Notes

~START OF LESSON~
{ WHATS GOING ON AS FAR AS CONTEXT}
Matthew was a Jewish Tax collector who worked for the Romans. He was well despised among his people for taking their hard earned money. Now the reason why they hated him the most was simply because he taxed them more and he could and did pocket the amount of whats left from extra tax that’s How he made a living. Now as we discover later on in other Gospels two names are giving describing the same person Matthew as his Greek name and Levi as his Hebrew name.

~MIDDLE OF LESSON~
In the first chapter of the book of St Matthew we see it starts off with the genealogy of Christ from Abraham to David and from David to the Exiled and from the Exiled to the Messiah (MT 1:1 - 16)



Later on starting with verse 17 it list the number between each generation which is 14 then in verse 18 and onward is where the nativity of the Messiah is mentioned.


Now Joseph we can imagine that he felt a bit off since the woman he was engaged to was pregnant even though she was a virgin. Joseph possibly forgetting the prophecy told by the early prophets wanted to Divorce her but him being a righteous man he didn’t want to bring shame upon her so in his mind he settled for the plan of divorcing her in secret and then he rested. Now the bible give us an insight to what he dreamt about stating “An Angel appeared in his dream and told him do not be afraid to take Marry as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” we see that Joseph didn’t Go through with his original plan but went with the plan God had from the beginning in Genesis Thus Joseph Trusted God and did as the angel commanded.
Now there is one point i purposely didn’t start off with, which is “why must Jesus be born of a virgin” and well as we see in the next verse in verse 22 it says” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet” and you may ask yes but what does Matthew mean by “Spoken by the Lord through the Prophet”? and what prophet is he referring to? well we must under stand the context which involves who is Matthew speaking to. Now Matthew was a JEWISH tax collector living in a time where Jews hated Romans, The Romans here spoke Greek and the Jews Spoke Hebrew he was referring to the prophecy said in is 7:14 by the prophet Isaiah. A note worth mentioning is that Matthew used the Greek word Parthenos meaning virgin whilst Isaiah uses the Hebrew word Almah which means a marriageable girl and in the old testament we see virgins where look upon as marriageable girl just look back in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 as an example. So what about the name given? many times this is an argument against the christian faith, however many do not understand and simply become a parrot and repeat what they have been told and haven’t tried to understand the OT contains Yah which is short for Yahweh and here in the NT we use Jesus which means Yahwe saves, Now as for immanuel its meaning is “God is with us” now depending on your bible translation here the name immanuel could be spelt with and ‘E’ and not a ‘I’ this isn’t wrong at all both are correct ways to spell it one is transliterated from Hebrew that is immanuel with an ‘I’ and immanuel with an ‘E’ is transliterated from Greek so as we can see the argument used against the christian faith fails once more now one thing to remember is that Matthew tied the OT prophecy with his letter to confirm and even support the divinity of Christ. Now a claim most people even some Christians is that marry never had sex but that isn’t the case as stated in verse 25 of Matthew 1 “but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. and he named him jesus”.

~END OF LESSON~

Ok so i hope you all are enjoying this lesson and are finding this interesting if so I urge you to learn apologetics meaning a defense of Christian doctrine or could be put as a defense for the Christian faith, now that this lesson for Matthew 1 is over I hope you take what you have been taught by me and test it and see if it holds to the word of God. May God be with you all and may his Grace and mercy fall upon you Amen.