Basic Story
Matthew 8 – Woman caught in adultery
Religious police bring her (but not him) to temple area – stand before group – trap Jesus into saying she should be stoned “ACCORDING TO THE LAW”.
Jesus bends down and writes on the ground.
Classic: “What is Jesus doing?!”
Rub mud in eyes
Post-resurrection “You guys got any food?”
“Let anyone without sin, cast 1st stone.”
Write on ground more
People start to leave
Just her and Jesus
“Does anyone condemn you?”
No
Neither do I.
Leave life of sin.
End of story
What Was Jesus Writing On Ground?
Opinion
Ready? Take some time.
Festival
This story found beginning of Matthew chapter 8
Go to chapter 7 – Festival of Tabernacles
1 of 7 major annual feasts – Hebrew calendar
See them in Leviticus 23
Spring feasts and fall feasts
The Spring Feasts were Passover, then Unleavened Bread, then First Fruits, then Pentecost.
The Fall Feasts were Trumpets, then Atonement, then Tabernacles.
Feast of tabernacles: last fall feast.
Feast before winter
Hoping – water come – crops – so in the spring – harvest – celebrate at the spring feasts
1000’s of people – come to Jerusalam
8 days of feasting
Home made shelters – “Sukkots”
Represented – how God cared for them – traveled through wilderness (Exodus)
During 8 days
Sacrifices
Singing
Special Rituals
Feasting
All about asking God for winter rains – crops
Religious leaders – teach
Significance of water
Water as rain
Water and thirst
Thirst metaphor “spiritual longing”
Lots of teaching about water
All cultivated to 8th day
High priest – pitcher water & pitcher of wine
Pour it over the altar
Crowd chanted “Hosanna, Hosanna”
“God save us,”
“God please bring us rain to save us from drought and famine.”
Read from chapter 7
Verse “On the last and greatest day of the Festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice”
Why loud? Because it’s the last day, everyone is chanting.
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.”
Focused on their real psyical need, switches it to their spiritual need and how he can satisfy it.
1000’s of people are together, living in home made houses, partying.
What happens when people spend all day and night together and all get drunk?
End up in the wrong tent regretting their decision.
Not surprising religious leaders drag a woman out who is having sex with a guy who she’s not married to.
Back To The Story
Drag her out, trying to trap Jesus
Don’t believe Him
Rejected him
Want to expose him as a fraud
Challenge him from a passage from the law. From the OT.
Bend down and writes in the sand.
Questions
What have the Pharisees and religious leaders been doing for the past 8 days?
Feasting
And what have they been doing at the feast?
Teaching
And what have they been teaching about?
Water.
And what passages would they have been teaching?
Interesting.
One most common
Jeremiah
About dust – which is what you have when you don’t have water.
A few lines: “LORD, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust…”
The scripture they were used to – turned in on them.
Without saying a word
You preach of water, and you’re missing the living water that’s right in front of you.
“Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust.”
Many people think he wrote the names of the religious leaders in the sand.
By rejecting me and judging this lady you are rejecting God.
The religious leaders HAD scripture to back up their point.
They abandoned God by clinging to the way things used to be.
Religious Leaders Of The Day
Way to relating to God
Safe
Predictable
Rejected Jesus
Because he wasn’t the God they were expecting.
Surprising
Juicy Genealogies
Matthew 1
Starts with Abraham
Goes to Joseph
End: 15 Elihud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Jesus – Joseph – Jacob – Matthan – Eleazar – Elihud
Luke 3
Starts with Jesus – goes backwards
Beginning: Luke 3:23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli,
24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
Jesus – Joseph – Heli – Matthat – Levi – Melki
Points
Sexism
Back in the day – life force – men – genealogies – men
Luke example:
“Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph”
Tracing back through Mary’s line
Joseph – (step) son of Heli
Racism
Jews
Matthew : Jews – Jesus’s (through Joseph) lineage to David
Proving his Jewish cred.
Jeremiah 23:5
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.
Numerology
Jews – super important
Matthew – Starts w/David
DAVID – Hebrew – value = 14
Words – used for meaning but also had a numerical value
A = 1, B=2, C=3
CAB = 3+1+2 = 6
Hebrew : DAVID = DVD (no vowels) – D = 4, V = 6, DVD=14
Matthew genealogy – names grouped in 14’s
All jews – waiting for David’s heir to appear.
All knew his name = 14.
Verse 17 – Thus were there fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
The jews would have immediately known: Matthew believes Jesus is the son of David we’ve been waiting for and he’s writing to tell us why…
Luke
Written possibly 10 years later
Not written to jews
Matthew – fulfilling jewish prophesy
Luke – humanity of Jesus
Was it uncommon to trace a man’s genealogy through his mom’s side? Yes
But it makes sense when you understand Luke’s book.
Jesus for everybody / Found among to the poor / Margins / Alleys
Lost coins / lost sheep / lost sons.
Not just a jewish thing, it was the plan before the Jews existed. Since the beginning of time.
His doesn’t end with David, who cares about David…
All the way to Adam
“Son of God”
You know about the other genealogy to David. I’m saying it’s not just about the jews,
His genealogy – doesn’t worry about – prophesy, royalty, purity
Telling a big story – about salvation of all humanity through Jesus
Sexual Sin
Amazing – Matthews – include women
Namely: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, & Bathsheba
Stories
TAMAR SLEPT WITH HER FATHER-IN-LAW (Genesis 38)
Judah had chosen Tamar as a wife for his son, Er. But Er was such a wicked man that God killed him. Judah (the dad) then ordered Er’s brother, Onan, to marry the widow in order to produce an heir, as was the legal custom of the time. Onan was happy to have sex with Tamar repeatedly, but he refused to impregnate or marry her, and so she was forced to live as a widow.
Eventually, Judah’s (the dad) wife died, and Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and waited for her father-in-law by the side of the road. Judah picked her up and had sex with her, impregnating her with twin boys. Judah still didn’t know the identity of the prostitute (that it was his daughter in law) when he found out that Tamar was pregnant, so he ordered that she be put to death. In a great Jerry Springer-like plot twist, however, Tamar revealed that Judah was grandpa-daddy, so he cancelled the death sentence.
RAHAB WAS A LYING PROSTITUTE – (JOSHUA 1–2)
The name Rahab means pride, insolence, savagery. She was a Canaanite, people who were great enemies of God and his people. Vocationally, she was a prostitute, but is best known for being a good liar.
God had promised he would deliver Rahab’s city of Jericho to Joshua. Joshua sent two spies from Shittim to Jericho for reconnaissance. The spies were pursued by enemy soldiers, but Rahab hid the men in her home, lied to the soldiers, and spared the lives of God’s spies. She began to follow God and eventually became the great-great-grandma of King David.
RUTH WAS THE RESULT OF INCEST – (Book of RUTH)
Ruth was a Moabite, an entire race of people who came about through incest. A man named Lot thought the world was about to end, so he headed for the hills (literally) with his two daughters. There weren’t any other men in the mountains, so his daughters got their father drunk and had sex with him, and the Moabite people came out of those children conceived by Lot’s daughters.
The Moabite people carried that stigma into Ruth’s day, but she began to follow God after her Jewish husband died, and she became one of the godliest women in the Bible. She got married again, this time to a godly man named Boaz, and became King David’s great-grandma.
BATHSHEBA COMMITTED ADULTERY WITH KING DAVID – 2 SAMUEL 11
Uriah the Hittite, a soldier in King David’s army, was married to a beautiful woman: Bathsheba. Uriah went off to battle while David remained safe at home. While David was strolling on his rooftop one day, he saw Bathsheba bathing. He was so taken with the woman that he had her brought to his palace, where he seduced her. She later informed David that she was pregnant.
After a botched attempt to cover up the scandal, David conspired to abandon Bathsheba’s husband on the front lines so that he would be murdered by the enemy. David’s plan was successful, and Bathsheba the adulteress became the wife of King David and mother to King Solomon.
All 4: non-jews – involved sexual immorality or are a product of it.
Point is obvious
Matthew 9 -Jesus friend of sinners,
Matthew 1 Jesus came THROUGH sinners.
Different than any other religion
He’s a friend to sick, outcast, gross, rejected people.
His genealogy : sick, outcast, gross, rejected people
Ending
The genealogies of the bible are not there for historical reference. The authors are making points about who Jesus really is. He is the one who was prophesied about. He is the perfect God, and the perfect man. Even through tremendous human imperfection, God’s plan remained unchanged. He isn’t intimidated by the sin that is in all of our lives, he’s not repulsed by us, he’s not frustrated with us, and His plans are not sabotaged by our sin.
Closing
You can’t understand the bible if you don’t understand the contrast.
One of the points of Jesus is that He’s not the God we were expecting.
Pharisees:
“God cannot look upon sin!”
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. (Habukuk 1:13)
One of the misconceptions of God that Jesus corrected.
The contrast between Old Testament pictures of God and New Testament pictures of Jesus is absolutely huge. Don’t fight against that contrast. Don’t constantly try to reconcile and merge the two. And please, please don’t create a schizophrenic God where you never know what mood he’s in. Because the truth is Jesus was surprising, but at the same time, incredibly consistent. Consistent in his ability to love the unlovable. To exist in the ugliness of our humanity and not be overcome by it. Consistent in opposing prideful, self righteous religion, and instead embracing humble, imperfect people. Like it says in 2 Corinthians: “His power is made perfect in our weakness.”
