Matthew's Account of the Genealogy of Jesus

This week’s passage: Matthew 1:1-17

Who was Matthew?

Matthew was a Jewish man who worked as a tax collector for the roman empire, this most likely made him prosperous monetarily, but would have caused him to be disliked by his community. We learn from Matthew himself that when Jesus called him, he dropped everything and followed.

“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9 NLT)

Wow! Think about that for just a moment, how did he know that Jesus was the Messiah, what did he see in Jesus standing there in front of him? He felt so compelled to be in the presence of Jesus that he never looked back, eventually giving his life for Christ.

Jesus is King!

There’s no way around it, genealogies are a tough read for most, I mean, come on, all those “that guy begat that guy, then this guy begot that one” lists just don’t have much to keep our attention. The genealogies in the Bible are informative, they help us understand who is who in the Bible, who they knew and where they come from. Most importantly, they point us to Christ!

These things about Matthew’s account of the lineage of Jesus stood out to me, both Abraham and David are singled out, reminding us of the prophesy that would be fulfilled with the birth of Christ;

“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:17 NKJV)

God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation;

“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3 ESV)

God told David that a descendant would sit on the throne forever;

“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12-13 ESV)

and there are women mentioned in the line, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Mary. Don’t fall for the lie that women are not considered an important part of God’s kingdom ladies, that is a lie from Satan himself. Perk up your eyes and ears because these women were used mightily by God as we will see at various points in our studies.

A Personal Discovery

When I sat down to start writing this blog entry, it quickly came to my attention that I am among those who ‘skim’ these lists because as I dug into this chapter, I discovered something I didn't immediately remember seeing before. This is certainly not the first time I have read this chapter of scripture, far from it, but this time I noticed that if you really look at the account in Luke 3:23, which is one of the cross-references for Matthew 1:1-17, you find a different lineage from David to Joseph, Mary's husband and the adoptive father of Jesus.

I thought “wait, didn't one of the accounts lead to Mary and the other to Joseph, Mary’s husband?" So I looked again and that is not the way they read. I compared several translations – “Joseph, husband of Mary” is at the end of every translation I saw. My next thought was “maybe I should start in verse 18, with the birth of Jesus for this blog” (lol, run like the wind Bullseye!) If you haven’t had a chance to read the “About this Blog” page, it may help you understand where I am coming from, in short, I don’t claim to be a Bible scholar by any means.

However, this in not the way we need to approach the Bible. This is an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the text. After praying for guidance and discernment I started digging into every resource I have in the house and searching the Internet for others who had the knowledge and ability to fully research and compare these two scriptures. There are two things that I am 100% solid on; God cannot lie, and the Bible is breathed by God. My faith in that never waivers.

I don’t feel ready to put what I learned into my own words, but I did find a source whom I believe did solid research. The chart below is a visual representation of the result of research completed by the team at Conforming to Jesus Ministry. The link below the chart is to the article that explains their findings (it is about a 5 min read).

https://www.conformingtojesus.com/charts-maps/en/genealogy_of_jesus_chart.htm

This is not the end of my study into the issue and will no doubt come up again when we get to Luke, maybe by then we can all be a bit more informed and feel more confident in our understanding. If you want to look into it but are not sure where to start I have some suggestions.

• Always begin with prayer for discernment in the matter you are researching.
• Use your go to translation to read the two accounts – then compare that to a couple other translations. 
• Do an Internet search – taking care to understand who the information you find is coming from. 
• Search the scripture for some of the names you see on the chart above to see what the scripture says that might support or discredit what you found online.

I know several people are way ahead of me on this, if you have a good source of information and/or scripture that backs up your conclusion, please share it with us in the comments.

See ya next week!