Sermon Tone Analysis

Matthew 1:1-17

Pray

Admit it.

Genealogies are boring.

I often agree with you.

I don’t think most Genealogies in the bible really have that many theological incites, and when reading through the bible it is really tempting (sometimes I give in) to just skip over the passages.

This is a really interesting Genealogy

Family Descent was very important to Matthew’s original audience, who hoped in the promises that God had made to specific ancestors.

When I lived in KY one of the first questions I would get asked is who is you family.

Because everyone knew everyone.

I being an outsider with no family had a difficult time.

It was normal for people to give genealogies in olden times before everyone moved around.

Josephus, the great Jewish historian, writing his own autobiography, began with his personal pedigree.

King Herod the Great was despised by the pure-blooded Jews because he was half Edomite.

As a consequence, Herod destroyed official registers so that others could not prove a more authentic pedigree than his own!

Matthew begins by calling this “The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ,” a common phrase among the Jews when giving reference to the record of a man’s lineage.

There are two different Genealogies of Jesus.

On found here in Matthew and one found in Luke.

and They are different.

Matthew is known as the most Jewish of the Gospels.

Matthew is writing this book to show How Jesus fulfills the promises of God.

So this Genoalogy is focused on that perpuse.

Luke is more of a historian, very likely talking to Mary herself as a source.

Matthew is following Josephs side.

Luke probably Mary’s.

Jews in the first century had varied and multifaceted expectations of the Messiah.

Many longed for a political leader like King David who would free them from Roman oppression and restore national independence.

Others anticipated a priestly figure who would legitimize the temple worship, which the Hasmonean rulers had taken over.

The Lineage of Jesus

The lineage of Jesus is presented in three sections with fourteen periods for each.

The three groupings correspond to the three great stages of Jewish history.

The first stage is the history from Abraham to David, a stage which moves from the call of faith to the period in which David welded Israel into a nation.

The second stage covers the history of Israel down to the exile in Babylon, a stage which deals with the interplay between man and God, exposing man’s unfaithfulness and the consequent captivity.

Interspersed with the captivity was the prophetic word of judgment, of grace, and of hope.

The third stage carries the history of Israel from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Jesus Christ.

It shows how the salvation history continued through a remnant of the faithful, focusing on the family of faith through which God entered the world in the Incarnation, in Jesus of Nazareth.

Begat - The word does not necessarily mean immediate ancestor or actual father.

It does mean that the line of descent runs thus.

The precise fact in each example cited has to be learned from the Old Testament.

David

The Jews expected the true Messiah to be from David’s line (2 Sam 7:11–16).

For Matthew, Jesus’ Davidic heritage is evidence of His messiahship, stemming from passages such as Jer 23:5 and Jer 33:15.

By connecting Jesus with David, Matthew asserts that the Davidic covenant reaches its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus

Abraham

The forefather of Israel.

God had promised Abraham that he would be the source of blessing for all peoples (Gen 12:3; compare Acts 3:25; Gal 3:8).

For Matthew, this promise ultimately is fulfilled in Jesus.

Like the reference to David, Abraham’s name would have brought to mind covenant promises and messianic expectations.

Identifying Jesus as the means of global blessing (see Gen 12:3 and note), the reference to Abraham evokes a messianic prophecy from OT pseudepigrapha.

Testament of Levi 8:14b–15 says, “A king shall arise in Judah, and shall establish a new priesthood, after the fashion of the Gentiles to all the Gentiles.

And His presence is beloved, as a prophet of the Most High, of the seed of Abraham our father.”

As late as the second or third century BC (the supposed date of composition for Testament of Levi), the Messiah was associated with His Jewish forebear, Abraham.

Such an understanding may have influenced Matthew’s presentation of Jesus.

The 4 Women

While inclusion of women in biblical genealogies isn’t unusual in itself (there are fourteen such women listed in 1 Chronicles 2, for example), the inclusion of these four women is all the more odd when one realizes that “the great Jewish female figures are missing: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel.”(Luz,

83)

One would think that if Matthew thought it important to include women, these women would be more logical candidates.

But they aren’t—because of what Matthew wants to telegraph about the Person whose genealogy he is presenting.

These particular women are not all Jewish and all are caught up in sexual sin.

As if focusing on Jesus Redeeming all nations and even sexual sin that have and will continue to plague Human kind.

Tamar

Tamar is the first of the four women in Matthew’s genealogy (Matthew 1:3).

She is known primarily from Genesis 38, where she deceives Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, into an illicit sexual encounter by pretending to be a prostitute.

Tamar would later give birth to Perez and Zerah

Unwed mother

Rahab

Unlike Tamar, who took the guise of a prostitute to deceive Judah, Rahab was a working prostitute (Joshua 2:1).

She is one of two (cf.

Ruth) unambiguous Gentiles among the four women, as she is a native Canaanite living in Jericho (Joshua 2:1–2).

Prostitute

Ruth

Ruth was a Moabite woman who chose to accompany her aging mother-in-law, Naomi, to Israel even though she would be a stranger there.

Ruth’s devotion to Naomi resulted in her gaining a husband (Boaz) and son (Obed) and becoming an ancestress of King David (Ruth 4:21–22).

Ruth’s place in Jesus’ genealogy hints at the universality of Jesus’ mission, as the law forbade Moabites from entering the Lord’s assembly (Deut 23:3).

Where is the sexual sin of Ruth.

This one is more hidden.

Scholars of the Hebrew Bible have long recognized that what Ruth does at the threshing floor (Ruth 3) is overtly sexual.

Ruth exposes the “feet” of Boaz while he is sleeping after he had “eaten and drunk” when “his heart was merry,” and then lies down (Ruth 3:7).

The Hebrew word translated “feet” (regel) is a well-known euphemism for genitalia in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., to “cover one’s feet,” meaning relieve oneself: Judges 3:24; 1 Samuel 24:4).

By uncovering Boaz’s “feet” (genitalia), Ruth is, in effect, offering herself as a wife to Boaz.

Given the patriarchal setting of Israelite culture, this was a transgression of the way things were usually done—it was the man who would solicit marriage or take a concubine of his choice.

While the text provides no evidence of a sexual encounter between the two, what Ruth did would have an illicit feel to “proper” Israelites and later Jewish readers.

Her child would then become a child of a forbidden union (Jew and outsider Deuteronomy 23:2-3).

Jesus redeems the Moabites and the Forbidden unions.

Forbidden Union

Bathsheba

Bathsheba is the victim of sexual crime

David takes Bathsheba who is married into his bed.

She probably doesn’t have much of of a choice.

And then David kills of her husband.

Yet through this union Jesus comes.

Jesus Redeems

Rape Victim

Jesus Redeems

The fact that these particular women are named makes clear that God in grace does not discriminate against persons because of past mistakes or wrongs (to you or by you)

Unwed Mother

Prostitute

Forbidden Union

Rape Victim

Teenage Mother who hasn’t had sex yet

The least likely people to be used in Jewish or other society and yet here they are listed as proof that Jesus is the Messiah came to redeem the world.