Advent: A Genealogy of Hope

Ryan: 00:00:12

Welcome back to Ryan and Brian's Bible Bistro.

Ryan: 00:00:13

I'm Ryan.

Brian: 00:00:14

And I'm Brian.

Ryan: 00:00:15

And this is the Bible Bistro, a podcast all about the Bible theology and all things related to the Christian faith.

Brian: 00:00:20

It's been so long since we've been on here.

Ryan: 00:00:21

Okay, fine.

Ryan: 00:00:22

I'm gonna.

Ryan: 00:00:23

I'm gonna address the elephant in the room.

Ryan: 00:00:29

And that is.

Brian: 00:00:30

Is that a fat joke?

Ryan: 00:00:31

Yes.

Brian: 00:00:32

Okay.

Ryan: 00:00:34

Whatever.

Brian: 00:00:34

We've been.

Ryan: 00:00:35

We've been on a little bit of a unscheduled hiatus.

Brian: 00:00:39

Yes.

Ryan: 00:00:40

You've been busy as well.

Brian: 00:00:41

We both have been.

Ryan: 00:00:42

We both been.

Brian: 00:00:43

Good stuff, though.

Brian: 00:00:43

You've been finishing up your first semester in seminary and.

Brian: 00:00:46

Well, I mean, not your first semester, but your first semester.

Ryan: 00:00:50

Not first semester.

Ryan: 00:00:51

First semester.

Brian: 00:00:51

Yeah, and it's been good stuff, so I think.

Brian: 00:00:53

I think it'll be good in the long run.

Brian: 00:00:55

But we're back to it today.

Ryan: 00:00:57

Yeah, it was some trying times.

Ryan: 00:00:59

It was trying times.

Ryan: 00:01:00

Lots of happening.

Brian: 00:01:02

You've been applying yourself very, very hard to your studies, so intently.

Ryan: 00:01:06

Indeed.

Ryan: 00:01:06

Well, we're back.

Ryan: 00:01:07

So for our faithful listeners, this is the only apology you're gonna get.

Ryan: 00:01:14

I'm sorry.

Brian: 00:01:15

Well, we are gonna.

Brian: 00:01:16

We're gonna play.

Ryan: 00:01:17

Go ahead.

Ryan: 00:01:18

No, go ahead.

Brian: 00:01:18

I was gonna say we normally do an Advent series, and that's, you know, we're kind of a little late even in getting into Advent, but we're gonna.

Brian: 00:01:24

We're going to have a double episode this week.

Brian: 00:01:26

Is that right?

Ryan: 00:01:26

Yes, that's right.

Ryan: 00:01:27

We're going to do.

Ryan: 00:01:27

We're going to have one today and one on Thursday, so.

Ryan: 00:01:32

So you're going to.

Ryan: 00:01:33

The, the well is being dug deeper again, so.

Brian: 00:01:37

Which you can draw being primed, so.

Ryan: 00:01:40

Yes, that's right.

Ryan: 00:01:40

Priming the pump here.

Ryan: 00:01:41

All right.

Brian: 00:01:42

We're probably not going to take as much off.

Brian: 00:01:43

We usually take the whole month of January off.

Brian: 00:01:45

It's been our custom for the past couple of years anyway, so we're probably.

Ryan: 00:01:49

Not going to do that.

Brian: 00:01:50

Probably just take a couple.

Brian: 00:01:50

Well, yeah, let's not.

Brian: 00:01:51

I guess we shouldn't say what we're planning on doing, but probably take Christmas and New Year's off and then come back in the new year strong with some new things.

Ryan: 00:02:02

Oh, there we go.

Ryan: 00:02:03

All right.

Ryan: 00:02:03

We baited them.

Ryan: 00:02:04

New things are coming.

Ryan: 00:02:06

All right, so let's jump into.

Ryan: 00:02:08

Let's.

Ryan: 00:02:08

Let's jump into Advent.

Brian: 00:02:10

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:02:10

So this is last week, which we acknowledge.

Ryan: 00:02:13

But what.

Ryan: 00:02:13

What are we talking about here?

Brian: 00:02:14

Well, I'm going to go ahead and say this.

Brian: 00:02:16

So I.

Brian: 00:02:16

In my, My regular ministry where I'm preaching.

Brian: 00:02:20

I've been going through the genealogy of Jesus as an Advent series.

Brian: 00:02:25

I've been wanting to do this for some time and I kind of been thinking about it, studying it.

Brian: 00:02:30

So I jumped in and did it this year.

Brian: 00:02:32

And so we're going to go along with that.

Brian: 00:02:34

In my studies.

Brian: 00:02:34

There's been some additional things.

Brian: 00:02:36

So even if you've heard those sermons, maybe if you're a listener from my congregation, you can go ahead and listen.

Brian: 00:02:41

There'll be some additional things.

Brian: 00:02:42

You will hear some repetition, but there'll be some additional things I didn't have time to put into my sermons or it didn't fit quite into my sermons.

Brian: 00:02:50

And so that's what we're doing.

Brian: 00:02:53

And I practiced this, believe it or not, the first week I got up there and I could not say Jesus genealogy.

Brian: 00:02:58

So I literally practiced it last week.

Brian: 00:03:01

And then I still have a hard time saying Jesus genealogy.

Ryan: 00:03:04

We should just pre record it and push a button.

Ryan: 00:03:06

Jesus genealogy.

Brian: 00:03:09

It will be referred to several times.

Brian: 00:03:12

So I'll start with this.

Brian: 00:03:13

All four gospels.

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We've talked about this before.

Brian: 00:03:15

It's interesting.

Brian: 00:03:16

Well, let me even go back further.

Brian: 00:03:19

The Gospels have a lot of similarities, right?

Brian: 00:03:21

When you look at all four of the Gospels, they are amazingly similar.

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In fact, I would say that they are more similar to one another than they are to any other kind of ancient book.

Brian: 00:03:31

Right.

Brian: 00:03:31

They bear more resemblance to one another than anything else in the Bible.

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Anything else in extra biblical literature.

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These four books have a lot in common, but at the same time they have some significant differences which we've talked about before.

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And one of the really interesting differences to me is the way that each of them chooses to begin their book.

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Each of them starts in a different way.

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If you think about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is who we're talking about now.

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And just like the other, you know, I like to do narrative stuff and think about why they're telling the story in the way that they are.

Brian: 00:04:06

And I think that each of them chooses their beginning based upon what their purpose is in writing their gospel and kind of their audience to whom they're writing it.

Brian: 00:04:14

So if you think about it, we've talked before.

Brian: 00:04:16

Well, give me some examples how John would start.

Brian: 00:04:18

How would you say it would start?

Ryan: 00:04:21

Well, I mean, it's developing a Christology about who Jesus is.

Brian: 00:04:24

Right.

Brian: 00:04:25

And even a cosmic scale.

Brian: 00:04:27

Right in the beginning was the word.

Brian: 00:04:29

Right.

Brian: 00:04:30

It's like, let's talk about creation and let's talk about light and life and all these kind of big concepts, big kind of it's almost like a cosmology, right?

Brian: 00:04:38

And then you've got Mark who begins, do you remember?

Brian: 00:04:44

I shouldn't be putting you on.

Ryan: 00:04:45

You shouldn't do this, man.

Ryan: 00:04:47

Come on.

Brian: 00:04:47

Right after you finished up your semester.

Brian: 00:04:49

So Mark begins with the action, right?

Brian: 00:04:51

He immediately says, here's the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And then you have John the Baptist.

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I mean, he jumps right into the action.

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No preamble, no birth narrative.

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The only two, as we think about Advent, we think about leading up to Christmas, the only two gospel authors that really deal with the birth of Jesus are Matthew and Luke.

Brian: 00:05:08

Now Luke begins to tell the story about the people who kind of came together before Jesus birth talks about John the Baptist's birth, Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and all these kind of stories.

Brian: 00:05:23

Matthew, however, famously begins his gospel different than any of those other three.

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Not in a narrative way at all.

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But he begins with a genealogy.

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You know, there's nothing that will grab a reader's attention like starting your book with a genealogy, right?

Ryan: 00:05:40

Yep.

Brian: 00:05:41

So that's what Matthew.

Brian: 00:05:42

That's what Matthew does in Matthew, chapter one.

Brian: 00:05:44

And it's kind of interesting, you know, and let's be honest, I mean, when you get to a genealogy and you read through the Bible in a year plan Ryan, you skip over, right?

Brian: 00:05:54

Or you rush through it, you don't think about it too much.

Ryan: 00:05:58

Correct.

Brian: 00:05:59

There's a couple things I want to do in looking at Jesus genealogy over the next four weeks is the first is I want to show us that when we slow down and pay attention to the way that these names are arranged and some of the interesting little differences we see in it, we can learn some really interesting things from these genealogies.

Brian: 00:06:18

That's my first purpose.

Brian: 00:06:19

I think you'll find some interesting.

Brian: 00:06:22

Certainly for the nerds out there, you will find some interesting things.

Brian: 00:06:24

But even for the non nerds, my hope is that you will take away some things from this.

Brian: 00:06:30

The second thing is this, is that genealogies were very important.

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In fact, genealogies are mentioned.

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Paul mentions them, for example, he says to Timothy, don't get involved in these meaningless genealogies.

Brian: 00:06:41

Genealogies were very important within the Jewish mindset and Jewish worldview of the first century.

Brian: 00:06:48

As they were thinking about the Messiah, they wanted to know the lineage.

Brian: 00:06:53

You even see references to this in the Gospel of John talking about, well, there were debates about how the Christ was going to.

Brian: 00:07:00

From what line the Christ was going to be born and all of these kind of ideas.

Brian: 00:07:06

And so I think that shows us A little bit about what Matthew's doing.

Brian: 00:07:09

Matthew, of course, also is famous for his repeated phrase of this was to fulfill the prophet.

Brian: 00:07:14

You know, it's like almost anything Jesus did, almost anything that happened surrounding Jesus.

Brian: 00:07:20

Matthew says this was to fulfill this Old Testament prophecy.

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So it gives us this idea that Matthew is probably writing to a primarily Jewish audience.

Brian: 00:07:29

And there's some other extra outside of the Bible evidence of that.

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Some of the references in the early church writers talk about.

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He may have even composed his notebooks in Hebrew first.

Brian: 00:07:40

And there's lots of interesting things that are going on around this.

Brian: 00:07:44

But I think that's why he starts with his genealogy, because he wants his readers to understand how Jesus is connected to the story in the Old Testament.

Brian: 00:07:52

So it begins in Matthew, chapter one, Matthew, though.

Brian: 00:07:54

There's three things I want to say about this genealogy before we jump into the first section.

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The first is he divides his genealogy into three even sections.

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Go down, if you would, in verse 17, Matthew, chapter one.

Brian: 00:08:06

Do you have it there in front of you?

Ryan: 00:08:07

Yeah, I sure do.

Brian: 00:08:08

Read that for us.

Brian: 00:08:09

And he tells us the way that he divided this genealogy out.

Ryan: 00:08:13

Thus there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Messiah.

Brian: 00:08:22

So he gives us this genealogy in this way, I think, for a couple of different reasons, 14 probably is significant because it's probably 2 times 7.

Brian: 00:08:32

We see these sevens and multiples of sevens jumping up all over the place.

Brian: 00:08:36

It would have made this genealogy easier to memorize, if somebody wanted to memorize it, in order to say, well, here's I can give you the lineage of Jesus.

Brian: 00:08:46

Here are these.

Brian: 00:08:47

But these three sections, the idea from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian exile, and then from the Babylonian exile until the Messiah, I think, tells the story of the history of Israel as well, and kind of divides it up and makes us think about certain things that are connected to these particular periods in history.

Brian: 00:09:11

And so that's the first thing I think, that's interesting in this genealogy.

Brian: 00:09:14

Second is this, that there are five women who are mentioned in this genealogy, four of whom are mentioned by name.

Brian: 00:09:22

And I'll say more about that next week.

Brian: 00:09:24

But five women mentioned in the genealogy, four of whom are mentioned by name, and we're going to look at three of them today.

Brian: 00:09:31

And it's not that genealogy has never had women in it.

Brian: 00:09:33

In fact, if you look in the book of First Kings, especially when they're talking about the kings of Judah, which of course, is the line that we're gonna be talking about next week because Jesus is descended from the line of Judah.

Brian: 00:09:44

Right.

Brian: 00:09:45

When you see these kings, often their mothers are mentioned because we know who their father is.

Brian: 00:09:51

It was the king that came before.

Brian: 00:09:53

Right, right.

Brian: 00:09:54

These are all sons of David.

Brian: 00:09:56

And so that makes sense.

Brian: 00:09:58

So we see the mother mentioned in certain places.

Brian: 00:10:01

But it's very interesting when we see these five women.

Brian: 00:10:04

And specifically where they are mentioned and how they are mentioned, I think is a very interesting thing.

Brian: 00:10:09

We'll see some of this a little bit later today, and we'll see some in the next episode.

Brian: 00:10:15

And when we look at the second in this Advent series, third thing is this.

Brian: 00:10:20

In introducing his genealogy, Matthew kind of sets us up by mentioning three very important people.

Brian: 00:10:25

So go ahead and read the very first verse of the Gospel of Matthew.

Brian: 00:10:28

Now here's how he starts his gospel.

Ryan: 00:10:30

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Brian: 00:10:34

Okay, so there are three people who are mentioned there.

Brian: 00:10:37

The Messiah, Jesus.

Brian: 00:10:38

Right.

Brian: 00:10:38

Or Jesus the Christ.

Brian: 00:10:40

Okay.

Brian: 00:10:41

First one mentioned, of course, that's very important.

Brian: 00:10:42

That's who his book is really about.

Brian: 00:10:44

Then it calls him the son of David.

Brian: 00:10:47

Again next week we'll talk about why that's significant.

Brian: 00:10:51

And then this week we're going to talk about that third one.

Brian: 00:10:53

He's also called son of Abraham.

Brian: 00:10:56

And so we're going to talk about that first section that he is a descendant of Abraham.

Brian: 00:11:02

So those three names kind of give us a sense of what's getting ready to come.

Brian: 00:11:06

What's.

Brian: 00:11:06

What's going to happen as we look through this genealogy.

Brian: 00:11:10

Any, Any insights or comments you want to make so far?

Ryan: 00:11:14

I don't think so.

Ryan: 00:11:15

I mean, it's just.

Ryan: 00:11:16

It's very Jewish, you know what I mean?

Ryan: 00:11:17

Like, it's.

Ryan: 00:11:18

It's.

Brian: 00:11:18

Here's the genealogy, and I'm going to give it to you.

Brian: 00:11:20

So.

Ryan: 00:11:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian: 00:11:22

Well, read verse two for me then, if you would.

Brian: 00:11:24

I know there's lots of names in this, but these are relatively familiar names at least.

Ryan: 00:11:27

Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

Brian: 00:11:34

So we begin with this group that we often refer to as the patriarchs, right?

Brian: 00:11:39

Abraham his son Isaac, his son Jacob, and then Jacob, of course, had these 12 sons that become more or less the 12 tribes of Israel.

Brian: 00:11:49

So these we refer to often as this period is the patriarchal period.

Brian: 00:11:54

We call these guys the patriarchs, the fathers.

Brian: 00:11:58

And so in the first week of Advent, to kind of connect this with this genealogy, the first week of Advent, the first Sunday of Advent, is all about hope.

Brian: 00:12:07

Advent is a season of looking forward.

Brian: 00:12:09

It's a season of anticipation.

Brian: 00:12:12

And I think this idea of the patriarchs and the way that they were given this promise, but it was not something yet that they had.

Brian: 00:12:20

They were looking forward to this fulfillment.

Brian: 00:12:22

I think that fits very well with this theme of hope, looking forward and anticipating the way that God is going to accomplish his promise.

Brian: 00:12:31

Let's look at that promise.

Brian: 00:12:32

This one we've looked at before, I know, in various places.

Brian: 00:12:36

But Genesis chapter 12 is to me, a very, very important scripture.

Brian: 00:12:40

Well, not just to me, but to lots of people.

Brian: 00:12:43

Because I think it's God kind of unfolding his plan to Abraham and to this family, to this genealogy that we're gonna look at, to these ancestors.

Brian: 00:12:51

This is chapter 12.

Brian: 00:12:52

We call this the call of Abraham.

Brian: 00:12:54

The Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father, father's household to the land.

Brian: 00:12:58

I will show you.

Brian: 00:12:59

I will make you into a great nation.

Brian: 00:13:01

There's promise, right?

Brian: 00:13:03

I will bless you.

Brian: 00:13:04

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

Brian: 00:13:07

I will bless those who bless you.

Brian: 00:13:08

Whoever curses you, I will curse.

Brian: 00:13:10

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Brian: 00:13:13

We understand because of even the New Testament, like Peter's sermon in Acts chapter three, not Acts two, but Acts three, we understand that the early Christians saw Jesus as a fulfillment to that promise.

Brian: 00:13:30

That one from the line of Abraham, a son of Abraham, like we talked about in Genesis chapter or in Matthew chapter one, a son of Abraham, was going to be a blessing to all people on the face of the earth.

Brian: 00:13:41

And I think that blessing is nothing less than God reversing the effects that sin and brokenness had brought to the creation and to us.

Brian: 00:13:54

And so the promise to Abraham is that one of your offspring, one of your descendants, is going to be that fulfillment of that promise.

Brian: 00:14:03

So this genealogy, in a way that we are reading in Matthew chapter one, can be seen as a way that God chooses this family, Abraham and his descendants, and works through them in order to bring about his plan.

Brian: 00:14:16

It's a telling of that story, if you will, in the way it's handed down from generation to generation.

Brian: 00:14:22

Because God gave that promise to Abraham, Abraham handed it on to Isaac, and then Isaac handed it onto Jacob, and then it goes to Jacob's sons as well.

Brian: 00:14:33

So that's the promise that's being handed down.

Brian: 00:14:37

It's hope.

Brian: 00:14:37

It's looking forward.

Brian: 00:14:38

It's anticipating what God is doing in the world in order to make things right.

Brian: 00:14:44

Again.

Brian: 00:14:46

So if we go ahead, I'm going to interrupt me if you want to at any point.

Brian: 00:14:50

No, I'm just going to kind of keep going right now.

Ryan: 00:14:52

You're good.

Brian: 00:14:53

So far, we've not said anything too controversial.

Ryan: 00:14:58

Just that Genesis 12 is important part that kind of threw me.

Ryan: 00:15:02

Never thought about it like that before.

Brian: 00:15:06

Let's look at Matthew, chapter one, verse three, because now things are going to get a little messier.

Brian: 00:15:10

We're going to see some names here that maybe are not as familiar to us.

Ryan: 00:15:13

All right.

Ryan: 00:15:14

You ready for it?

Brian: 00:15:15

I am.

Ryan: 00:15:15

Okay.

Ryan: 00:15:17

Judah, this is important.

Ryan: 00:15:19

Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.

Ryan: 00:15:23

Perez, the father of Hezron.

Ryan: 00:15:25

Hezron, the father of Ram.

Brian: 00:15:27

Okay.

Brian: 00:15:27

These names are not as familiar to us.

Brian: 00:15:28

Of course, we do know Judah.

Brian: 00:15:30

That part doesn't surprise us too much because Judah was supposed to be the tribe.

Brian: 00:15:38

It was from the tribe of Judah that we were going to see the ruler descend.

Brian: 00:15:43

That's no surprise to us.

Brian: 00:15:44

And why I say that if you look at.

Brian: 00:15:46

I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into this.

Brian: 00:15:48

We've talked about it before, but Genesis 59, when Jacob is on his deathbed, he gathers his sons around him and he blesses each of them, and he says to Judah, you are a lion's cub, O Judah, and the scepter will never depart from you, nor the rod from between your feet.

Brian: 00:16:07

In other words, your tribe is going to be the rulers over your brothers is kind of the idea over this nation.

Brian: 00:16:14

So that part doesn't surprise us too much.

Brian: 00:16:17

But then we get the first woman that I mentioned that's named in Jesus genealogy, and we are reminded that Jesus descended from Judah through Tamar.

Brian: 00:16:31

Now, I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but Tamar is the daughter in law of Judah.

Brian: 00:16:38

And I don't know if you remember this whole story or not.

Brian: 00:16:41

It's Genesis 38, if you want to look it up.

Brian: 00:16:44

I guess we should probably put a trigger warning on this of all kinds.

Brian: 00:16:47

But Tamar was married to Judah's oldest son, but he died before having any children.

Brian: 00:16:56

And then according to the law, according to levirate marriage, she should be then given to his second son, whose name was Onan.

Brian: 00:17:07

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Brian: 00:17:10

And he was supposed to impregnate Tamar so that she could have a son.

Brian: 00:17:15

That's the Levirate marriage.

Brian: 00:17:16

We can talk about the reasons for it.

Brian: 00:17:17

I think we've talked about it before, but go Back and look at our series on Leviticus.

Brian: 00:17:20

I'm sure we dealt with it then.

Brian: 00:17:23

But he was supposed to provide a son for her so that she could be provided for.

Brian: 00:17:31

And Onan does not fulfill that.

Ryan: 00:17:36

He delivers, but not the right one, okay?

Brian: 00:17:39

He does not fulfill his purpose.

Brian: 00:17:41

So Judah has this younger son and he says, tamar, come into my household and when he gets to be old enough, then I'll give you to him in marriage.

Brian: 00:17:52

Well, he doesn't fulfill that promise either.

Brian: 00:17:56

Judah goes back on his promise.

Brian: 00:17:58

So eventually, when his wife dies again, I don't want to tell this whole story.

Ryan: 00:18:03

He seeks the comfort of another.

Brian: 00:18:06

And in doing so, Tamar uses that.

Brian: 00:18:09

It's a secret identity.

Brian: 00:18:11

She hides her identity.

Brian: 00:18:13

It ends up that Judah lays with her thinking she's a prostitute and impregnates her with twins.

Brian: 00:18:20

And the twins are Perez and Zerah.

Brian: 00:18:25

And in fact, Perez is the younger.

Brian: 00:18:29

And this is how we trace the line of Jesus from Judah.

Brian: 00:18:36

Okay, things get a little messy here.

Brian: 00:18:39

And the reason I think this is fascinating.

Brian: 00:18:41

Well, I'll say more about it in a minute, but let's leave that here for right now.

Brian: 00:18:47

Let me say, though, when we think about this idea of hope and we think about this family and the way that God is working through them, nothing happens the way that it's supposed to.

Brian: 00:18:56

We've already seen it with Abraham and Sarah, right?

Brian: 00:18:58

Sarah was in her old age.

Brian: 00:19:00

No way she was going to bear children.

Brian: 00:19:02

They tried to make it happen through the handmaiden Hagar.

Brian: 00:19:06

And yet God miraculously gave Sarah this child.

Brian: 00:19:10

Rebekah was barren.

Brian: 00:19:12

We find Jacob is the younger of the twins, and he's the one who ends up being the one through whom the promise has passed.

Brian: 00:19:20

So this fits very well with the story of this family, right?

Brian: 00:19:25

This is just another part of this saga that God is using them, despite their imperfections, despite their quirks and some really weird, messed up things that we would not expect, but God continues to work through them.

Brian: 00:19:41

And I think there's a sign of hope there for us as well, because some of our families, let's face it, are a little messy.

Brian: 00:19:48

They may not be as messy as the story of Judah and Tamar, but God continues to work through even imperfect people.

Brian: 00:19:56

Go ahead then, read.

Brian: 00:19:58

And this is where I think I find this part just utterly fascinating.

Brian: 00:20:02

Go ahead and read, if you would, verses four and then the first half of verse five, if you would.

Ryan: 00:20:09

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:20:10

Aram, the father of Amminadab.

Ryan: 00:20:13

Amminadab.

Brian: 00:20:14

Amminadab.

Ryan: 00:20:15

Amminadab.

Ryan: 00:20:16

Yep.

Ryan: 00:20:16

The father of Nahshon, the father of Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.

Brian: 00:20:24

Okay, let's stop there for just a minute because now we're getting into some names that we're familiar.

Brian: 00:20:28

And I'll tell you this about genealogies.

Brian: 00:20:30

Whenever you read one of these genealogies, think about the stories that are associated with them.

Brian: 00:20:34

So Tamar comes up and you should immediately think, oh, Genesis 38, I remember that story.

Brian: 00:20:39

How could I forget that story?

Brian: 00:20:40

That's not in any children's Bible that I know.

Brian: 00:20:43

But then we find this story of Salmon, whose name may not be familiar to us, but certainly the name Rahab is.

Brian: 00:20:53

And you remember that story probably from Joshua chapter two.

Brian: 00:20:56

Lots of interesting stuff going on here because the Israelites are getting ready to go into this land that God has promised.

Brian: 00:21:02

God's made them into this great nation that he promised Abraham.

Brian: 00:21:05

And now he's sending them into the land that he's promised.

Brian: 00:21:08

And so they prepare, they get ready to go into the land and Joshua decides to send a couple spies over.

Brian: 00:21:17

Well, that sounds familiar because we remember an older story where there were 12 spies that went into the promised land.

Brian: 00:21:23

And Joshua was one of those spies.

Brian: 00:21:25

Well, this time he only spends sends two, because you might remember he and.

Ryan: 00:21:29

He only two faithful.

Ryan: 00:21:31

Caleb.

Brian: 00:21:31

Caleb were the ones that came back and gave him the godly report.

Brian: 00:21:34

The faithful report, two is good enough.

Brian: 00:21:37

So he sends these two into this walled city of Jericho.

Brian: 00:21:41

And Jericho was going to be a major obstacle because it was a walled, major walled city.

Brian: 00:21:47

And what happens if you look at Joshua chapter two is, it says that they hid in the home of this prostitute by the name of Rahab.

Brian: 00:21:57

And so she hides them from the rest of the people.

Brian: 00:22:01

The king of Jericho finds out that they're spies.

Brian: 00:22:04

He begins to look for them, but Rahab hides them, keeps them from being detected.

Brian: 00:22:09

There's a lot going on here.

Brian: 00:22:10

It says, first of all, her house was in the walls of the city.

Brian: 00:22:13

And I've been to ancient Jericho and there is a double walled thing and there have been found living spaces within this.

Brian: 00:22:21

The interesting thing, of course, is if you're kind of entering or exiting the city covertly, this would be the kind of place you would probably want to go to.

Brian: 00:22:32

It's the kind of place that apparently there were male visitors there on a regular basis, coming and going and so forth.

Brian: 00:22:40

And so what we find happening then is that she hides them, but then she makes them make this promise.

Brian: 00:22:46

And I find it really fascinating.

Brian: 00:22:48

I won't Go back and read it.

Brian: 00:22:49

But go back and look at Joshua, chapter two.

Brian: 00:22:51

Because she says what's common.

Brian: 00:22:53

A great fear of you all has fallen on all of us.

Brian: 00:22:55

Because we've heard about the way that God has delivered you out of Egypt.

Brian: 00:22:58

We've heard about the way he's cared for you in the wilderness.

Brian: 00:23:01

And now here's this horde of people coming down on us, right?

Brian: 00:23:04

But then she says this.

Brian: 00:23:06

I know that your God, that the Lord, that Yahweh, is the God both of heaven and of Earth.

Brian: 00:23:13

And therefore I want you to protect me and my family when you come and you take this city.

Brian: 00:23:17

She makes a profession of faith, which I find really fascinating.

Brian: 00:23:21

She doesn't just say, oh, I'm afraid.

Brian: 00:23:23

But she says, I believe in this God because I've seen the things that he's done.

Brian: 00:23:27

Therefore, I want you to protect myself and my family.

Brian: 00:23:29

And that's what they do when they come in to destroy Jericho.

Brian: 00:23:33

They take her and her family and protect them.

Brian: 00:23:36

The interesting thing we find in this genealogy, though, is Rahab.

Brian: 00:23:40

You know, you can kind of imagine if you were.

Brian: 00:23:42

If you were people coming into the land, and here's this Canaanite woman, right?

Brian: 00:23:47

This outsider, that she would be on the fringes of the society.

Brian: 00:23:51

But that's not what happens.

Brian: 00:23:52

Apparently, she is taken in and gets married to this guy named Solomon and becomes a central part of the story of this people.

Brian: 00:24:03

Because as we go on.

Brian: 00:24:05

Go ahead and read verse 6B here.

Ryan: 00:24:10

With the David section here.

Brian: 00:24:12

Yeah, I'm sorry, 5B.

Ryan: 00:24:13

5B.

Brian: 00:24:14

Yeah, sorry.

Ryan: 00:24:15

Boaz, the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.

Brian: 00:24:21

Okay, so think about this.

Brian: 00:24:22

So here's Rahab, and I find this fascinating in a number of different ways.

Brian: 00:24:26

She marries Salmon.

Brian: 00:24:27

They have this child named Boaz.

Brian: 00:24:30

And we know the story from the book of Ruth about what happens with Boaz.

Brian: 00:24:33

Boaz marries Ruth, this Moabite woman.

Brian: 00:24:38

Now, it really is cool.

Brian: 00:24:40

I never had thought about this until I read the genealogy several years ago.

Brian: 00:24:43

This struck me that Boaz would do exactly this kind of thing, even though she was a foreign woman.

Brian: 00:24:51

Because his mother was a Canaanite, right?

Brian: 00:24:54

His father had done exactly the same thing.

Brian: 00:24:57

And so Solomon had married Rahab.

Brian: 00:24:59

They had Boaz and then Boaz.

Brian: 00:25:02

And you know, the whole story of the kinsman Redeemer.

Brian: 00:25:04

And that her husband had died without her bearing any children.

Brian: 00:25:10

And Naomi was her mother in law.

Brian: 00:25:12

And again, Ruth makes a profession of faith, sister in law, Orpah, decides not to come back.

Brian: 00:25:18

But Ruth comes back with Naomi, and they put themselves at the mercy of this family.

Brian: 00:25:24

Boaz acts mercifully toward them.

Brian: 00:25:27

And then eventually we find that Boaz marries Ruth.

Brian: 00:25:32

It's a great story.

Brian: 00:25:33

You can look at that another time.

Brian: 00:25:34

Boaz marries Ruth, and Ruth becomes none other than the great grandmother of the greatest king Israel had ever known.

Brian: 00:25:43

So I find this fascinating that both the great great grandmother and the great grandmother of King David are foreign women.

Brian: 00:25:52

They are from outside of the community of Israel.

Brian: 00:25:58

And I'll go ahead and say this.

Brian: 00:25:59

This teaches me something.

Brian: 00:26:01

I think this has suggested at least something to me, because there are some who talk about.

Brian: 00:26:07

We read the story of Israel and we think about it as God's promise to this family and this community.

Brian: 00:26:12

And we see it as very heteromorphous.

Brian: 00:26:16

Right.

Brian: 00:26:16

It's just their family.

Brian: 00:26:19

But God from the beginning, has been concerned with the outsider.

Brian: 00:26:23

When we looked at the law, you'll remember there were ways that a foreigner could become a part of the community of God, and that's what we find happening here.

Brian: 00:26:32

Ruth and Rahab are not just incidental people who are on the edges of the Israelite community.

Brian: 00:26:37

They become central to this very important genealogy leading to King David, the greatest king Israel ever knew, and ultimately there in the genealogy of the Messiah.

Brian: 00:26:50

So I find that just an interesting part of this, utterly fascinating part of this whole story.

Ryan: 00:26:56

Yeah, there's a lot going on in there.

Brian: 00:26:59

Right.

Brian: 00:27:00

So go ahead.

Brian: 00:27:01

What were you saying?

Ryan: 00:27:02

No, you go ahead.

Ryan: 00:27:04

I was going to say, continuing.

Ryan: 00:27:06

I know we're not going to explore the rest of this, but even as we get into the story of Solomon, like these things that might have been wrong, like that were even going back to Tamar, things that didn't play out right, but were still important parts of the story, especially as we look at Bathsheba and Solomon and David here.

Brian: 00:27:25

Right, we'll get to that.

Brian: 00:27:26

That'll be next week.

Brian: 00:27:27

We'll talk about that.

Ryan: 00:27:28

Sorry.

Brian: 00:27:28

Well, or later this week, I guess.

Brian: 00:27:30

We're going to release on Thursday.

Brian: 00:27:31

Right.

Brian: 00:27:31

So I think that.

Brian: 00:27:33

No, don't apologize.

Brian: 00:27:35

It's an interesting thing to think about, though, and here's how we'd kind of put it, is that God's story of hope is always accomplished through imperfect people.

Brian: 00:27:47

And the reason is because that's the only kind of people God has.

Brian: 00:27:51

But God is able to work through.

Brian: 00:27:53

Well, I say, speak for yourself.

Brian: 00:27:56

I would say with one exception, Jesus.

Brian: 00:27:58

Oh.

Brian: 00:27:58

And yeah, and that worked out pretty well, too.

Brian: 00:28:01

But other than that, he continues to work through us.

Brian: 00:28:04

Right.

Brian: 00:28:05

And, you know, Christmas time is one of those times where family.

Brian: 00:28:10

We kind of see the messiness of family sometimes, and the things that, like you said, are not the way we would expect them to be.

Brian: 00:28:17

When we read the genealogy of Jesus, one of the things that it reminds me of is that he, when it says that he was.

Brian: 00:28:24

He became, took on flesh and lived among us.

Brian: 00:28:26

He was a human being according to his earthly nature, exactly as we are.

Brian: 00:28:31

He had a family that's like ours, you know, everybody.

Brian: 00:28:36

Some people like to really trace their ancestries and things.

Brian: 00:28:38

And, you know, I don't know if you've done any genealogical study or whatever, but some of us, we can only go back so far, and then it's kind of like, oh, there's a dead end here.

Brian: 00:28:47

We really don't know.

Brian: 00:28:48

Or others of us might begin to dig up things in our ancestry.

Brian: 00:28:53

I've seen this, you know, lots of stories with the ancestry DNA and stuff where people are digging up things that are unexpected in their family lines.

Brian: 00:28:59

Right.

Brian: 00:29:01

But when we look at the story, even to this point of this family, things have not gone.

Brian: 00:29:08

Always the way we would say is, well, it's not a Hallmark Christmas story, right?

Brian: 00:29:13

It's not a Hallmark picture.

Brian: 00:29:16

It's kind of a messed up story.

Brian: 00:29:18

But God is at work in the midst of it.

Brian: 00:29:22

It's not that he needs the messiness, but it's that the messiness does not mess up his plan is what I would say.

Brian: 00:29:28

God is able to work in the midst of that.

Ryan: 00:29:31

That's good.

Ryan: 00:29:32

That's a good word for today.

Brian: 00:29:33

Well, there we have it.

Brian: 00:29:34

But the last thing I wanted to end on, though, is Hebrews, chapter 11.

Brian: 00:29:40

Do you want to read that or you want me to read that?

Ryan: 00:29:42

Just go ahead and you read it.

Brian: 00:29:43

Okay, let me see if I can find it.

Brian: 00:29:46

I don't think I had it up.

Ryan: 00:29:48

Oh, here, I got it.

Ryan: 00:29:49

I got it.

Brian: 00:29:49

You got it?

Brian: 00:29:49

You got it?

Brian: 00:29:50

Go ahead and read.

Brian: 00:29:51

It's a long section, but read verses 8 through 16, if you would.

Brian: 00:29:54

It's talking about this period of the patriarchs we've been talking about.

Ryan: 00:29:58

By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

Ryan: 00:30:06

By faith, he made his home in the promised land.

Ryan: 00:30:08

Like a stranger in a foreign country, he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

Ryan: 00:30:15

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and Builder is God.

Ryan: 00:30:20

And by faith, even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful.

Ryan: 00:30:26

Who made the promise.

Ryan: 00:30:28

Who had made the promise.

Ryan: 00:30:29

And so from this one man.

Ryan: 00:30:32

And so from this one man.

Brian: 00:30:33

And he was good at dad.

Brian: 00:30:34

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:30:35

And him as good as dad.

Ryan: 00:30:36

Yep.

Ryan: 00:30:36

Came to sentence.

Ryan: 00:30:37

As numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore, all these people were still living by faith when they died.

Ryan: 00:30:44

They did not receive the things promised.

Ryan: 00:30:46

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

Ryan: 00:30:52

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country on their own.

Ryan: 00:30:56

If they had been thinking, not their own, not their own.

Ryan: 00:30:59

Sorry, first time reading this.

Ryan: 00:31:03

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return and said they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one.

Ryan: 00:31:10

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, and He has prepared a city for them.

Brian: 00:31:15

So you see this idea of looking ahead and thinking about hope, right?

Brian: 00:31:18

And the patriarchs, basically, what the Hebrew writer is saying, they were living by faith.

Brian: 00:31:23

And he says, faith isn't.

Brian: 00:31:25

When you see it, it's not faith, right?

Brian: 00:31:27

When it's something.

Brian: 00:31:28

When it's something that you already have, that's not hope.

Brian: 00:31:31

It's looking forward toward what it is that God has promised us.

Brian: 00:31:36

And all of these people, when they died, did not have.

Brian: 00:31:40

Abraham didn't ever.

Brian: 00:31:41

You know, it wasn't that the.

Brian: 00:31:43

That he even saw the great nation, right?

Brian: 00:31:45

He saw his son that was given the promise, but it was something that was in the future.

Brian: 00:31:52

And that's where we find ourselves in Advent as well.

Brian: 00:31:55

Even though Christ has come, things are not the way that they're supposed to be.

Brian: 00:31:59

And sometimes our families, as I mentioned, are messy.

Brian: 00:32:01

Sometimes there's conflict.

Brian: 00:32:03

Sometimes things are not the way we would want them to be.

Brian: 00:32:06

But we have this hope that in Christ all will be made right when he returns, injustice will be overturned, that the righteous will finally be able to live in the way that they desire.

Brian: 00:32:22

That God himself, it says there in Hebrews, is not ashamed to call them their God.

Brian: 00:32:27

Yeah, their God.

Brian: 00:32:28

And so that's what we have going on there.

Brian: 00:32:35

That's the first part of Jesus genealogy in Matthew.

Brian: 00:32:39

Any other thoughts on that?

Brian: 00:32:40

Anything else?

Ryan: 00:32:41

No.

Ryan: 00:32:42

Pay attention to genealogies, I guess.

Brian: 00:32:44

It's interesting, I think, and I think next week you'll find some things that you.

Brian: 00:32:47

That will be interesting, some details.

Brian: 00:32:49

It's.

Brian: 00:32:49

It's just a matter of slowing down.

Brian: 00:32:51

We tend to read over them quickly.

Brian: 00:32:53

Slowing down and taking a look.

Ryan: 00:32:55

Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan: 00:32:56

Well, Brian, thanks so much.

Brian: 00:32:58

Yeah, good to see you.

Brian: 00:32:59

And we'll talk talk soon.

Brian: 00:33:01

The Just remember, you can go look at our website.

Brian: 00:33:04

There's different ways to engage with us, send us messages and get asked us questions.

Brian: 00:33:07

Those kind of things.

Brian: 00:33:08

We'd love to hear from you.

Ryan: 00:33:09

Yep.

Ryan: 00:33:09

You can go to thebiblebistro.com or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram at thebiblebistro.

Ryan: 00:33:14

Alright, thanks Brian.

Brian: 00:33:15

See you soon.

Ryan: 00:33:16

See you.

Ryan: 00:33:16

Bye.