Title: Gentile women in the genealogy of Jesus!
Contents
Sunday day sermon
Text: Matthew 1:1-11
Title: Gentile Women in the Genealogy of Jesus!
If you look at the genealogy of Jesus, you can see that there are four Gentile women. However, all the women appearing in the genealogy have many problems, both morally and ethically. It is not easy for a human mind to understand that the dirty foreign women who were treated as dogs in the genealogy of God, which should be holy and sacred, are included in the genealogy of faith. Moreover, even though all of those women had children by unclean methods, God records them all as women of faith.
The interpretation of theologians who study the Bible today is divided on this. But the Bible will never be understood unless you know what God intended. If you judge this series of events according to ethical and moral standards, you will never know what God intended. Therefore, if you interpret the Bible without knowing what God intended, you will come up with a completely wrong interpretation. This is also what the saying goes, “If a blind man teaches a blind man, both of them will fall into a pit.”
Now, let's take a look at the aspects of Gentile women.
Jacob's fourth son was Judah (Genesis 38). Judah had three sons (Er, Onan, and Shelah), who was his eldest son. El's wife was Tamar, a foreign woman. But when Er sinned a great sin before God and was put to death, his father Judah told his second son Onan, “Go in to your brother-in-law, and fulfill your duties as husband and brother, so that there may be seed for your brother.” Knowing that he couldn't become a thing, he excreted it on the ground, and God killed him because he was evil.
There was a third son, Shelah, but he was still young and could not receive any seed. He tells Tamar, the daughter-in-law, to go to her mother's house and die, and wait until Shelah is grown up. But even though Shelah has grown up enough, her father-in-law does not give Tamar a third child. Tamar realizes this and hears that her father-in-law often appears in places where prostitutes live. Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and slept with her father-in-law, conceives twins, and gives birth to Perez and Sarah.
※Breeding Law: When the eldest son dies, the younger brother marries his brother-in-law to produce the seed. This law was taken for the purpose of inheriting the family, so it is not illegal.
The second woman to look at is Rahab the prostitute (Joshua 2). Rahab is from Jericho. Israeli spies sneaked into Jericho and stayed in the house of Rahab the prostitute. When the news was reported to the king of Jericho, the king immediately ordered Rahab to bring the men out. Rahab did not listen to the king and sent the spies. hidden on the roof. This fact put Rahab's life in danger, but Rahab, who hid the spies until the end, survives with her family when the city of Jericho is destroyed by Israel. Although Rahab was a prostitute, her name was proudly listed in the genealogy of faith.
The third woman to look at is Ruth. (Ruth 1-4) A man named Elimelech escaped to Moab with his wife and two sons when there was a famine in the land of Israel and lived there. Elimelech's wife's name was Naomi, and their two sons were Marlon and Kirion. When Naomi's husband Elimelech died, Naomi's sons took wives from among the women of Moab, the eldest daughter-in-law's name was Orpah, and the second daughter-in-law's name was Lot. Ten years passed, and both of Naomi's sons died, leaving only three women.
Naomi called her two daughters-in-law and said, "I have nothing left. Therefore, I am going back to my homeland, so I tell you to go back to where you lived.” Then Orpah, the eldest daughter-in-law, goes her own way as if waiting, while Ruth, the second daughter-in-law, says she will follow her mother-in-law. Naomi tries to persuade her to go to your hometown and start over, but Ruth says, “Your country is my country, and the place where you stay is my hometown,” and she decides to follow her mother-in-law until the end. Naomi, unable to stop Ruth any longer, returns home with her. After that, Ruth met Boaz and had Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered King David.
Finally, Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Samuel 11-12). Bathsheba was clearly a woman with a husband, but David fell in love with her and planned to send her husband Uriah to the battlefield to die, and then took Bathsheba as his wife. David tried to plot the case as if nothing had happened, but God sent the prophet Nathan to report that “the one who had ninety-nine sheep stole the one who had one.” King David became angry and said, “Bring him before me right away. Let's say come.” Nathan immediately “says that you are that person.” David confessed that he had sinned before God, put dust on his head, destroyed food and drink, repented to death, and received forgiveness from God and wisdom through Bathsheba. begat Solomon the king of
There are things we must realize and move on through the Gentile women appearing in the genealogy. That is the unchanging heart of these women. They are people who have done their texts with a single heart. An unchanging heart leads to faith. It is an event that shows us that nothing can be achieved without the mind. Today we call on the name of Jesus and act as if we have faith, but we must realize that we can never win the faith of the Lord with a heart that goes back and forth like a reed in the world.
Through the Gentile women appearing in the genealogy, we must understand greatly, why did God accomplish His work through such dirty women? The reason is simple. In a nutshell, the genealogy of Jesus reveals the image of Christ who will come before the Gentiles. If the kingdom of God was a place where only clean and holy people enter, God would not have decorated a page in history through such dirty women.
However, the picture that God wanted to show us tells us that even such dirty women can become God's children if they have a heart, that is, faith. The fact that Gentile women who were treated like dogs at that time entered the genealogy of Jesus is hope and hope for us Gentiles today. If those filthy women were not included in the genealogy of Jesus, there is no hope for us Gentiles today.
Therefore, we, Gentiles, today must not be mistaken for being clean and holy because they believed in Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. No Christian is free from that filth yet. Therefore, we cannot yet be called children of God. Those who feel that they are clean, please look into their hearts with the Holy Spirit. Then you will realize how dirty and ugly you are. Because we are dirty and ugly, we must believe in Christ who will come spiritually before us in order to get out of it.
Another great thing we need to realize is that those who were born through unclean and ugly foreign women entered the genealogy of Jesus, and it tells us that Christ, who will come before the Gentiles, will also be born through unclean and ugly foreign women. The spiritual Christ also hints in advance that he will appear before us in a dirty and ugly appearance.
But even though he may look just like us on the outside, in his heart the Spirit of Christ reigns over him, so the fact is that he is the Savior who will save the Gentiles from their sins. Even if Christians do not want to believe, they must absolutely believe this fact. Otherwise, there is no salvation. Only when the outward appearance of Christ comes before us Gentiles will he be able to understand the hearts of our filthy and ugly Gentiles and save us from our sins to eternal life. -Those with open spiritual ears, please listen and understand.-