The Book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, begins with an interesting approach. Matthew outlines the lineage of Jesus, beginning with Abraham, aligning to King David, ending with Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father.
Many scholars believe Matthew opened his gospel with the lineage of Jesus to demonstrate two things. One, he had to establish that Jesus was a Jew. The Jewish people would not believe Jesus was the Messiah if it was not clearly established that He came from the tribe of Judah. Two, Matthew had to establish that Jesus was of the lineage of King David, which goes back to when God promised to David that He would “raise up an heir from David’s line who would sit on the throne forever and establish an eternal Kingdom.”
Matthew highlights the number of generations from Abraham to Jesus, noting the number 14 as a significant number. 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 years.” God uses the multiple of 7 many times throughout the Bible, including the days of the week to create the world, as a number of significance. Clearly God had a plan and He delivered on His promise to bring a Messiah to earth.
What does this sequencing say to me? God is deliberate in everything He does, and He keeps His promises, on His time. God promised a Savior, back in the Old Testament, and He did not deliver Jesus to the people until hundreds of years later. In our world, hundreds of years is many lifetimes or generations. It may seem God does not follow through on His promises because things may not happen in our lifetime. God’s timeline is not in the timeframe of a human life but in the timeframe of hundreds of thousands of years. God’s promises may come to reality but many of us may not be alive to see them.
Faith comes from our perspective to trust and accept the things we cannot see or touch. Faith is about accepting that our belief is not about witnessing an occurrence with our own eyes. Faith is about understanding that the Holy Spirit will work through us to show us ways in which Christ can impact our lives positively, through our good and the bad experiences.
God made promises throughout the Bible and kept them. The challenge for us is the learn our Bibles and truly strive to understand God’s meaning and delivery of His promises, without inserting our own expectations and “worldly filter” on what we want to see.
There are promises that have not yet been delivered. The Bible tells us that Jesus will come again to the earth and Revelations, written by the Apostle John, outlines Jesus’ return in detail. Do we not believe it because it was promised hundreds of years ago?
Not sure about you but I am going with IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. God ALWAYS delivers on His promises and Matthew was clearly outlining this in the beginning of his Gospel.
