I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 1-4.

    Matthew begins his account of Jesus’ life with a genealogy. Matthew makes a point of noting the fact that there were 14 generations from Abraham to King David, 14 generations from King David until the Babylonian Exile, and 14 generations from the Babylonian Exile until the birth of Jesus. When I went to see if I could find a reference which explained the significance of 14 generations I discovered something interesting, There are only 40 generations (41 if you count Jesus) listed. However, if you read closely you notice that Matthew counted David twice: Abraham to David, David to the Exile, the Exile to Jesus (Jehoiachin is counted after the Exile). I found several explanations of the significance of those 14 generations, but only one that I found satisfying. Matthew pointed out the three sets of 14 in order to illustrate God’s careful planning and foretelling of Jesus’ coming.

    Why was John the Baptist’s reaction to the Pharisees and Sadducees different from his reaction to the “common” people? I think the answer is fairly simple. The “common” people who came to John were fully conscious of their sins. They were the same type of people who today say, “I’m going to Hell, but it won’t be so bad, all my friends will be there.” Whereas the Pharisees and Sadducees were the type of people who made them think that way. The Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to feel the feeling of being cleansed without admitting there was anything from which they needed to be cleansed. If you do not acknowledge that you have done wrong, you cannot stop doing it. It is not enough to come to God and ask for forgiveness, you must also be willing to change, to stop committing the sins which you have identified in your life.

    When I began writing today I was not sure I was going to go over what I think is the core of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. At this point in His life Jesus had realized that He had been called to bring about change in the world. Further, He had a desire, and a plan to do so. The temptations He faced in the wilderness are those faced by anyone who wishes to change the world. Not only that, but they are temptations to focus on symptoms rather than root cause. Each temptation is twofold.
    The first temptation is to provide food (or basic necessities) to gain power, but it is also the temptation to treat the need for basic necessities as the problem which needs to be solved. Jesus refused to accept that the need for food was the basic problem and He refused to use His ability to provide for people’s physical needs to gain power. The second temptation is to use religion to acquire power, but it is also the temptation to divorce people’s spiritual needs from their physical needs. Once again, Jesus rejected the idea that addressing people’s physical needs would solve everything and He would not use His power to overawe people into yielding to Him. The third temptation is the one which opened this all up to me. The third temptation is to enter into the political arena and gather political power in order to address the world’s problems; if we could just fix the problems with corruption and inefficiency in our political bureaucratic organizations all would be well. Jesus rejected the idea that the world’s problems could be solved by playing politics and He refused the compromises necessary to acquire political power. All three of these areas are symptoms of the real problem: our broken relationship with God. We do not need better and more just laws, we need better and more just people. It is not enough to meet people’s spiritual needs, we need to help them meet their physical needs as well. On the other hand, it is not enough to meet people’s physical needs, we need to satisfy their spiritual needs by drawing them into a relationship with God.