- I want to give the students a good foundation for the birth narratives.
- I want the students to be able to approach the Bible with confidence when they come across different accounts of the same events in the Bible.
- I want the challenge of making a text that we normally skip accessible and interesting to teenagers. This reason is secondary to the two above. I mention it for transparency.
There are two documents from which I am copying and pasting. The first is my teaching outline. I tend to teach in a discussion format. Thus, my outline is primary stories and questions. The second document includes some of the key points that I want to address while facilitating the discussion. I have a final PDF document that I am not attaching. That document is Matthew 1 and Luke 3 set side-by-side with a few discussion questions.
Lesson Outline
Topic: The Genealogy of
Jesus
Passages: Matthew 1, Luke 3
Main Ideas: Help the students
understand why Matthew and Luke approach the Jesus story from different camera
angles. Help set the stage for a better understanding of the birth narratives.
Bonus: The week before the
lesson, email this video to the parents. Watch as a family.
- Why are genealogies important?
- Do we do a good job remembering
the past in our culture? Why/why not?
- How can a limited view of the
past impact us as individuals and as a society?
- Why does the author want to make sure the readers know Jesus’ genealogy?
Tell Two Stories:
- This is a true story. When we
first got married, Tammie and I lived in a rough part of town. One day, as
Tammie was leaving the apartment, a guy in a minivan swerved towards her
while she was sitting at the exit of the complex. He hit her car, knocking
off the bumper. The driver of the minivan told her that he didn’t have
insurance but still asked to trade numbers so that they could work things
out. A few hours later he called and said he had a quote from a local auto
body shop for how much it would cost to fix his van.
- This is also a true story. When
we first got married, Tammie and I lived in an apartment that was right in
between where I was going to seminary and where I was working. One day,
Tammie called me and was very upset. She said, she pulled a little too far
into the street and got clipped by a guy who was driving a minivan. Her
bumper got knocked off. The guy did not have insurance. She felt bad so
she agreed to pay for the minivan to get fixed.
Ask: How are these
stories similar? How are they different? Which one is true?
Say: Both stories are
true. They simply focus on different aspects of what occurred. One focused on
the driver of the minivan having shady intentions. The other focuses on the
tenderheartedness of my wife. As we’ve discussed over and over, the authors of
the Bible always had a theological motive behind what they wrote. There are a few
times when the Bible tells the same story in different ways. Skeptics have
risen up to say, “Ah ha! This is proof that the Bible is full of errors.” The
reality is, the stories that differently describe the same situations simply
have different lessons or theological truths they want to teach. They simply
approach the subject from different angles. Today we are going to compare and
contrast the genealogies of Jesus.
Ask: Look at the two
genealogies on this worksheet.
- How are they similar? How are
they different?
- Why did the authors approach them
the way that they did?
- Why do you think they included a
genealogy in their respective accounts of the life of Jesus?
- Did you notice any surprising
names on the list?
Conclusion:
The
next two weeks we are going to look at the birth narratives found in Matthew
and Luke. Matthew’s is from the perspective of Joseph. Luke’s is of the
perspective of Mary. Both stories are true, they are simply shot from different
camera angles.
Study Notes
Why Two Genealogies of Jesus?Here is a simplified version of the three main theories:
- Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph. Luke gives the genealogy through Mary. It would be unusual to trace the linage through a woman but then again, Jesus was born of a virgin. There is nothing usual about this story.
- Some attribute the differences to the "Levirate marriage" tradition. This means that if a man died childless, his widowed wife would marry his brother. The child birthed from the brother and the wife would be considered “begat” by the man who died. In this theory, Luke is the legal linage of Jesus and Matthew would be the actual/biological blood line.
- Matthew is the royal line and Luke is the biological line.
What is the theological motive
behind the genealogy of Matthew?
- Matthew was written primarily to a Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Indeed, the book uses at least 40 formal quotations from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
- A key theme to Matthew is proving that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah.
- Matthew is sure to include people and events that would resonate with the Jewish audience (Exile, Abraham, Rahab, etc.).
- It’s important for Matthew to reinforce the fact that Jesus was in the line of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.
- The book was written to a diverse population.
- A key theme in Luke is one of compassion for the marginalized (Gentiles, Samaritans, women, children, tax collectors, etc.). Another key theme is that Jesus is the savior of all of humanity.
- Jeconiah was not included in this genealogy. The group who thinks that Luke is the biological line use this as proof to prove their point. They argue that Jeconiah was cursed by God for being evil and could not biologically be connected to Jesus.
- It was important for Luke to reinforce the fact that Jesus was in the line of Adam, the father of all of humanity.
One key reason the authors would want to connect Jesus with David is because of the prophesies that proclaim that the Messiah will come from David’s
line (Jer. 23:5-6, 2 Samuel 7:12-13, Isaiah 9:7)
