EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/3/2026 11:17 PM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Intro
to “The Messiah’s Royal Lineage”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
“Luke
3:23-38”
Message of the verses: “23 When He began His ministry, Jesus
Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was commonly held, the son of
Joseph, the son of Eli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of
Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son
of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Hesli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of
Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of
Joda,27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of
Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of
Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of
Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of
Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of
Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of
Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of
Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son
of Admin, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of
Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of
Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg,
the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad,
the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah,
the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,38
the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”
I will continue from where I left off this morning as
I continue to copy the introduction to these verses from the pen of John
MacArthur.
“Because of the significance of genealogies
in the ancient world, Luke’s readers would have understood why he included the
genealogy of Jesus Christ. It was an
essential credential for one claiming to be the Messiah to be a descendant of
David. Luke has already given several
credentials that establish irrefutably that Jesus is the Messiah. The account of John the Baptist’s miraculous
birth to an elderly, barren couple introduced His prophesied forerunner (Luke
1:17; cf. Isaiah 40:3-4; Mal. 3:1). Then
the angel Gabriel announced to a young virgin named Mary that she was to be the
mother of the Messiah (Luke 1:31-33).
When Mary visited her older relative Elisabeth, John the Baptist’s
mother, ‘Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said,
‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the
mother of my Lord would come to me?’’’(vv. 41-43). Her husband, Zacharias, also filled with the
Holy Spirit (v. 67), prophesied that John the Baptist would be Jesus’
forerunner. The angels who announced His
birth to the shepherds (2:8-11) testified
that Jesus was Savior, Messiah, and the Lord (v. 11). Two righteous and godly individuals, Simeon
and Anna, also added their testimony that Jesus (see especially vv.
15-17). Then at His baptism, the Holy
Spirit and God the Father gave the ultimate affirmation that Jesus is the Son
of God, and thus the Messiah and the Savior of the world.
“The genealogies of Jesus recorded
by Matthew and Luke prove that He was not a self-appointed Messiah; a misguided
reformer caught up in popular acclaim who began to have delusions of
grandeur. Nor was He merely a good
teacher of morality and ethics, or a revolutionary out to overthrow Rome’s
rule. His genealogies, tracing His
ancestry back through David and Abraham to Adam and ultimately to God Himself,
show that Jesus was Israel’s rightful king.
“A comparison of the genealogies in
Matthew and Luke reveals marked differences.
Some reflect the writers’ different purposes. Matthew placed his genealogy at the beginning
of his gospel where it fits chronologically into the life of Christ. Luke, however, inserted Christ’s genealogy
later in the context of His messianic credentials (see discussion above). There are no women in Luke’s genealogy goes
from the present to the past; Matthew’s from the past to the present. Thus Matthew’s genealogy begins with Abraham
and moves forward in time, while Luke’s begins with Jesus and moves backward in
time to Adam. Matthew’s genealogy begins
with Abraham, while the first name (chronologically) in Lukes is Adam. The different starting points in their
genealogies reflect the different purposes of the two Gospel writers. Matthew wrote primarily to the Jewish people,
so it was natural for him to begin with Abraham, the father of the nation of
Israel. Luke’s approach was more
universal. He was concerned to present
Jesus as the Son of Man, and demonstrates His solidarity with the entire human
race. Therefore, he took Christ’s genealogy
all the way back to Adam. Matthew’s
emphasis on Joseph (Matt. 1:16, 18, 19, 20, 24; 2:13, 14, 19-21) and Luke’s on
Mary (Luke 1:27, 30-56; 2:5, 16, 19, 34) in the early chapters of their gospels
also reflects their complementary strategies.
“Luke’s genealogy, therefore, was
longer than Matthew’s, containing seventy-seven names as opposed to forty-two
names in Matthew’s genealogy. Neither
genealogy was intended to be exhaustive, but rather both were compressed or
abridged. Matthew’s genealogy contains three groups of fourteen names, which
was evidently done to make it easier to memorize. (It should be noted that the term ‘father’ in
Matthew’s genealogy does not necessarily denote a father-son relationship; it
can be used in the more general sense of ‘ancestor.’ See for example Matthew 1:5; several
generations must have elapsed between Salmon, the husband of Rahab, who lived
during the Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land under Joshua, and Boaz, who
lived much later during the period of the judges. Note also verse 1 where Jesus is referred to
as the son [i.e., descendant] of David and Abraham.) Luke’s genealogy also skips generations. The repeated term son does not appear
in the Greek text; in each pair of names the first named individual is merely
said to be a descendant in some sense of the second one (cf. also v. 38; Adam obviously
was not the Son of God in a physical sense).
“Other differences are more
significant. Luke identifies Jesus’
grandfather as Eli, while Matthew calls him Jacob. Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry through David’s
son Nathan, while Matthew traces it through his son Solomon. Finally, while the names from Abraham to
David are identical in both genealogies (except that Matthew skips Admin), all
but two of the names from David to Joseph are different. Two possible explanations for those
differences have been proposed.” I will
plan on getting to those proposals in tomorrow morning’s SD.
5/3/2026
11:51 PM
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