Matthew 1.2-17

Read Matthew 1.2-17 before going on with this devotion. If you are on the internet and don't have a Bible, you can go to biblegateway.com and look up this passage.


Ok, now after reading this passage, hopefully you weren't too excited after reading the genealogy that you decided to not read the rest of the devotion, haha. Boring I know. An interesting fact for you guys is that Matthew 1 is THE most read chapter in the Bible. Yes, that is correct. People get excited about their spiritual life or are going through a hard time and they decide to read the Bible and they turn to the first book of the New Testament and read the first chapter and they think, a genealogy? a bunch of names? how does this help my life????!!!!

Especially for us Americans, genealogies are not that big of deal. I don't even know who my Great grandad's father is, let alone trace a genealogy for 32 generations!!! But that is us Americans, and that is not the initial audience the book is written to. It was written to Jews in the first century, and they cared a great deal about genealogies.

My former Academic Dean at my College, Mark Scott, told about a time when he was preaching in Hawaii and met a man who was part of a royal family and he was shocked with what he saw. The man had a tattoo that covered his entire body. It was a tradition for the royal family, going back hundreds of years, for the man who was next in line for the throne to get a tattoo of the family tree on his entire body in order to preserve the blood line, the royal line, the genealogy of the royal family. It is so important to them that they tattoo it permanently on their skin.

Genealogies are very important, not to us, but to the ancient world.

Yet when the ancient world, the Jews in the first century, would have read this genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, they would have gasped in shock over and over again. For there were four people included in the genealogy that were out of place. Can you guess who?

They are found in vs. 1.3, 5, and 6. The four people that are out of place are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah's wife, whose name is Bathsheba.

So why would the Jews who would have read this would have gasped? Why are they out of place? There are a number of options, and after looking at all of them, I think we can see the kind of people that God uses to bring about his blessing for the world.

So here are the three different options.

1. They are women

A lot of people say that these names are out of place because women, in the ancient world, were not included into the genealogies. They were not considered on the same social level as men were and so for legal situations, such as the proof of the blood line of someone, they would not be included in the list, they were not important.

Yet they are included in the most important genealogy, blood line, ever in the history of the world!! So seeing women included in the genealogy makes a person ask a question why? Why did Matthew, someone who was very much a part of this kind of culture and a Jew who was wanting to show that Jesus was the Messiah in the line of David and Abraham, why would he jeopardize this huge undertaking by including women in it? That is where the next option comes into play.

2. They are sinners

If you look at each story of these women, they are kind of sketchy. Tamar's story is found in Genesis 38 and it is a crazy one at best. Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, had two sons named Er and Onan. Er married a woman named Tamar. Er was a wicked man so God put him to death. So Onan had to marry Tamar and give her children to carry on his brother's name. Onan wouldn't so God put him to death. Then Judah, Tamar's father-in-law, told Tamar to live as a widow till his next son grew old enough to lay with her so that his brother's name would continue on through his kids. Judah forgot about Tamar and she was alone. So she dressed up as a prostitute and waited for Judah to come into town, who hired her to sleep with him, and out of this whole mess, Tamar seducing her father-in-law, came the line of the Messiah. perhaps Matthew is showing us that God uses sinners to bring about his blessing to the world, sinners from all kinds of messed up families and backgrounds. And these kind of backgrounds also surround the other three women.

Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho, Ruth laid at the threshing floor of Boaz and who knows what happened that night, and Uriah's wife was impregnated by David and her husband was killed by David, something that would come out of a Soap opera. These people were messed up!!! And thank God that we know he can still use messed up people like these women to accomplish his will. As my professor always says, "God can still hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.

After realizing that women in a genealogy was out of place, and after knowing that their stories are something that would come out of a reality TV show (I say this as I am watching the finale of the Bachelorette), the last option as to why they are included in the genealogy comes to the forefront of our minds.

3. They all are NOT Jews.

They aren't Jews!!!! Not only did Matthew want to show his Jewish audience that God uses messed up people, he also wanted to show them that their Messiah, the one they have been waiting for for so long was  not just for them alone, he was for ALL people.

Tamar was from the land of Canaan, Rahab lived in the city of Jericho, Ruth was a Moabite and Bathsheba, Uriah's wife was the wife of a man who was called, "Uriah the Hittite". This is HUGE. The Jews prided themselves that they were the chosen people of God and no one else was included in that, but that is where they missed God's plan for them. They were his chosen people, but that was not at the exclusion of the nations but FOR the INLUSION of the nations. And seeing these four women in this genealogy, there are two take-aways after looking at this passage:

1. God uses messed up people to accomplish his purpose

So no matter who you are and what your story is and no matter how messed up your family life is like or where you came from, God wants to use you. There are no substitute players in the Kingdom of God, everyone is a starter.

2. God wants to bless everyone, all the NATIONS.

We are not to exclude anyone from the gift of Jesus Christ. God is using us, but we have to allow ourselves to be used for his purpose, not ours, and to bring all people to him, not just the ones we like.

So no matter who you are, God wants to use you to bless all the nations. And God wants to use you to bless all the nations, no matter who THEY are.