THE NEW TESTAMENT F0R BEGINNERS
The purpose of this booklet is to help young Christians understand the New Testament. This booklet offers a simple short study of each book of the New Testament. It is assumed that the reader does not know much about the Bible. This booklet is a good introduction for young believers in Jesus Christ. The emphasis is on simplicity. I try to write at a junior high reading level. My choice of grammar is basic. New and unusual words are defined. The theme of each book of the New Testament is clearly stated. The discussions begin by reading the first verse of each book of the New Testament. By carefully studying the first verse of each book of the New Testament we hope to accomplish the following, a) we hope the first verse will reveal the theme of that particular book or in the alternative b) how the first verse compliments the theme of the book. On occasion we will go beyond the first verse. The lessons in this booklet are based on a sermon I have given many times over the years. The title of the sermon was �The First Verse.� My audiences have always enjoyed the lessons in my sermon. I thought it was time to put these lessons into writing so that more believers can enjoy them as well. Dear reader, it is my prayer that you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God�s richest blessings be yours. Let us begin.
Matthew, Jesus is King, The Gospel for the Jew
Author: Matthew, an Apostle of Jesus Christ
�The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.�
�The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ� This short phrase teaches us that the Gospel of Matthew was written to the Jewish people. Who would be more interested in the genealogy of a Jew but another Jew? The Jewish people cared a lot about their genealogy. They were very proud of their family heritage. A Jew�s social status in the community was largely determined by the tribe and family he came from. Jews talked about genealogy the way we talk about the weather. It was a regular subject of conversation. The opening phrase is almost a word for word copy from Genesis 5:1, �The Book of the Generations of Adam.� Matthew copied from the book of Genesis because he wanted to link Jesus Christ with the great personalities in the Hebrew Bible. Matthew wanted to show that the genealogy of Jesus could be traced all the way back to the book of Genesis.
Incredibly, the very first verse in the New Testament takes us back to the Hebrew Bible. God is saying to us that we cannot understand Jesus Christ unless we understand the Hebrew Bible also known as the Old Testament. To fully understand Christianity we must understand Judaism. On occasion I hear Bible students say, �Why do we need the Old Testament? Why do we need to study Jewish customs?� It is amazing how different God�s point of view can be from ours. Christians must never forget that Jesus was a Jew. If we love Jesus, we will love the Jewish people. With this little phrase, �The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ� we understand that Matthew was writing to the Jewish people.
The theme of the Gospel of Matthew can be found in the phrase, �the son of David, the son of Abraham.� There is an important error in this phrase. This is not an error in truth. There are no errors like that in the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham. The error is in the grammar. In Bible times, writers did not have quotation marks or exclamation marks to emphasize words. Most of the writing tools that we use today were developed during the Middle Ages. In Bible times, if a writer wanted to emphasize certain words, he would write them incorrectly. This would draw attention to those words. When the reader saw the error, he would understand that an important point was being made. The error here is listing David first. Abraham should be listed first. It should say �Jesus Christ, son of Abraham, son of David.� The fact that the order is reversed teaches us the theme of Matthew�s Gospel: Jesus Christ is the promised King, the Son of David. In the Bible, older people were listed first because they were more important. Who was David? --the great king of the Jews. Who was Abraham? �the FATHER of the Jews. Abraham was the ancestor of King David and deserved more honor. But by listing David first, Matthew emphasized the King and the Kingdom. The promised Messiah and King were an important subject to the Jewish people. Matthew deliberately reversed the order of Abraham and David to teach us the theme of his Gospel: Jesus Christ is the promised King of the Jews. As soon as Matthew made his point, he reverted back to the correct order by listing older folks first when presenting the rest of Jesus�s genealogy.
Thus, Matthew was written to the Jews. And as the Jews were looking for the coming Christ or Messiah, Matthew structured his Gospel to say that Jesus is the Christ. The word Messiah and Christ mean the same thing. Messiah is a Hebrew word. Christ is a Greek word. The word means �Anointed One.� It means the Messiah or Christ would have a special anointing or commission from God. In order for the Jewish people to know the identity of the Messiah, God said the Messiah would come from the family of Abraham and the family of David. This is why Matthew opened his Gospel with a genealogy. Matthew had to prove that Jesus came from the family of Abraham and the family of David. Regardless of all the miracles that Jesus performed, unless He came from the right family, He could not be the Christ or Messiah. Let�s look at Matt 1:17.
�So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.� Matt. 1:17
Why did Matthew divide the genealogy of Jesus into three groups of 14? We know that Matthew deliberately created it this way because he left out some names that should be included in Jesus� genealogy. He left out some names to make a fit of three groups of 14. The key is in the name, �David.� In Bible times, alphabet letters were used as numbers. The Romans and the Jews used the letters of their alphabets to make numbers. Jews sometimes used numbers as symbols as well. For example, the number �7" is symbolic for perfection or completeness because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Matthew is saying in 1:17 that Jesus is the promised Son of David in a very special way. The name of �David� consisted of three Hebrew letters. A dalet, a waw and another dalet. DWD. The dalet was the fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, a dalet represented the number four in Hebrew. The waw was the sixth letter and represented the number six. Now add 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. Matthew divided Jesus� genealogy into groups of 14 as a symbolic way of saying that Jesus is the Son of David. He divided the genealogy into three groups because there are three letters in the name of David. By modern standards this is an odd way to write. But in Bible times, it was not that unusual. (This author has the privilege of being named after King David.)
The Jewishness of Matthew can be seen in other ways as well. Matthew quoted from the Hebrew Bible more than the other Gospel writers. If you look at The Gospel Table, Matthew has Jesus quoting from the Hebrew Bible twice as many times as the other Gospel writers. Matthew believed the Hebrew Bible was essential to convince the Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah. Some scholars think it is possible that Matthew�s Gospel was originally written in Hebrew. |
