“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” [Luke 1:31-33 (ESV)]
Most of us breeze through (or skip altogether) the Bible’s genealogies. Nevertheless, when genealogy and all those “begats” seem so important in Scripture, what explanation is there for the difference between the genealogies of Jesus found in Luke and Matthew? Because Jews were meticulous about recording genealogies, it’s inconceivable to have two conflicting yet correct lists of Jesus’ lineage.
The two gospels agree on one important point—neither Luke nor Matthew call Joseph Jesus’ “father”. Matthew refers to him as the “the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ” and Luke simply says that Jesus was enomizeto (considered, thought to be, or assumed) to be Joseph’s son. While the two genealogies agree from Abraham to David, they differ from then on. Matthew says David’s son Solomon was Jesus’ ancestor and Luke says it was David’s son Nathan. While there are a variety of convoluted explanations, most biblical scholars believe these are two different, but equally correct, genealogies—Matthew’s through Jesus’ legal father, Joseph, and Luke’s through His birth mother, Mary.
With his frequent references to the Hebrew Scriptures and emphasis on Jesus’ fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, Matthew’s gospel has a distinctly Jewish viewpoint and it is believed that he directed his gospel to Jews and Jewish believers. Reflecting the importance of the Messiah’s lineage to the Jewish people, Matthew’s gospel begins by calling Jesus “the Messiah, a descendant of David and Abraham” and follows the traditional Hebrew format of going from the past to the present where he again identifies Jesus as the Messiah. Although Joseph was Jesus’ father in name only, he was the Lord’s legal father and scholars believe Matthew provided Jesus’ official (paternal) genealogy from Abraham to David to David’s son Solomon and eventually to Joseph. His list emphasized both Jesus’s legal right to be the king of the Jews as well as His fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies.
On the other hand, Luke addressed his gospel to the “most honorable Theophilus” and his primary audience is thought to have been mostly Gentile Greeks. Luke lists Jesus’ ancestry the Greek way and goes from the present to ancient past. Unlike Matthew, he doesn’t stop with Abraham but continues all the way back to Adam. Scholars believe Luke’s to be Jesus’ actual physical lineage through His mother Mary and her father Heli. While giving a mother’s lineage was unusual, so was a virgin birth! To a Gentile, if Jesus weren’t the physical son of Joseph, there would be no need to know the man’s genealogy. Rather than Solomon, Jesus’ royal lineage comes through a blood relationship with Mary’s ancestor Nathan, another of David’s sons with Bathsheba.
Luke placed Jesus’ genealogy after His baptism when the Holy Spirit descended on Him and a voice from heaven said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” That heavenly voice established Jesus’ divinity—that He was the son of God. By tracing Jesus’ line all the way back to the first man, Adam, Luke established the dual nature of Jesus—that He was fully human as well as divine. It also emphasized Jesus’ relevance, not just to Jews, but to the entire human race.
We’re left with the problem of Joseph’s father—Matthew says it was Jacob while Luke says Joseph was ”of” Heli. It is believed that Heli was Mary’s father and, with no Greek word for “son-in-law,” scholars posit that Joseph became Heli’s “son” through his marriage to Mary.
Rather than contradicting one another, these two genealogies complement each other by giving us both Jesus’ official and actual lineage. They agree that Mary was Jesus’ mother, that her husband Joseph was not Jesus’ father, and that Jesus descended from the family of Judah as well as the house of David both legally (through Joseph) and by bloodline (through Mary). They show that Jesus fulfilled God’s promise of offspring to Abraham as well as his promise to David that His offspring would sit on his throne forever.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. [Blaise Pascal]
One day, the disciples scolded some parents for bringing their children to Jesus for a blessing. After telling them the Kingdom belonged to those who received it like a child, He called the children to Him. Unlike adults, children accept their humble position and live by faith and trust. Without self-consciousness and knowing they are in complete dependence on the giver, they receive gifts with humility and enthusiasm. Like explorers, children have a sense of wonder on their quest to learn about the world around them. They are filled with excitement and awe at every new thing they experience because life hasn’t become routine, predictable, or run-of-the mill to them.
For centuries, access to the written Word of God was limited to just a few. The printing press wasn’t invented until 1439 and, at the time, only about 20% of the population could read. As a result, churches were decorated with paintings, stained glass windows, statues, carvings, and mosaics depicting biblical stories or illustrating theological concepts. For people who couldn’t read the book, religious art told the story. Consider how the Stations of the Cross in Roman Catholic churches illustrate the events of Good Friday. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words! While most nativity scenes are inaccurate, our depictions of the nativity don’t have to be historically exact to be meaningful.
The earliest known portrayal of Jesus’ birth is a bas relief on a Roman sarcophagus from around 385. It depicts the swaddled Christ child in the manger flanked by an ox at His head and an ass at His feet. Why are they present instead of Joseph and Mary? In 1223, Francis of Assisi brought some hay and a manger to a cave and celebrated Mass there on Christmas Eve. Even though Mary and Joseph weren’t present, an ass and an ox were! In 1291, Pope Nicholas IV commissioned Arnolfo di Cambio to create a permanent nativity. While there are statues of Mary and Jesus, Joseph, and three Magi, the sixth statue shows the heads of an ox and an ass rather than shepherd or angel. Besides the baby Jesus, the ass and the ox are the most ancient and consistent elements in depictions of the nativity. Why do these two animals, neither of which is mentioned in the gospels, have such a prominent place in our nativity scenes, Christmas cards, and carols?
For those of us who attend liturgical churches, yesterday was the last Sunday of the liturgical (or church) year: Christ the King Sunday. A kind of liturgical “New Year’s Eve,” it is the climax and conclusion of the Church’s year.
In C.S. Lewis’ children’s fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the youngest child, Lucy Pevensie, happens upon an enchanted armoire and steps into the magical world of Narnia. Upon returning, she rushes to tell her siblings of her astonishing adventure. Hearing such a tall tale and finding no concrete proof of its truth, her older siblings assume the story to be a figment of her imagination. They take their concern over her falsehood to their wise elderly uncle. He cautions them to use logic and consider Lucy’s story carefully. He points out there are only three possibilities: either she’s lying, crazy, or telling the truth. After pointing out that lies usually are more plausible than Lucy’s inexplicable tale, he asks if she’s lied before. The children admit she’s always been truthful. After pointing out that none of Lucy’s behavior indicates mental illness, they all agree she can’t have gone mad. He then suggests that since she’s neither a liar nor crazy, they could consider the possibility that Lucy’s story is true.
Devotions of the Heart 