Category: Daily Devotionals

Upon finding out of Mary’s pregnancy, we read this in Matthew 1:19; “Because   Joseph  her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” That tells us three things: That Mary’s husband’s name was Joseph, that he was a righteous man, and that he did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, so he purposed to divorce her quietly.

As a name, “Joseph” is both of solid Hebrew stock and a shout out to the patriarch of long ago, so we can know that Mary’s chosen husband was one that was culturally appropriate. Whether that was her choice entirely, or one that was arranged by the families, is not given to us. What we can ascertain is that they as a couple were likely to fit in well with their society. They were a ‘normal’ couple. But then, the truly great almost always start off as ‘normal’. 

Of course, just how ‘normal’ Joseph was is a matter of subjectivity. The narrative of the Word of God details Joseph as a righteous man. That is striking, and makes him hardly average. For it is one thing to be righteous in your own eyes. It is  another altogether to be actually right in your character. More than both, very few are counted righteous in the pages of Scripture, yet it is into this last category that we find Joseph placed. That is a high honour by the hand of God, and certainly something that marks Joseph as far above average. Even more than that, the text tells us he was unbelievably kind. For he hears the news that his bride to be is pregnant, and his measured reaction is to avoid exposing her to disgrace! Is that how most of us would’ve reacted? In consideration of her, after she comes and tells us she is pregnant by God Himself?  

Some have suggested that it is well possible Joseph thought she had simply lost her mind, or was covering for a family member who had done something too horrible to speak of. But to conclude such would be to embark down the same faithless line of thought as Mary’s pregnancy had first suggested to the reader, and to ignore the text entirely, because the text of Scripture says that Joseph was a righteous man. He therefore would’ve been able to hear the Spirit’s silent witness to his Bride’s explanation for her sudden pregnancy. Not that it would’ve been easy news. But that she was not wrong, whatever had happened. So he determines to quietly divorce her (engagement being as legal marriage in their society). There will be no public shaming, no stoning for adultery and no demands for increased dowry. Joseph was a righteous man, and kind. 

On a human scale, this is a touching story of humility and grace. But it is more than that, it is one of those rare seasons when you know God is up to something. For to display Godly character in the face of the sorest of trials (and surely it is that, when the one you’ve already committed your whole life to shares such news with you) – is to live out what His Spirit has quietly said in the depths of your soul. That, of and by itself, is a rare thing. It ought to be normal, especially among God’s people. But we all know it is not. 

Realize then, that Joseph is now in a thin place, regardless of geography. He is close to God. His character and his choices have put him there.

Passive righteousness tells us that God does not need our good works. Active righteousness tells us that our neighbor does. The aim and direction of good works are horizontal, not vertical.

Tullian Tchividjian

APPLICATION: Intentionality

In light of all the kindness God has shown you, what small kindness can you do for someone else today? 

In many evangelical churches, it is common to find people eager for more of the  Holy   Spirit. Why wouldn’t they? After all, who would not want more of the Spirit? He whom Jesus promised, whom He sent, He who imparts spiritual gifts to His children, who leads us and guides us into all righteousness – we all want that! 

Yet the Holy Spirit is also Sovereign God Most High. He does what He wishes, when He wishes, as He wishes. He brings glory to Christ, is part of the Godhead, and answers to no man. The consequence of which is that sometimes – perhaps a whole lot more often than any care to acknowledge – He does that which does not seem convenient to us in the moment. Of course, inconvenience is not what most are looking for. Certainly not what any are expecting from God Most High.

The Christmas story is perhaps the single best-known story on the face of the globe. But in Matthew’s Gospel it does not start with wonder and amazement. It starts with a profound and troublesome inconvenience. Matthew writes, ”This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” 

By leaving out the angelic encounter Luke informs us about, Matthew confronts his readers with the realization that Mary had to wrestle with. In fact, reading it without the benefit of Luke, one can well imagine a sinking feeling in Mary’s gut as she realized she was pregnant. She was keenly aware she had not yet slept with her husband. Humanly speaking, nothing but doubt and questions would’ve flooded her mind. Matthew’s unbelieving readers might wonder; Did someone rape her while she slept? Did she ingest some potion that removed her memory?  Of course, we have the Gospel of Luke, so we know very much otherwise. An angel – well, not just any angel, but the archangel Gabriel – appears to her (see Luke 2:28-35).  So we know Mary did not have a sinking feeling, but rather one of elation. Even if it was to be tempered with a healthy dose of fear for how her community – and her fiancé – would take the news. 

Matthew’s omission of these critical facts leaves the reader of his Gospel startled, and perhaps deeply skeptical of the words, “she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” Yet isn’t it always that way with God’s revelation? We either take it at face value and believe, or we have a million reasons to question and disbelieve. 

Matthew is not afraid of confronting this natural tension. He knows it resides in each of us, so he addresses it head on. The reader, having already been reminded of God’s work through so many of the saints over the ages, knows that God has been working and speaking to this point. They are immediately confronted with the reality that God is continuing to work. He is doing something in the here and now. Something uncomfortable in the text, and perhaps something else uncomfortable in the reader.  

A most wise man once said, “Consider carefully how you listen!” Such advice is critical. Either you will read Matthew 1:18 and realize God is still speaking though His Word -even to you right now – or you will read it and listen to your own inner doubt instead. To those who choose to listen to the Spirit, the rest of Matthew is full of delight, wonder and blessing. It is God, speaking to them. But to those who choose to listen to their doubt, it is nothing but straw.

Which will it be for you? 

When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves – that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.

NT Wright

APPLICATION: Thankfulness, Intentionality

Perhaps the next inconvenience you encounter will actually be a blessing of God for you. Choose now to make the very best of it. 

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,  Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.  After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.  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 Christ.”

In consideration of the above passage, no less than Martin Luther wrote, “It looks like a useless, unnecessary writing in which he has reviewed the names of the dear fathers, since we know absolutely nothing about them, and it is of no help to us at all.”  

That is quite a statement. As audacious as it sounds, it probably isn’t a statement that many Bible readers would disagree with. What then is the point of including such a tedious history in the annals of God’s own Word?  

Could it be that we simply need to know that our lives might be a part of something much greater? Could it be that we need to be informed that our lineage leads somewhere? That who we bring into the world means more to the world than just adding a name to our particular family picture, and another mouth to feed? That the Lord knows where we as a family and a people group came from, and to where we as a family and as a people group are headed? Could it be that the Lord, in His sovereign and perfect will, wants to show us that He is sovereign over the lives of those who came before us, and over the lives that come after us? 

Perhaps He wants us to be keenly aware, even as we look for the fulfillment of promises made long ago, that who we are and even our name are not unimportant to Him in our present generation? 

Or perhaps, this particular genealogy is only here because God is committed to demonstrating that His plan is far greater than ours, so much so that even the number of our generations is counted? Or that we too might aspire to have our name written down – not in a genealogical record per se, but in the Lamb’s book of Life? 

So many good and useful lines of thought, all jumping out at us!

Think not that Jesus’ genealogy is a useless bit of trivia. It is the Holy Word of God, able to make the foolish wise and to discern the hearts and motives of all who read it. Remember that, ”All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”  Yes, even a genealogy! Amen.

Our names are not written in either the Old Testament or the New Testament, but we who know Jesus in our day are honoured all the same. For we too are part of His story.

APPLICATION: Prayer

Today, pray for your pastor and at least one distant relative in addition to yourself. God is doing something tremendous through each of you. Thank Him for that.

 After introducing us to Jesus Christ, “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” Matthew continues, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.”

If Matthew meant to give us a complete genealogy, he would’ve listed Adam, Seth, and everyone else listed in Genesis 11. By choosing instead to start Jesus’ genealogy with Abraham, the Gospel writer is making an assumption that the readers already know Abraham’s history. That assumption is therefore a statement – out of the box, this Gospel is a Gospel expressly for those who count Abraham as their forefather.

Of course, Abraham is the man who was declared righteous by faith. So it is that even in Jesus’ genealogy one can see how it takes faith to realize the promises of God. For Abraham waited a very long time to have his son Isaac, and Genesis 25 tells us that Isaac prayed for 20 years to see his son Jacob born. On his part, Jacob undertook hard labor for seven years before he married Leah and could begin building his family. Further, Perez and Zerah were born in scandal to Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, and only after Tamar waited what Genesis 38:12 calls, “a long time”. 

Not only that, but Boaz met Ruth the Moabite (with whom he had Obed) only under the extraordinary circumstance of Ruth’s Jewish mother-in-law Naomi leaving Moab after both her husband and two sons died, and on account of the widow Ruth travelling with Naomi back to the land of Israel. 

One cannot help but note that the lineage of Jesus is filled with difficulty, hardship and long waits.  But that is part of what Matthew wants us to see: The realization of the promise of God does not come without the struggle of faith over time. We see that in how Jesus Christ is tied to both Abraham, to whom was promised the Messiah (Gen 12:3), and to David, to whom was promised the Messiah (Ps 89:3-4). God’s great favour was on both, but both also had to endure much time and testing of their faith to see the day Messiah was born.

What then of us? Surely God’s great favour is on us also. In one sense, much more than on David and Abraham, for the New Covenant in Christ is superior to the Old Covenant through Abraham. As Hebrews teaches us, “The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”  In that sense, the blessing of our adoption as God’s sons and daughters is far better than all Abraham received during his lifetime. So when we are faced with long seasons of waiting, difficulty and hardship, we too must lean on our faith, just as they did. 

Doubt not, God is about fulfilling His promise. 2Cor 1:20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”

Sometimes when I seek Him in prayer for a long-awaited answer, I hear the sound of swords clashing. I smell the fires of war, and I know that there is much spiritual battle going on, hidden from my eyes. For God means to answer  quickly, but His answer must overcome much resistance in reaching me.

anonymous

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Thank God for His faithfulness. 

What answer/promise are you waiting for? Meditate on 2Cor 1:20.

When reading through the Bible, one cannot help but notice that God creates a  covenant with Adam (Gen 1:28-30), a covenant with Noah (Gen 6:8, 9:8-9,11-17), a covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:18), a covenant with Moses (Ex 6:5, 24:1-8, 34:10-28), and a covenant with David (2Sam 7, 23:5, Ps 89:3; 132:12; 2 Chr 13:5). They are all written by God and directed to His people. That tells us that God Most High designs that His people should be in a covenant relationship with Him.

In fact, if you look closely at all of those covenants, you will see that although they each build on each other in terms of complexity and understanding, they each say something to ordinary human beings to the effect of, “God is our God and we are His People”. In that sense they are all really the same covenant – each is a solemn commitment we enter into by His unilateral command. Each lays out what we are to do to honor Him as King. Each explains how God will bless us as His people. And in each there is some signal of death that God’s people will know that there is a grievous penalty for abandoning the Covenant. 

Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord promised another Covenant. This New Covenant (from which we get the words, “New Testament”) is not like the Old Covenant in that it offers forgiveness for disobeying the terms of the Old Covenant. On that basis alone it is a greater covenant. But it is far greater yet, because by the New Covenant, God offers us full reconciliation with Him – so much so that all who are part of it can enter His presence day by day, just as a single man (the high priest) was able to do only once a year under the Old Covenant. In that sense it is a tremendous fulfillment of the Old Covenant. It allows that we are all to be made like the greatest high priest. It is made with the same God (through His Son), and the penalty for disobeying is still eternal separation from Him and all the creation He rules over. To that end we can rightly say that the earlier expressions of His Covenant pointed to the New Covenant. 

Two of those expressions were most pertinent to the Jews; The covenant with Abraham – which established the Hebrew race, and the covenant with David – which established the temple, the dwelling of God among the Hebrew people. All Jews knew all the Old Testament covenants, but it is these two that they could look at to see both the demarcation of their nation as unique out of all the nations of the earth, and the pinnacle of their nation at its very best. 

So when Matthew begins his Gospel with, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham,” he is making a pointed declaration that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Jewish people group could aspire to become. That he also starts off by naming Jesus as Christ – meaning, “anointed one”, and “son of David” (a messianic title), means we can also understand that he writes from that viewpoint. 

So then, the Gospel of Matthew should not be read as a treatise arguing toward understanding Jesus as Messiah. Rather, it should be understood from the start as a revelation of what God’s people are called to become. For it is a record that starts with who Jesus is, but ends with the common calling of all Christ’s followers to be like Him in reaching and restoring God’s people. 

After all, that is exactly what Jesus our Messiah and High Priest ultimately offers – that we, mere fallen human beings – might become perfect children of God through Him, engaging in His work with Him. As Paul would later put it, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” Glory to God!

“The same Jesus Who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and His business is the business of transformation.”

Adrian Rogers

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Think about the fact that God had a holy purpose in mind in creating your family line. From the beginning He meant for you and all your relatives to be part of His work. Praise Him for that high calling, and pray that it would be fully realized in your generation. 

It is considered common historical knowledge that only two of the four Gospels  were written by the apostles; Matthew being one, John the other. Though the writer of Matthew does not clearly identify himself at any point, we gather his identity through a combination of revealed fact (within the Gospel itself) and largely undisputed tradition. In modern times some scholars debate whether the writer actually is the apostle Matthew (some date this Gospel past Matthew’s lifetime). But one cannot doubt that the writer is a Jew, speaking to other Jews in the first century AD. 

Matthew 1:1 says, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In this single sentence the writer discloses that it is of primary importance to firstly understand the genealogy of Christ. More than that, that in so doing we will find Jesus to be directly from the line of David, and directly the descendant of Abraham. A more Jewish history cannot be considered. To put this first and foremost in his book, the writer must have been addressing Jews (who would grasp the significance of that fact).  

But there is even more in this first sentence. For to summarize Jesus as the son of David and also the son of Abraham, the writer (we’ll call him Matthew from here on) is making it clear that Jesus is in some way the embodiment of Jewish history. So while we might read Matthew as a Jewish book for Jewish people, we further understand that “Matthew also wrote as a Christian for Christians.” As the Baker encyclopedia of the Bibles notes, “Matthew takes the form of a theological textbook, a handbook for the church, to instruct the people of God concerning the person and work of Jesus. That these teachings may be more readily and firmly grasped, Matthew presents them in a highly organized and memorable way.”  Speaking of a popular theologian, the same authors state, “According to Wright, Matthew is a revision of the story of Israel as understood in contemporary Judaism.”

Wow.  “A revision of the story of Israel as understood in contemporary Judaism!”  In other words, Matthew wrote his Gospel to purposefully reframe his people’s history so they might understand the significance of Jesus. He contextualized the Gospel of Jesus to his own people group, so that they might ‘get’ Jesus!  A more significant lesson for us in our time could not be gained, most especially when you consider that this Gospel was written (at the earliest) ~60AD. That means that Matthew would have been an elder among his people. He therefore needed to write this down if his message was ever to transcend the limitations of his own physical age. 

That means that from the very first verse, Matthew had the end goal in mind. 

He understood the Christian’s calling to successfully communicate the wonderful news of Jesus Christ – not only to our own generation, but to the next generation and the generations after that.

Let us therefore know that to intentionally grow in the grace and knowledge of God is to also intentionally have God’s purpose’s in mind. Especially that we might bring the Jesus we found to others who do not yet know Him, and that we might do so in a way that they will understand. If they are a digital generation, we cannot communicate our message via a vinyl disc. We have to “speak their language” as it is. Just as Matthew does, even from the very first sentence.

Amen.

“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

APPLICATION: Prayer, Intentionality

Think about the next time you will communicate with someone of another generation. Who are you hoping and praying will one day come to faith in Jesus Christ? 

How does their culture differ from yours? What can you use to bridge that difference? 

Pray that God will use you to speak into their lives about Himself.