Men's Friday morning Bible Study

On the day that Martin Luther was born (today in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany), we studied the birth of Christ (specifically, His genealogy) in this morning's Bible study. Sadly, many Christians miss out on some real gems by glossing over the opening verses of Matthew's Gospel. Here are some of the things we discussed this morning:

1. We noted the presence of women, and, in particular, sinful women, in the opening verses of Matthew. We contrasted this with the felt need in the Roman Church to purge Mary of all sin in order, as the thinking goes, to protect the sinlessness of Christ.

2. We noted the presence of Gentile women in the genealogy of Christ.

3. We noted the differences between Matthew's account of the genealogy of Christ and Luke's and discussed some of the likely reasons for this. We pointed out that Matthew mentions the regal lineage of Christ, showing that Jesus is the heir to the throne of David in fulfillment of God's promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 (to establish David's throne forever). And that Luke seems most concerned with tracing Christ's genealogy back to Adam and, thereby, establishing that He is a savior for the entire world, not just for the Jews (whose father was Abraham), and that He is the second and final Adam. (Luke interestingly follows the account of the genealogy, which ends with Adam, with the account of the temptation of Christ, which parallels the prior temptation of Adam.)

4. We talked about Jesus' earthly family and the relationship between Mary and Joseph and whether or not Jesus had brothers and sisters (Matt. 12:47-8; 13:55-6).

5. The genealogies also point to another fact: the historical reality of Jesus' birth and existence on earth. Matthew and Luke wrote their Gospels sometime around the early- to mid-60s A.D. This would mean that there would still have been people alive at the time they wrote of Jesus' genealogy. These folk could have (and surely would have, if there was cause to do so) pointed out errors in these genealogies if there were any. There are complications with our understandings of the genealogies, to be sure. But there don't appear to have been many such in the time when Matthew and Luke wrote them. Interestingly, Eusebius records instance of relatives of Jesus being called before the Roman Emperor Domitian as part of Rome's continuing effort to stamp out the line of David.

That should be enough to get your head spinning for the weekend, if it isn't already!