- 1:1-17 How were Ruth and David related? What about Ruth and Rahab?
- 1:18-25 How did the angel appear to Joseph? What do you think “Jesus” might mean? What about “Immanuel”?
- 2:1-12 What did the wise men say that upset Herod so much? Where were Mary and her baby when the wise men found them? How did they know they should return by another way?
- 2:13-23 How long were Joseph, Mary and Jesus to stay in Egypt? Why did Herod kill the children of Bethlehem? How did the family end up in Nazareth?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Matthew 1-2
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Looks good, Cheryl, and you are right Yvonne, the background is great!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Phyllis. Be sure to let me know if you run into any glitches.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if you want more generic questions to get you thinking, try these "SPECK" questions:
ReplyDelete1) S - Is there a Sin for me to avoid?
2) P - Is there a Promise for me to trust?
3) E - Is there an Example for me to follow?
4) C - Is there a Command for me to obey?
5) K - How does this passage increase my Knowledge of God and/or His will?
I will also put this list on the "How to Use This Study Guide" page.
Thursday Morning comments - Matthew 1:
ReplyDelete1. Ruth was the mother of Obed, who was the father of Jesse, the father of David. So that would make Ruth (for whom the book of Ruth is named)the great-grandmother of David, the 2nd King of Israel.
Rahab (the prostitute who protected the Israelite spies before they conquered Jericho) was Ruth's mother-in-law! She and Salmon were the parents of Boaz, who married Ruth. (See Joshua 2:12 and 6:22-25 for more info on how Rahab came to be a resident of Israel.) Because it appears that Boaz was much older than Ruth, it's possible the women never met.
We also noted that only unlikely women appear in the printed genealogy of Jesus: Tamar, who was involved in a one-night stand with her father-in-law; Rahab a harlot and a Gentile; Ruth, a Gentile from Moab; Bathsheba, an adulteress; and Mary, a virgin.
2. The angel appeared to Joseph in a dream (which prevented him from breaking his engagement to Mary in shame). The name "Jesus" is a form of "Joshua," which mean "YHWH (Jehovah) saves."
After telling of Jesus' physical heritage, Matthew, in keeping with the purpose of his gospel, calls him "The Christ" (Greek for "the anointed one") or the Messiah (Hebrew for "the anointed one") in three verses in a row: 1:16,17 and 18. Then in 1:23, the One with this distinguished physical bloodline is named "God with us." From the beginning, He is both man and God.
3. King Herod the Great saw Jesus as a rival to his throne. (This was also a factor in the crucifixion.) Mary and the Child were in a house in Bethlehem when the wise men visited them. The wise men were warned in a dream to return home by another way. [Herod the Great died in 4 B.C., which means by our calendars, Jesus was born no later than 4 B.C. and probably earlier.]
4. Herod killed all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two, thinking he could eradicate this "King of the Jews" whom the wise men wanted to worship. Jesus' family stayed in Egypt until Herod died. God warned Joseph in a dream not to return to Judea, so the family settled in the town of Nazareth, in Galilee.
For Discussion:
ReplyDeletePeople during this time apparently believed they should listen to their dreams. What made their dreams different than dreams we may have today?
1. Joseph, 1:20-23
2. The wise men, 2:12
3. Joseph, 2:13
4. Joseph, 2:19-23
My guess is that during that time, God directly dealt with them, which changed with the New Covenant. My opinion is that our dreams still give us some clue to our subconscious, but it's not God. They must have seen the "visions" clearly, with no doubt about what they saw... unlike what we recall about our dreams now.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'll do some research and see if I contradict myself.
Good! I'll be interested to see what you find out about dreams. I suspect you're right.
ReplyDeleteThese are certainly verified as being from God. I hadn't thought about the "recall" angle.
I've sent you an e-mail with a website I found. More on today's dreams: there's evidence that our subconcious does use dreams to communicate. I've read stories about discoveries made from a dream... for example, the discovery of DNA.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I couldn't confirm that. What I DID find, interestingly enough, was that DNA was first discovered by a woman, according to Wikipedia: "However, Watson and Crick took the majority of their information from a little known scientist named Rosalind Franklin, without her knowledge. She discovered the exact structure of DNA before either of the two, however she died before the public could find out about her. Watson never and to this day, has not given her credit for the discovery."
I've strayed from Bible study....
Thanks for your comments, Yvonne. I would also agree with this statement at the website you mentioned:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, God used dreams in the Bible to warn men of sin and wrong, but today we have His completed word that will keep us from sin. As a matter of fact the Psalmist said, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." Something else to consider is that dreams were often for the purpose of revealing prophecy, yet we have in the word of God the revelation of the future events that God wants to make known to men.
...and losing focus is the downside of the Internet. Way Too Much Information!
That's exactly the portion of the article that I noticed most. There's something about people who agree with you.... (smile). It doesn't seem as though God needs to directly tell us now that we have His Word (both in the sense of revelation and in the fact that Christ is called "The Word." Christianity is both freeing and more demanding.
ReplyDelete