Today's reading is Matthew chapter 2. By the way, you can pick up a PDF copy of this part of our study "90 Days with Jesus" here. Each day there is a devotional, some encouragement and a prayer. Please remember to start your study with Prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God. In the Gospel of John chapter 14 Jesus tells us if we pray to the father in the name of Jesus, he will give us a counselor- the Spirit of truth. Many believe this spirit of truth to be the Holy Spirit.
Based on yesterdays reading we had a question. The question is this. In Matthew 1:1 we see the geneology of Jesus. Verse 16 says "and Jacob the father of Jospeh , the husband of Mary, whom was born Jesus, and who is called the Christ." How can Jesus be in the Abraham bloodline fullfulling a prophesy when Joseph was his adoptive father. Why isn't Mary's geneology there instead?
That's a great question. I never give anyone their answers, but here is a great possability. The book of Matthew doesn't give me much guidence on this. But the book of Luke does. It’s totally
plausible that in those times Jesus adoptive relationship to Joseph was
acceptable as evidence of the Abrahamic bloodline fulfilling the
prophets. Skeptics in our society are going to call foul. Ergo, I
always look for an answer that does support biblical wisdom that is not
predominately taught in schools. In Luke 1:36 scripture notes Mary is a
relative of Elizabeth. Luke 1:5 – 10 gives us a short genealogy of
Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth it is said also was a
descendant of Aaron. Being Mary is related to Elizabeth and she is in the
Abraham tree line it would be logically consistent that Mary is as well.
I do find it sad that God allowed women and children to be second class
citizens in that culture. Unfortunately, churches and leaders used that
same motive to justify not letting women serve in leadership positions, to this
day. If we use that as a reason for justifying our position you may find
like I have that many people will call us bigots, and misogynists because of
it.
In Matthew 2 you may have learned like I did the first time I read it that the 3 kings story we were taught in our youth wasn't so biblically accurate. Try not to let this be the reason you don't believe in God. Nor try not to let it be the reason you don't trust the church.
I hope you found Vince's sermon yesterday to be enlightening. You may find today's enlightening as well. Check out this 41 minutes of Agnostic to Deist
What if Jesus really meant what he said in the beatitudes and the gospel when he told us how to live? What if everything we've learned all our life about Christianity was based on definitions which led to us receiving inaccurate data? What if we have rejected the existence of God because we made our decision not to believe based on those inaccurate definitions, what we were taught in our youth, or what we were taught in school, or by the lives and actions of other Christians?
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