Who Do You Think You Are?
Opening Prayer
Loving God, thank You for who You are and for who I am in You. May I discover deeper truths of who You are in Your Word.
Read Matthew 1:1–17
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah 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 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.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
What gives you your identity and sense of security?A popular program on British TV invites celebrities to explore their family trees. If some dubious character can be found, so much the better. That is why Matthew’s apparently rather uninteresting list of (sometimes unpronounceable) names is more interesting than it appears.
Unexpectedly there are four women. One was a prostitute (5; Josh. 2:1), another posed as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law (3; Gen. 38:13–16), a third was an adulterer (6; 2 Sam. 11:2–5) and the fourth was from hated and despised Moab (5; Ruth 1:4). The men are no better: Abraham a liar, Jacob a deceiver, David an adulterer and murderer, Manasseh the most ungodly king Judah had—an unsavory bunch to find among Messiah’s ancestors. That encourages us to believe that God can work his plans through some pretty unlikely people—including people like us.
Matthew makes a point by starting with Abraham (2) and highlighting David and the Exile (17). Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) and to David (2 Sam. 7:11–13), the One who restores the line of kings which ended with the Exile. Jesus is the center of God’s plan to sort out a broken world, a plan which stretches back through history and forward to the end of time.
Apply
What things define you and give you your sense of identity? Do you need to redefine who you are based on what God says?
Closing prayer
Thank You, God, for the new sense of identity and security that we have in Jesus.
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