Matthew 2:1-12 I don’t know if you ever think about why the books of the Bible are ordered the way they are. But I can tell you one reason Matthew is first in the New Testament. Matthew is first because– of all the gospels – it most clearly and directly links the story of Jesus with the prophets of the Old Testament. Matthew is constantly saying things like, “as it was written by the prophets,” and “this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet.” Matthew connects all the dots. He tells us what we need to know. Yet, as pedantic as Matthew is sometimes, he is also full of surprises at other times. Take the genealogy in Chapter 1. To which you might say, “No thanks, I’m good. You can keep it.” Nobody reads the genealogies in the Bible. They’re boring. Nobody cares about all those names. […]
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How Will We Meet Him?
Matthew 2:13-23 Let me tell you a story. It’s from a book called A Single Light, by Maia Wojciechowska. The story takes place in Spain, but it could be anywhere. There was a small village that had once been important but no longer was; it had once been prosperous but no longer was. A young man in this village went off to the city to find his fortune. He didn’t find a fortune, but he did find a wife – Maria, whom he loved very much – and he brought her home to the village. Soon she was pregnant, a joyful thing, and gave birth to a child – a girl. Maria loved her child and thought her perfect. She would say, “Look how she never cries! Only angels never cry. My child must be an angel.” Within a few months everyone in the village knew what Maria couldn’t see – that the child was deaf and mute. She would […]
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