My Genealogy
“Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.”
Today’s Text: Matthew 1:1-17 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
Many people who read the Bible might find the genealogies boring and just rush right through them. But Matthew opens his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus. It sets the tone and character of the whole Gospel.
The things that Matthew highlights in the genealogy are significant. He starts with Abraham and goes forward to Joseph (Luke starts with Joseph and goes backward to Adam). By starting with Abraham, Matthew highlights the covenant purposes and covenant faithfulness of God (Genesis 12:1-3).
Matthew also makes a point of mentioning the exile. In Matthew’s day, the Israelites felt as if they were still in exile. But from God’s perspective, the people of God were in spiritual exile from the kingdom of God.
And finally, Matthew mentions significant women in Jesus’s family line: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba), and Mary. On the one hand, the fact that Matthew even mentions the women is important. The ancient world was pretty much entirely patriarchal. The significant role that women play in biblical history is unique, and it highlights God’s design of creating humanity male and female—equal in significance and importance, complementary in roles.
On the other hand, the women that Matthew mentions all have scandals attached to them in one way or another. And most of them are actually foreigners, not Israelites.
And so the stage is set for the coming of Jesus through Matthew’s genealogy. God is absolutely faithful, and Jesus came to fulfill God’s covenant promises to fill the earth with His glory through His people. Jesus also came to redeem the world out of spiritual exile and reinstate the elect into the kingdom of God through faith. And finally, Jesus came to resolve the brokenness of this world and all the human scandal caused by sin.
Father, The genealogy of Christ is now my genealogy too. And so, being adopted into the genealogy of Christ, I am forever saved and blessed and transformed. Therefore, may the scandal of sin in my life have no power over me any more, and may the generational sins of my human genealogy stop with Christ in me. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
