Dear Church family,
As a church we have
embarked on an exciting new journey of discovering the wealth in the Word of
God together. This daily Bible commentary will allow us as a church to glean
from God's Word chapter by chapter, book by book.
This is not a daily
devotion, though you can use it for personal devotion time but its a simple
commentary on the Bible that will give you more insight into what you are
reading, in context and with the counsel of the whole Bible.
We are starting with the
Gospel of Matthew. Each day there will be a
required chapter of the Bible you are to read. After reading the
recommended portion, then read the daily commentary. You will notice that you
may be required at times to read the same chapter for several days, this is
because there is much to absorb from these chapters and you will notice that
your depth of understanding increases as you persist in reading the same
chapter repeatedly for several days.
This daily commentary will
be loaded onto the church blog weekly. The cell groups will discuss the gist of
what was gleaned each week from the said chapters. This will further add to
your Bible reading experience as you realise how the same Words have spoken so
specifically to each individual in the group.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Rivers of Water
Daily Bible Study – The book of Matthew
Tuesday - January 1st
Topic: The Kings Birth
Read Matthew Chapter 1
If a man suddenly appears and claims to be a king, the
public immediately asks for proof. What is his background? Who pays homage to
him? What credentials can he present? Anticipating these important questions,
Matthew opened his book with a careful account of the birth of Jesus Christ and
the events that accompanied it. He presented four facts about the King
The Heredity of the King ( 1: 1-25)
Since royalty depends on heredity, it was important for
Jesus to establish His rights to David's throne. Matthew gave His human
heredity (vv 1-17) as well as His divine heredity (vv 18 -25)
His
human heredity ( 1:1-17) Genealogies were very important to the Jews, for
without them they could not prove their tribal membership or their rights to
inheritance. Anyone claiming to be “ the Son of David” had to be able to prove
it. It is generally concluded that Matthew gave our Lord's family tree through
His foster father, Joseph, while Luke gave Mary's lineage.
Many Bible
readers skip over this list of ancient names. But this “list of names” is a
vital part of the Gospel record. It shows that Jesus Christ is a part of History,
that all Jewish history prepared the way for His birth. God in His providence
ruled and overruled to accomplish His great purpose in bringing His Son into
the world.
This
genealogy also illustrates Gods wonderful grace. It is most unusual to find the
names of women in the Jewish genealogies, since names and inheritances came
through the fathers. But in this list we find references to four women from Old
Testament history : Tamar, Rahab and Ruth, and Bathsheba “ wife of Uriah”.
Matthew
clearly omitted some names from this genealogy. Probably he did this to give a
systematic summary of 3 periods in Israel's history, each with 14 generations.
The numeric value of the Hebrew letters for “David” equals 14. Matthew probably
used this approach as a memory aid to help his readers remember this difficult
list.
But there
were many Jewish men who could trace their family back to King David. It would
take more than human pedigree to make Jesus Christ” the Son of David” and heir
to David's throne. This is why the divine heredity was so important!
No comments:
Post a Comment