The Christmas story through the lens of Matthew’s Gospel, that’s what we’ve been looking at over the last five days. Matthew goes to great lengths to establish Jesus’ Jewish credentials through presenting his human genealogy, next he shows how Jesus is the very fulfilment of the mysterious Isaiah 7: 14 prophecy. The genealogy instructs us as to who Jesus is, the next section informs us how he came to be born.
Yesterday we looked at the significance of the human genealogy of Jesus with which Matthew chose to start his Gospel. As you read through those names, did you notice that there were five women on the list? Perhaps you thought nothing of that but given the fact that, ordinarily, women were not included in the genealogies of the first century, we should be alerted to a certain significance.
You might be tempted to let your eyes drift quickly down the seemingly endless genealogy with which Matthew begins his Gospel in order to get to the real action. But resist that temptation and consider rather that this is the most fitting and compelling way to start the New Testament. Why would Matthew begin his Gospel with a boring list of more than 40 names?
The calling of Matthew is an episode in the life of Jesus that appears in all three synoptic Gospels. We might consider him an odd choice if Jesus was trying to curry favour with the Jews. Matthew was a tax collector..on behalf of the hated oppressor, Rome. This made him as repugnant as a pig to the Jews. And yet here he is, some 30 years later, writing an account of Jesus’ life in such a way as to intentionally and directly address his fellow Jews. Here he is, some 30 years later, one of the 12 foundational apostles of Christ’s ongoing ministry in the world.
When it comes to the Christmas story, we all mush. We Christians carry around in our heads what Bernard Brandon Scott calls a ‘mush gospel’ and nowhere is this more evident than at Christmas time. The birth of Jesus is recorded only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke but the universal Christmas story we know so well tends to be a combination of Matthew and Luke’s narratives with a bit of Santa Claus and Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol thrown in.
This year, 3 seasoned FAITH STATION contributors, Giullio di Somma, Johan Roos and Gill D’achada, will be taking us through the differences and similarities of the two Jesus birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke.
Up to now FAITH STATION has been delivered to your Inbox in the form of a pdf containing all the daily devotions for the month. From December onwards, all new Faith Station devotions will appear as daily blogposts on the new Kings Cross website. Past FAITH STATION editions will be made available as ebooks on our new website too.
If you honour the word of God, if you consider that every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is a precious treasure, if you hang on the lips of the Lord, waiting for him to speak so that you can obey…THEN you will enjoy an intimacy with Jesus and the Father that others simply will not know.
This month’s Faith Station,Feeding On The Word, has been designed by myself to restore the significance of the Word to your heart and to give you the tools to enable you to put into practice a conscious discipline around studying and meditating on the Word. Do look out for your August Faith Station in your Inbox and let us know if you didn’t get it.
It’s a controversial subject – Divine healing – but one that I feel particularly passionate about. I’ve had revelation about the subject that has carried me through many years of life, without once needing to visit a doctor or take medicine.
I was recently commissioned to write a documentary script about the persecuted church in the Middle East and during the course of my research I have come across testimonies and stories of modern-day martyrs and suffering Christians that have moved me greatly. One such story belongs to Richard Wurmbrand, who suffered torture in prison for 14 years because he would not renounce Christ and embrace communism.
The Christmas story through the lens of Matthew’s Gospel, that’s what we’ve been looking at over the last five days. Matthew goes to great lengths to establish Jesus’ Jewish credentials through presenting his human genealogy, next he shows how Jesus is the very fulfilment of the mysterious Isaiah 7: 14 prophecy. The genealogy instructs us as to who Jesus is, the next section informs us how he came to be born.
Yesterday we looked at the significance of the human genealogy of Jesus with which Matthew chose to start his Gospel. As you read through those names, did you notice that there were five women on the list? Perhaps you thought nothing of that but given the fact that, ordinarily, women were not included in the genealogies of the first century, we should be alerted to a certain significance.
You might be tempted to let your eyes drift quickly down the seemingly endless genealogy with which Matthew begins his Gospel in order to get to the real action. But resist that temptation and consider rather that this is the most fitting and compelling way to start the New Testament. Why would Matthew begin his Gospel with a boring list of more than 40 names?
The calling of Matthew is an episode in the life of Jesus that appears in all three synoptic Gospels. We might consider him an odd choice if Jesus was trying to curry favour with the Jews. Matthew was a tax collector..on behalf of the hated oppressor, Rome. This made him as repugnant as a pig to the Jews. And yet here he is, some 30 years later, writing an account of Jesus’ life in such a way as to intentionally and directly address his fellow Jews. Here he is, some 30 years later, one of the 12 foundational apostles of Christ’s ongoing ministry in the world.
When it comes to the Christmas story, we all mush. We Christians carry around in our heads what Bernard Brandon Scott calls a ‘mush gospel’ and nowhere is this more evident than at Christmas time. The birth of Jesus is recorded only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke but the universal Christmas story we know so well tends to be a combination of Matthew and Luke’s narratives with a bit of Santa Claus and Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol thrown in.
This year, 3 seasoned FAITH STATION contributors, Giullio di Somma, Johan Roos and Gill D’achada, will be taking us through the differences and similarities of the two Jesus birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke.
Up to now FAITH STATION has been delivered to your Inbox in the form of a pdf containing all the daily devotions for the month. From December onwards, all new Faith Station devotions will appear as daily blogposts on the new Kings Cross website. Past FAITH STATION editions will be made available as ebooks on our new website too.
If you honour the word of God, if you consider that every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is a precious treasure, if you hang on the lips of the Lord, waiting for him to speak so that you can obey…THEN you will enjoy an intimacy with Jesus and the Father that others simply will not know.
This month’s Faith Station, Feeding On The Word, has been designed by myself to restore the significance of the Word to your heart and to give you the tools to enable you to put into practice a conscious discipline around studying and meditating on the Word. Do look out for your August Faith Station in your Inbox and let us know if you didn’t get it.
It’s a controversial subject – Divine healing – but one that I feel particularly passionate about. I’ve had revelation about the subject that has carried me through many years of life, without once needing to visit a doctor or take medicine.
I was recently commissioned to write a documentary script about the persecuted church in the Middle East and during the course of my research I have come across testimonies and stories of modern-day martyrs and suffering Christians that have moved me greatly. One such story belongs to Richard Wurmbrand, who suffered torture in prison for 14 years because he would not renounce Christ and embrace communism.
