11/10/24 - Matthew 1: God of the Unlikely

• Introduction to Matthew

  • History

  • Matthew was written sometime between 50-90 AD.

  • Many scholars believe it was earlier rather than later

  • The main objection to Matthew being written before 70 AD is because of Jesus prophesying the destruction of the Temple.

  • Many scholars believe that Matthew was written anonymously and that we don’t know who wrote it however, many scholars and Church tradition believe that it was written by the apostle Matthew.

  • The belief that Matthew was written by someone unknown is because Matthew was martyred in 65AD, meaning if he penned it, Jesus’ words are genuinely prophetic as Matthew would not have seen the destruction of the Temple and had no way of writing that after the fact.

  • Scholars often differ dramatically with key elements of biblical study and dating because to be a biblical scholar does not mean you have to be a Christian.

  • I think we often assume that everyone involved with interpreting and translating scriptures is a believer.

  • Many scholars don’t believe in the miraculous, so the stories of Jesus’ healing are simply mythology that developed around Jesus after a few centuries, and prophetic texts must be written after the fact of events.

  • Purpose

  • The Gospel of Matthew was written to and for a Jewish audience

  • It was likely written during Paul’s second missionary journey, and Gentiles are joining the Church, but the Church is still largely of Jewish origin.

  • The purpose of Matthew’s Gospel is twofold

  • To show Jesus as the culmination and fulfillment of Jewish belief

  • To preserve the Jewish foundation and heritage of the Christian faith

  • The theological goal of Matthew is to present Jesus as the Eternal King and Messiah, prophecied about. God keeps His promises to His people and enters into the mess with His people

  • Themes and writing organization

  • Jesus is depicted as reliving the journey of Israel

  • The Genesis of Jesus

  • Jesus’ childhood escape to Egypt

  • Jesus baptism

  • Jesus traveled from town to town preaching the Gospel, reflective of Joshua conquering Canaan city by city.

  • Jesus sending out the 12 disciples to all the world is reflective of Joshua sending out the 12 tribes into the Promised Land.

  • Jesus’ name is the Greek form of Joshua.

  • Jesus’ sayings are reflective of Solomon’s sayings,

  • Jesus' apocalyptic prophecies and rebuke of Israel’s apostasy are reflective of the OT prophets

  • Jesus' resurrection and ascension are reflective of Isaiah’s vision of a resurrected and triumphant Israel

  • There are seven sections to the book of Matthew: an introduction, a conclusion, and five pairings of discourse and narrative. ,

  • These five discourses reflect the Torah, with the Sermon on the Mount showing Jesus as a new Moses.

  • The Lord told Moses that He would raise a prophet like Moses who would speak in the Lord’s name. (Deut 18)

  • Mark was the first Gospel written, and its content is the foundational skeleton of both Mathew and Luke, but Matthew is appropriately placed first in the order of books because of the clear demonstration of Jesus as the fulfillment of the New Covenant, the inauguration of a new Covenant, a new commandment,  a New Kingdom, and a new priesthood.

• A Misfit Lineage

• Illborn children

• Boaz, the prostitute’s son

• Jesse, the foreigner’s daughter

• Solomon, the mistress’s son

• Evil kings

• Rehoboam, a totalitarian tyrant who split the kingdom, son of an Ammonitess

• Ahaz, who changed the temple worship in imitation of and honor of the king of Assyrians

• Manessah, who plunged the kingdom into bloodthirsty idolatry

• sealing God’s judgment on Judea to be ransacked and its people to be exiled in Babylon for 70 years

• Mary and Joseph

• We don’t know their ages for sure

• According to Roman law, both of them could have been as young as 12 when they were married.

• The Jewish custom at the time was that women were betrothed as early as 12 and married a year after, and men were generally 20-30.

• Early Christian literature depicts Mary as 12 when betrothed and 16 when married. Joseph was portrayed as an old widower with six grown children.

• They were both from Nazareth, an isolated backwoods town of between 300-1000 people in a hard-to-access area populated by farmers and tradesmen whose claim to fame was how singularly impoverished they were.

• “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” ~Nathaneal

• Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, comes from a long line of the ill-fit and unqualified, the infamous and treacherous, and an increasing amount of nobodies that no one took seriously.

• He truly humbled himself in every sort of way

• This is not the way that the gods manifested themselves in all the stories

• Christ came in an unexpected way to unsuspecting people, preaching of an upside-down kingdom, bringing together unlikely comrades, and transforming the world in an unprecedented way.

• Who our God is

• He keeps His promises

• Jesus’ birth was the fulfillment of a prophecy made 700 years before.

• During Ahaz’s reign when the Assyrians came up to destroy Judea. Isaiah reassured Ahaz that Assyria would not destroy Judea like they did the rest of Israel and told Ahaz to choose a sign to prove that the word of God would prevail.
  
  Ahaz refuses, and his excuse is that he doesn’t want to test God, but really, it was because he didn’t believe in God or Isaiah’s word. So, Isaiah chooses a sign. As a sign that Judea would not only not be destroyed but would remain when Assyria was long dead and dust, he prophecies that a virgin would give birth to a son and he shall be called Immanuel, God with us.

• This prophecy was fulfilled 700 years later, a testament to God’s grace towards rebellious Judea, but also a testament to the fact that God always keeps His promises

• Matthew is always highlighting things that Jesus did, which fulfilled different prophecies and promises. His intent was to show us that Jesus was the Messiah that the prophets were looking for.

• It’s also reassurance for us as followers of Jesus that there are promises that God has made for those who trust in Jesus, and no matter how much time it takes for God to fulfill those promises, He will always stay true to His word.

• Peter writes that it is through God’s great and precious promises that we can escape the corruption of the world brought about by evil desires.

• We can be confident in our hope and our confession of faith, knowing that God is faithful.

• He works through unlikely people.

• Jesus’ lineage is filled with all types. Sons of disreputable people, evil kings, and impoverished nobodies. God can use anyone for His purposes.

• God is not limited by evil people. When God has a purpose and a mission, he will work through, despite, and around evil people. They don’t pose a threat or roadblock to God.

• When we come across people and situations in our lives that seem like there’s no hope, God is able to work through that.

• When you fall and fail, you don’t have to be afraid that you’ve derailed God’s plans. He’s not that fragile.

• God is not limited by your background, heritage, or social class. He has called you to be a co-worker of Christ and your fellow believers. He has promised to do great things in and through His people. You can have hope that no matter who you are, God can do something with, through, and alongside you.

• God works through people that everyone else has given up one

• The book of Matthew was written for the Jews to show that Christ was the fulfillment of the Jewish faith and that His promises still stand for the Jewish people and the rest of Israel.

• It was written during a time when Christians were beginning to believe that God had given up on the Jews and that Christianity was Israel’s replacement as the people of God.

• What we can know about God’s character in this is that you are not too far gone from God. Even if everyone else has given up on you, God’s promises remain true, His willingness to work with you is still there, and you are not beyond His salvation or His purposes.

• God desires a relationship with us.

• Underlying everything in Matthew chapter 1 is the reality that Jesus came in human form, in the most humiliating way and humble way, to be able to identify with the least of us.

• As we will learn from the rest of Matthew, Jesus does life with people, bears burdens with people, loves people, and points people in the direction of faith and everlasting life to be with Him forever.

• Matthew chapter one is the beginning of a new narrative to show the lengths that God would go to redeem His people and be in loving communion with them.