jesus obviously taught Matthew that women matter. Otherwise, he would have left them out. Second, his inclusion extends beyond just gender, because this genealogy also includes Gentiles. That's any non-Jew. And it includes people with scandalous histories. For instance, Rahab had been a pagan prostitute, and we don't have time to go into all the stuff David and Solomon did. The message God sends in this genealogy is one of redemption. He says, You belong here in my family.

Third, even though Matthew tells us there are 14 generations, three times in verse 17, those numbers probably aren't precise. It's not that Matthew's lying here. It's that in Jewish culture, numbers often represent ideas more than an actual count. So 14 generations may be a way to say doubly perfect or doubly complete, since the number seven represents perfection and completion.

Jesus is the culmination of this complete and perfect setup for the redemption of mankind. And God works out this plan even through the fear and resistance of Joseph, Mary's fiancee.

God sends an angel to Joseph who confirms Mary's version of events, then tells him not to be afraid of it all and encourages him. This is huge because if Joseph doesn't get on board, what this could mean for Mary is the death penalty for adultery at worst, or at best, a broken engagement in the struggle of being a single mom in ancient Judah. For those who are curious about nuance and details, here's something worth noting. Scripture absolutely teaches the virgin birth, but Scripture does not teach the immaculate conception. I used to think those two phrases were linked and that they both referred to the conception and birth of Jesus, but the phrase immaculate conception is nowhere in Scripture. It was actually created in reference to Mary and the belief that she was conceived to be endless throughout her life.

Some faith traditions believe this despite the fact that, as we'll see, Scripture not only doesn't say that, but indicates otherwise. Some faith traditions also believe Mary remained a virgin her whole life, which is why they often refer to her as the Virgin Mary, even though Matthew tells us twice today, in verses 18 and 25, that she and her husband Joseph had sex after Jesus was born. So yes, Scripture definitely teaches the virgin birth. She was definitely a virgin when Jesus was born. But her other seven-plus children who we'll meet later were conceived normally, not supernaturally. Mary herself had no divinity or perfection. She was a regular human, which is one of the things that makes this story so remarkable.

We've linked to a short article with more info in the show notes in case you want to read up on this. In Luke 2, we step into the story of Christ's birth, and it turns out that it's probably quite different than what we've come to expect. First, most of the art we see has Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem alone, but given that everyone had to go to their ancestral hometown for the census, plus the fact that it was approximately a week-long trip on a dangerous road, they probably traveled in a large group of extended family. Their family probably goes to stay with distant family members in Bethlehem, but because lots of people are traveling for the census, the guest room is already full. By the way, the word translated as in here isn't a hotel exactly, so what is it? Most homes in this day are built on top of caves. Caves are all over Israel, and the caves serve as a makeshift basement slash animal pen. So the barn we tend to envision is also a modern idea. The barns then weren't made of wood. In fact, very few things in Israel are made of wood. Everything is stone. Even the mangers in these days are hollowed out stone. So Jesus is almost certainly born in the cave basement of his extended family's home and laid in a stone manger feeding trough. My apologies if I just ruined your nativity.