PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Matthew 1:1-17
“Whose mother was Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s wife [Bathsheba]” (Matthew 1:3,4,5)
So often when I come to a list of names in the bible, I skip over it.
It’s hard to think how the Lord can speak to me through a list of names.
But if you pay attention to this list of names, there’s something interesting.
There are four women included in this list, and not the well known Hebrew matriarchs.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba do not have the most stellar reputations.
Tamar was impregnated by her father-in-law when she posed as a prostitute.
Rahab was a prostitute, Ruth was a foreigner, and Bathsheba had an affair with David.
And yet these women are mentioned in Jesus’s family… not Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca!
I believe the Spirit is reminding us that even we can belong to Jesus’s family.
We are not here because of our goodness, but because of His goodness.
Even more amazing, Jesus uses sinners like me to bring Himself into the world.
My best witness is not my good life but my humble admission of weakness and need for Jesus!
This encourages other sinners and strugglers to know they are welcome and can belong too!
Do I/we make sinners feel welcome in Jesus’s family… like Jesus did?
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, help me to see that I am no better or worse than others. Use me to help others to see this too, so that You can come into their lives as well!
Thank you for looking up the 14 generations. Very interesting to see how Matthew makes his point!
I noticed that all four of the women’s names are in the first 14 generations. A coincident ?
GHT, not exactly sure the women’s names are in the first 14 generations, but I notice that they are all closely connected to the great Hebrew heroes – Abraham and David – which goes to show that even the greatest believers are no better than anyone else, we all have ‘stuff’ in our lives.
Correction: Matthew uses Joseph’s line, and Luke uses Mary’s (according to Wikipedia?).
Good catch SKG!!!!
As I read through the names, it struck me, too, that women were mentioned, but also, as I got to the end, I realized that Joseph only parented Jesus, he did not contribute genetic material to Jesus (I suppose the same could be true about Mary). I wondered if Mary’s line would be worth examining…interesting to see your comment, Norm, that Matthew does this in his book. Huh!
Good question ms, I did a Google Search (‘jesus genealogy fourteen’) to see what I could discover.
First of all, notice that Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23-28) is different than Matthew’s.
It has been suggested that Matthew uses Mary’s line, while Luke uses Joseph’s line.
Luke traces Jesus line to Adam, to highlight His identity as the restored Son of God.
Matthew traces Jesus line to David to show that He is the promised ‘son of David’.
There were not actually 14 generations, but he is showing the connection between Jesus and David.
The numerical value (gematra) of David’s name in Hebrew (d-v-d) is fourteen.
Matthew selects ‘fourteen’ generations to make this point: Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David.
In our day, this is seen as twisting the facts, but in Matthew’s time it was making a point.
Interesting!
The genealogy of Jesus is filled with many names… many whose significance is unknown to me. It also includes 5 women, 4 of whom were “outsiders”, but welcomed into Jesus’ family line. My take-away: Jesus’ family includes everyone: the “outsiders”, the sinners, the chosen ones. Interesting to me is the three groups of 14 generations. Is that significant?