As
you may have noticed, I took a brief break when we came to the end of the Older
Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the Book of Malachi, but now we're back to our
plan of traveling through the entire Bible in 2014, of course, hitting only
some of the highlights or characterizing passages from each of the books.
So, let's begin again with Matthew's Gospel.
A
record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1).
Matthew,
one of the disciples of Jesus, is writing his Gospel primarily to his fellow
Hebrews; hence, he begins with the Jewish ancestry of Jesus. Also, as we
will see this week, Matthew uses the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven"
rather than its parallel phrase, "Kingdom of God" - why? Because
Jewish persons felt the name of God YHWH (or Yahweh) was so sacred that it
could not and should not ever be even pronounced.
So,
the point before us today is the one that Matthew makes so strongly:
Christianity is nothing without its Jewish roots! And to forget
that leads to all kinds of distortions, and even to anti-semitism as we've seen
much too often, and particularly in its deadliest form in WWII.
And
so, I urge you to celebrate your spiritual heritage; get to know your Jewish
friends, thank them, learn from them, celebrate special holy days with them.
These begin in Sept: Alpha: 9/30; FPU (Financial Peace University):
9/23; Confirmation - for 6th graders: 9/14; "Making Sense of the
Bible" Discussion: 9/10. See web site for times and to register.
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