Category Archives: Bible

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Matthew’s Introduction Of Jesus

Matthew 1:1

Matthew’s gospel is clearly written to an audience that was primarily Jewish, and with his opening statement, he jumps right in with an immediate connection between the life of Jesus and the much broader story of the descendants of Abraham. Throughout his book, Matthew will draw people to the conclusion over and over again that Jesus is the fulfillment to the promise made to Abraham long ago.

Matthew's Introduction To Jesus

The first chapter of Matthew lists the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham, making the connection for the Jewish mind that Jesus is the Messiah. We will look at the three divisions of the genealogical list next week. Right now, I want to draw our attention just to the very first verse of Matthew 1:

The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham…

In a sense, this is Matthew’s way of introducing his book, brief though it may be. In this very first sentence, Matthew does three things. First, he draws the Jewish mind to the very earliest of history by using terminology reminiscent of Genesis 2:4 and 5:1, the record of the creation of mankind and the first genealogical listing. Second, he connects Jesus to King David, establishing his right to the eternal throne promised to one of David’s heirs. And third, he connects Jesus to Abraham, equating him with the fulfillment of God’s original promise to Abram and his descendants.

That’s quite a lot of information from a single introductory statement! What Matthew has done here is to set up the mind of the Jewish reader to see just where he’s going, and the full impact of the point he will be making as he lists the genealogical records of Jesus. For the Jewish reader, this has been a long expectation. The coming of Jesus, the Messiah, has has been anticipated since the earliest days of Jewish history, and in fact, anticipated in eternity in heaven!

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The Gospel of Matthew

An Introduction

One of the most effective ways I have found to study the Bible is to break it up into small passages and study them separately. I have been doing this with the Gospel of Matthew this year, and have found it to be incredibly effective for digesting Scripture in such a way that it can bear fruit in my life, rather than just simply reading it and then forgetting it.

Introduction to Matthew

I call this method the Golden Nugget approach. I have written about it here, but in a nutshell, you simply read until God points out three things to you that you think he wants you to pay attention to. Why three? Because I can remember three easier than I can remember five, or nine, or some other amount. I take these three things, and then I watch for God to teach me about them throughout my day, assuming that if he pointed them out to me, then he wants to teach me something about them.

It has worked for me over the years. I still read through the Bible annually, much of it more than once. But this method has enabled me to apply the passages I read into my life easier, and hopefully I become more of the person God wants me to be.

I have been studying the book of Matthew in this way this year, jotting down my thoughts and journaling about what I read. I’d like to share some of my insights here and work my way through this amazingly practical gospel.

But first, let me share an introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, some details about the author, the date it was written, and the original audience. Knowing this can help us place a lot of what Matthew says in context, and can give us a deeper understanding of his work.

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The Epitome Of Love

The Message Of 1 John 3:16

Since January, I have been preaching from various 3:16 passages throughout the Bible. It seems there are several significant passages that fall on this marker, and it has been an interesting series of sermons as we have looked at several of them so far. On Easter Sunday, we looked at 1 John 3:16, and saw the epitome of love explained.

The Epitome Of Love

John writes this in the first of three short epistles that bear his name:

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. This passage teaches us about the love of Jesus, about his sacrifice, and what our response should be.

There are a few different things that we can see in this brief description of love. The first thing John shows us is an explanation of what love is. He defines it as an action. Throughout the New Testament, there are four words used that are translated into English as the word “love”: storge, affectionate love, or family love; phileo, which is brotherly love; eros, romantic or passionate love; and agape, unconditional, selfless love. And what John does here is show us that the selfless love of God is seen as an action. Jesus willingly laid down his life for us, showing us the fullest explanation of just what it means to love.

In this explanation, we also see an example to follow. Jesus leads us to display love in the same way. He doesn’t expect us to follow just something he has told us to do, without doing it himself. No, he exemplifies love by taking the initiative and leading the way for us to follow. Jesus displayed love in action: he served others, he showed compassion and mercy, he offered forgiveness and grace, he loved.

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Examining The 3:16s Of The Bible

Some Important Scriptures At Similar References

We are starting a new series this weekend at our church, and it is different than anything I have ever tried before.

Examining The 3:16s Of The Bible

Typically, I prefer to preach expositorily, where we take a passage and examine what it has to say, digging out the nuggets of truth in what God is saying through that particular passage. And how I typically like to do that is by working through a book completely, which is what I have done several times in the past, with books like Hebrews or Colossians, or the Gospel of John.

When I do preach a topical series, I preach on one topic, and then I preach expository sermons on each of the passages we look at that talk about that topic. I did this with our Marriage Matters series, for example, and a couple of financial series.

But this series is kind of different. It’s different in the fact that we will be looking at a completely different topic each week, and no two are the same. We will still take a deep, expository look at each passage, but the only common denominator in this series is where each of those passages are located in the Bible.

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That Time Jesus Was Tempted By Satan

How Jesus Used Scripture To Resist Temptation

Matthew is the first of the four Gospels in the New Testament, and is one of the more detailed accounts of the life of Jesus. And even though the temptations he faced in the wilderness are recorded in both Mark 1 and Luke 4, Matthew gives us perhaps the most information.

How Jesus Used Scripture When Tempted

One of the most striking things about Matthew’s account of this event is the fact that he states that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Many people don’t read this carefully enough, and get caught up in the fact that God doesn’t tempt, so why would he cause Jesus to be tempted in this scenario?

First of all, the statement that God does not tempt us is true, and is found throughout the pages of Scripture, with James 1:12-13 being one of the most clear statements:

Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

But Jesus wasn’t led out to be tempted by God. He was led out into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy, so that he could display the glory of God, and confirm that his calling and strength come from God, even in the face of the strongest of opposition. The temptations came from the Adversary, and from him alone, but God permitted them in order to show us that Jesus came to be the sacrifice for us all.

The crazy thing about this is that even though God will not tempt us, he can still use the temptations we face and turn them into a blessing for us, tempering it to our strength, and making us stronger through the victory over it.

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The Genealogy Of Christ In Matthew 1

Taking A Deeper Look Jesus’ Family Tree

When was the last time you stopped to carefully read the family tree of Jesus found in Matthew 1, or in Luke 3, for that matter? My guess is that, like most of the rest of us, you just skim over that passage and move on to the birth narrative.

Family Tree

Those pesky genealogies are tough to read, aren’t they? They are monotonous and boring, and full of names that we generally don’t know how to pronounce. And so we skip them, or if we do read them, we skim them and don’t study them too deeply. And that’s to our detriment.

I think that the genealogies gives us a good look into the character of God, and they do so in several different ways. Matthew’s list of the names in Jesus’ family tree is especially beneficial, because it makes a very solid case that Jesus is the legal heir and descendant to King David, and further, the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. Both of these would have been of critical importance to Matthew’s primarily Jewish readers.

That’s interesting in and of itself, but what if you aren’t Jewish? What’s the benefit for those readers? First of all, the importance of this passage for Jewish readers is also something for everyone to consider. The genealogy shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of a Messiah to come.

But I think there are some more reasons why we can study these passages, and a lot we can gain from them.

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Loving The Word Of God

A Glance At Psalm 119

My favorite psalm by far is Psalm 119. Even though it is the longest psalm, and the longest chapter in the Bible, I love reading and rereading this section of Scripture. It never gets old!

Open Bible - Psalm 119

If you wanted to give this psalm a name or a title, a good one would be “The Glories of God’s Word” or “A Love for the Word of God.” Psalm 119 has 176 verses, making it the longest chapter in the Bible. In those 176 verses, God’s Word is referenced 177 times, at least once in every verse but five (verses 84, 90, 121, 122, 132 do not have a direct reference to God’s word in some fashion).

It is likely that David wrote this Psalm. However, it is unclear under what circumstances he composed it. It is quite possible that this is a variation of his daily journal, perhaps gathered and composed over the course of his life. His usage of phrases such as “a young man,” in verses 9, 99, 100, 141, and “an old man,” in verses 84-87, may indicate that this is David’s spiritual diary. If so, it is worthy of imitating. God keeps a diary even if we don’t (see Malachi 3:16-18; Romans 14:12).