Matthew 1:1-17

The Tree of Life

•~ 2,000 years covered in this genealogy

•46 names & Christ Jesus

•14 generations between Abraham - David

•14 generations between David - Exile

•14 generations between Exile - Christ

•Genesis 5 = genealogy from Adam - Noah

•Genesis 11 = Noah - Abraham

It seems important to The Jews to know their family line!

•1 Chronicles 1-9 = Descendants of Noah (Including David & his successors to the throne of Israel)

•Ezra 2:62 = Levitical priests who lost proof of their family history were denied a claim to the priesthood after exile

•It’s very important for this to be recorded

•Qu. Can you remember 5, 15, 20 generations ago?

•Where do you come from?

•Why are you here?

•Where are you going?

•Phylogenetic Tree:

•Why does Matthew start like this?

•The most important thing about Jesus is...

•WHO HE IS

•He does what He does because of who He is!

•See the concern of who He is in Matt. 13:55-57

I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that

people often say about Him: "I am ready to accept Jesus as the great

moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one

thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort

of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would

either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a boiled egg

- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or

something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him

and kill Him as demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and

God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His

being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did

not intend to. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

•vs. 1 - Who is Jesus?

•Christ (God is His Father)

•Son of Abraham (Father of the race)

•Son of David (Father of the royal family)

•God promised both Abraham & David a son through whom God would do something significant in His plan

•For both these men, their immediate offspring were not that promise

•The son of Abraham

•Genesis 12:7 - “To your offspring I will give this land”

•Literally: Offspring = “seed” in the singular

•Gal. 3:29 - Abrahams seed & Us

•Abraham - Isaac - Esau & Jacob

•Jacob - 12 tribes - Egypt

•400 years between Genesis - Exodus

•Through many ups & downs, not exactly The Blessing!

•Matthew Introduces Jesus as The Promise!

•The son of David (2 Sam. 7:12-13)

•Solomon was not the fulfillment of this promise

•The temple he built was wonderful

•However, it was destroyed by 586 BC - Babylonians

•Heirs of David sat on the throne for 18 generations

•No more of David’s heirs after exile

•So how can Jacob in Gen. 49:10 be true?

•Matthew Introduces Jesus as The Promise!