Matthew 1

Think of all the great opening lines that you know out of all the books that you read or films that you saw - 

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife...

Matthew picks a genealogy to start with.  Hmmm.  Can you imagine a publisher today?  "Well Matthew, I like the racy bit with the potential divorce and the stuff with dreams and angels but really, a family tree at the start?  We have a man called Luke working on a similar project and he's kept his genealogy but moved it to a later chapter after he has caught the readers attention, would you not think of doing the same?"

So why does Matthew chose to start this way?

There are many different ways of telling a story.  You could write a work of prose, straightforward story telling, "One day Mr McCartney got out of bed, had a cup of tea and went out to catch the bus, etc."  You could write a poem, "From Morpheus' gentle grip / by caffeine and cold released / to waking land he slipped / etc, ect."  You could write a song, "Got up got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, Found my way downstairs and drank a cup. And looking up, I noticed I was late, etc."  They are all different genres and all do different jobs.  The Bible also employs different genres, history, letters, proverbs, songs, poetry and, here, genealogy.

One of the most overlooked means of telling a story these days is the family tree.  Barack Obama uses it in "Dreams from my Father" but very few other modern writers.  This is a shame because genealogy can be a very powerful and very neat storytelling tool.  In Matthew 1 we have a genealogy that, amongst many other things, tells the story of God's faithfulness to the person at the start of the genealogy (Abraham) and also very neatly shows the place of one of the most scandalous figures in the early story of Jesus the Messiah, his mother Mary.

It's all to do with making babies

Abraham was promised descendants.  He was promised lots and lots and lots of them.  So many they would impossible to count.  This is one of the reasons that the Bible employs genealogy as such a powerful story telling tool.  This dead end couple, Abram and Sarai, become the founders of a family that Matthew proudly lists only one tree of and that continues on to this day with millions of descendants of Abraham in Israel and around the world.

God promised babies to Abraham and here they all are given in their promise fulfilling generations.

Where does Mary fit in to this story then?  This genealogy is different from many others in the Bible in that it not only lists the baby boys but also the girls too.  Each of the women in this list are marked out by being someone wreathed in some form of scandal.  Tamar plays the part of a prostitute to force the men in her society to give her and her dead husband their rights.  Rahab is a real prostitute and an outsider to Israel.  Ruth is an accursed Moabite who through her loving kindness overturns the laws of Deuteronomy.  Bathsheba is the adulteress who becomes involved in a plot that ends in the murder of her husband.  God forgives both her and David and allows them to be part of his historical plan for his Messiah.

At the end of this scandalous list Mary's own scandal is laid out for all the world to see.  People knew where babies came from in those days and it took angelic intervention for even a righteous man like Joseph to accept that this miracle of virgin birth was the work of God.  What happens is scandalous and shocking to the people of Israel but it is no different from how God worked with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and the many other women of the Bible through whom God fulfilled his promise to Abraham that through him all nations would be blessed.

Next time you see a genealogy in the Bible don't let your eyes glaze over and be tempted to skim it.  It might just tell you a powerful story of how God works faithfully with broken and unlikely people.

Matthew 1

New International Version (NIV)

The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

1 This is the genealogy[a] of Jesus the Messiah[b] the son of David, the son of Abraham:

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

Perez the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

4 Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon,

5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

6 and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

Abijah the father of Asa,

8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,

Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,

Jotham the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh the father of Amon,

Amon the father of Josiah,

11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

12 After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

Abihud the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor,

14 Azor the father of Zadok,

Zadok the father of Akim,

Akim the father of Elihud,

15 Elihud the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob,

16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

17 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 Messiah.

Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[d]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[e] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[f] because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”).

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.