This Sunday we’ll be starting a new study in the gospel of Matthew! We’ll be reading all of chapter one. I’m pretty stoked about this as it’s my second time through this gospel. I know it can be a disappointing shock when you begin to read this story and realize it begins with a long genealogy. Not the exciting start we’d hoped for, but an important one for establishing Jesus’ claim as Messiah. The expected Messiah was most certainly supposed to be Jewish, and from the family line of King David. The list of names that Matthew provides establishes just that.
Now, pay attention to the names of the characters in this list. Look up Tamar and Judah. Do some research on Rahab and her occupation; Ruth and her origins. What event launched David and the mother of Solomon in thier relationship? Explore the lives of all those descendants of Solomon and look at the epitaph that they left behind, including Solomon himself. Does this look like a squeaky clean list of characters? Do you spy, with your little eye, any skeletons in Messiah’s closet? What does that tell us about God’s kingdom and who it chooses to work through? How can that combat any shameful past we may have?
V 21 and v23 give us names that declare mission and the nature of the mission of Messiah. What do those names mean to you personally?
Hey – the Bible Project has done a set of WONDERFUL introduction videos that lay out and explain the structure and emphasis of Matthew’s gospel. Please take the time to look at them in preparation for this study! Hope to see you Sunday!
WONDERWHAT 
Saw your post about starting the study in Matthew and in particular the opening chapter with its unexciting listing of the genealogy of Jesus, the importance of which you clearly make in that it traces Jesus’ bloodline back to Adam, thus establishing his human qualification for being the Messiah. In view of that I would suggest there may be an even more important reason for not only Jesus’ genealogy being recorded but also the various other genealogies listed in Scripture. Please forgive my lengthy response.
If we recall the curse God levied on Satan in the guise of a serpent in Genesis 3:15 we read, “And I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” First off we need to understand that God isn’t talking about baby snakes here when he refers to the serpent and “your seed.” He is talking about the literal offspring of Satan and his fallen angels. If you were Satan and just got zapped with this curse, how would you try to nullify it? How could you keep the seed of the woman from bruising or crushing your head? You would try and corrupt the seed of the woman so that her seed no longer was hers. But a hybrid subhuman seed instead which would then no longer qualify as human, and thus nullify the curse. I believe what is really going on behind the scenes with this war of the seeds, is genetic warfare.
In Genesis 6 we read the account of Satan’s first attempt at corrupting the human genome when the “sons of god” came down and fornicated with the “daughters of men.” Enoch in his prophecy refers to these fallen angels as Watchers. Their offspring, the seed of the serpent, were the “mighty men” also known as giants as well as other subhuman hybrids. Further proof of the success of this genetic warfare can be ascertained by Gods reaction. It is right at this point when God sees the “wickedness of man,” this corrupting of the human genome that He decides to destroy the human race. Why would God decide at this point to destroy mankind? Men have practiced “evil continually in his heart” in every generation yet God hasn’t implemented wholesale annihilation of mankind since then. So why then? I believe that the intermarrying with these fallen angels, the seed of the serpent, became so widespread that the DNA of humanity itself was threatened. Thus God in order to prevent the complete corruption of the human race had to destroy it, save for one man and his offspring.
Only “Noah finds grace in the sight of the Lord.” (Gen 3:8). Why did Noah find grace? Verse 9 tells us. He was “perfect in his generations.” The word perfect here can also be translated as “uncorrupted or undefiled.” Noah’s genealogy was uncorrupted. His DNA was still purely human so that humanity could be saved through him. Apparently the intermarrying and corrupting of the rest of the seed of the woman was so widespread that no one else could make that claim.
After the flood we read the accounts of the Israelites when they spied out the promise land that they were terrified because the land was populated with giants. Where did these giants come from? Apparently there was a second attempt by fallen angels to corrupt the human genome. This time it wasn’t as widespread so that the Israelites where able to eventually destroy these human hybrids and cleanse the land. David being the most famous giant slayer when he killed Goliath one of the last of these subhuman hybrids.
So what we see in Matthew 1 is a declaration of victory, the genetic proof that the seed of the woman was maintained and uncorrupted from Adam to Jesus. Thus establishing Jesus as the true Messiah and the One who is fully qualified to crush the head of the serpent. God wins. Satan loses.
Matthew 1 may be one of the most important chapters in the Bible.