Daily Scripture: Matthew 1:3 Y’hudah was the father of Peretz and Zerach (their mother was Tamar),
Peretz was the father of Hetzron,
Hetzron was the father of Ram,
4 Ram was the father of ‘Amminadav,
‘Amminadav was the father of Nachshon,
Nachshon was the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon was the father of Bo‘az (his mother was Rachav),
Bo‘az was the father of ‘Oved (his mother was Rut),
‘Oved was the father of Yishai,
6 Yishai was the father of David the king.
David was the father of Shlomo (his mother was the wife of Uriyah),
Reflection Questions:The way Matthew wrote the genealogy at the start of his gospel showed one effect of Jesus’ model in relating to prostitutes. In that male-dominated world, most genealogies only listed male ancestors. Yet Matthew purposely included women. And at least three of the women he included had a history of some kind of immoral behavior–Tamar (cf. Genesis 38), Rahab (cf. Joshua 2, 6:22-25) and Bathsheba (cf. 2 Samuel 11-12).
- Tamar’s story showed how men saw prostitutes. The patriarch Judah heard that unmarried Tamar was pregnant (by him, though he didn’t know it), and said, “Bring her out so that she may be burned” (Genesis 38:24). No one said they should burn the man who had bought her sexual company! She proved that she was pregnant by Judah himself, and in the end he treated her honorably (by the standards of his day). Have you ever seen a double standard that judged a woman more harshly than a man for the same action? Do you think that reflects what Jesus would want?
- In John’s gospel (cf. John 8:41), we find a subtle but clear sign that Jesus’ enemies at times taunted him as an illegitimate child. No doubt they also claimed his mother had been sexually immoral when she conceived him. How might those human experiences, as well as his divine compassion and sense of mission, have helped to shape the compassion with which Jesus related to women who, in addition to their culture’s devaluing of all women, faced the scorn of the “righteous” for violating moral standards?
Lord Jesus, even before we got to see you living as one of us, you were extending grace to Tamar, to Rahab and to Bathsheba. Remind me that your grace and compassion are a part of your eternal character, and reach all the way to me. Amen.Insights from Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at the Vibe, West, and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
Back when I was a college student, I was an English major, studying the classics of literature throughout the ages. One of my favorites was actually one of the first works of long fiction written in English: Beowulf. If you don’t know the story, Beowulf (our hero) fends off an attack from a monster named Grendel, then kills him. He then meets Grendel’s mother, a much more interesting–and dangerous–character. The two are eventually forced into battle. When discussing this section in class, the professor stumped us with a question: Why was the name of Grendel’s mother missing?
We pondered probably a good five minutes on that question, throwing out answers psychological and Existential. The answer was much more basic: a name. Although Grendel’s mother was a major character, and much more interesting than her monstrous son, she was never given a name in the epic poem–she is simply referred to as Grendel’s mother.
This was eye-opening to me in my sophomore year of college. I began to see similar themes everywhere. The list of famous authors of history is mostly a long list of men. The women in Hemingway’s works were often empty shells of emotion, existing only to pine for the more exciting male characters. Even in modern film, males dominate. A recent study of 2000 films showed that over 75% were filled with a majority of male dialogue, while about 15% had about equal amounts from both genders. Less than 10% of the films studied had a majority of the lines coming from females. Even films with a female lead, such as Disney princess movies, are filled with majority male dialogue.
I just encountered this yesterday while at Barnes and Noble with my son. I found a display of action figures from the DC Comics franchise. With the recent success of Batman vs. Superman, this is no surprise. What was a surprise was that Wonder Woman, arguably one of the three most important members of the Justice League and one of the three stars of the aforementioned movie, was not only not in the display–she was nowhere to be found. They weren’t even carrying a female superhero’s toy, while they had multiple figures of characters that got less than 10 seconds of screen time in the movie.
The sad truth I discovered, and am constantly rediscovering, was that history and culture just didn’t care as much about women. We can argue all day about why that is, but the end result is the same: girls don’t have as many strong role models they can look up to as boys do, not because of a lack of source material, but because of a lack of exposure.
This is why today’s bit of Jesus’ genealogy from the opening of Matthew is so important. Unlike Beowulf’s author, Matthew makes a point of naming the females in the story–not simply for the sake of historical accuracy, but to give worth and meaning to their contributions. Even in Jesus’ backstory, the women matter. These are the first words in a series of four books about Jesus, a man who was constantly going against social norms to show women that they mattered, that they had worth.
What does that mean today? Hopefully it’s clear from my examples above that women still aren’t given equal treatment as men even today. This goes beyond the realm of fiction and extends into the career world, and many other aspects of life. I can’t give you specific instructions on how to respond to this, but I will say that one of the biggest themes in the Bible is standing up for those whom life has dealt an unfair hand to. I’ll leave it up to you: what will you do in response to this injustice?
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Back when I was a college student, I was an English major, studying the classics of literature throughout the ages. One of my favorites was actually one of the first works of long fiction written in English: Beowulf. If you don’t know the story, Beowulf (our hero) fends off an attack from a monster named Grendel, then kills him. He then meets Grendel’s mother, a much more interesting–and dangerous–character. The two are eventually forced into battle. When discussing this section in class, the professor stumped us with a question: Why was the name of Grendel’s mother missing?
We pondered probably a good five minutes on that question, throwing out answers psychological and Existential. The answer was much more basic: a name. Although Grendel’s mother was a major character, and much more interesting than her monstrous son, she was never given a name in the epic poem–she is simply referred to as Grendel’s mother.
This was eye-opening to me in my sophomore year of college. I began to see similar themes everywhere. The list of famous authors of history is mostly a long list of men. The women in Hemingway’s works were often empty shells of emotion, existing only to pine for the more exciting male characters. Even in modern film, males dominate. A recent study of 2000 films showed that over 75% were filled with a majority of male dialogue, while about 15% had about equal amounts from both genders. Less than 10% of the films studied had a majority of the lines coming from females. Even films with a female lead, such as Disney princess movies, are filled with majority male dialogue.
I just encountered this yesterday while at Barnes and Noble with my son. I found a display of action figures from the DC Comics franchise. With the recent success of Batman vs. Superman, this is no surprise. What was a surprise was that Wonder Woman, arguably one of the three most important members of the Justice League and one of the three stars of the aforementioned movie, was not only not in the display–she was nowhere to be found. They weren’t even carrying a female superhero’s toy, while they had multiple figures of characters that got less than 10 seconds of screen time in the movie.
The sad truth I discovered, and am constantly rediscovering, was that history and culture just didn’t care as much about women. We can argue all day about why that is, but the end result is the same: girls don’t have as many strong role models they can look up to as boys do, not because of a lack of source material, but because of a lack of exposure.
This is why today’s bit of Jesus’ genealogy from the opening of Matthew is so important. Unlike Beowulf’s author, Matthew makes a point of naming the females in the story–not simply for the sake of historical accuracy, but to give worth and meaning to their contributions. Even in Jesus’ backstory, the women matter. These are the first words in a series of four books about Jesus, a man who was constantly going against social norms to show women that they mattered, that they had worth.
What does that mean today? Hopefully it’s clear from my examples above that women still aren’t given equal treatment as men even today. This goes beyond the realm of fiction and extends into the career world, and many other aspects of life. I can’t give you specific instructions on how to respond to this, but I will say that one of the biggest themes in the Bible is standing up for those whom life has dealt an unfair hand to. I’ll leave it up to you: what will you do in response to this injustice?
Download the GPS App
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120
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