Ep. 218. Matthew 1-2 | Advent

EPISODE 218

ADVENT: MATTHEW 1-2

The Gospels are often the most familiar part of the Bible for those of us who grew up in and around the church. Our Sunday school teachers and pastors tended to gravitate toward the stories of Jesus, and they can't be faulted for that. Jesus is worth knowing and talking about.

I have come to be convinced of this after three decades of ministry; understanding the New Testament is made so much easier by having come to know the Old Testament. Jesus is a Jew, talking to Jewish people, presenting himself as the Messiah, and the fulfillment of the Jewish prophesies, the Jewish priesthood, and the Jewish sacrificial system, with heaven as the fulfillment of the Jewish Temple. Jesus is the Prophet in the likeness of Moses, the New David, The Good Shepherd, the Priest like Melchizedek. How can we be expected to understand the New Testament without first filling our minds with an understanding of the Old? That is what was lacking in my upbringing. I can count on two hands the number of times I heard the stories of Jesus related to the fulfillment of Old Testament texts. But shouldn't that be a priority for us?

We have spent two hundred and seventeen days trying to understand the Old Testament better. I have shown you how these things foreshadow the New Testament. A word of caution to you: don't forget the things we've looked at this far, and don't default to a view of the New Testament that reduces Jesus to a morality issue. Do the best you can to hold in mind the beauty of the Old Testament and journey well with us through the New as the blessing the prophets and Jewish forefathers were chasing.

This first coming of Jesus, this Advent, is the fulfillment of all that had been promised across the centuries to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and those people who came from that familial line.

ADDITIONAL READING: Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:2; Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 31:15