Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Like in Luke and John, the birth account in Matthew functions as an introductory summary of the meaning of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. By casting Jesus in opposition to the political leadership, Matthew is prefiguring the later rejection of Jesus by the chief priests and Roman leadership.
• Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospel writers, by which I mean Matthew is the most concerned that Jesus be seen as fulfilling the promises made in the law and the prophets regarding who the Messiah would be.
• Unlike Luke’s Gospel, Matt 2:1 is Matthew’s first attempt to set Jesus in a historical context vis-à-vis the political leadership. Matthew 1 takes great care to place Jesus within the religious genealogy, but it isn’t until 2:1 where the time (days of King Herod) and place (Bethlehem) are revealed.
• Magi is a transliteration of the Greek work μάγοι, meaning “wise men” or “astrologers,” or (in Acts 13:6, 8) “magician” or “sorcerer.” It was a priestly class of Persian or Babylonian scholar of astrology and the interpretation of dreams. They represent pagan (gentiles) who, without the revelation of the Torah, come to find the Messiah. Following a star links both pagan beliefs that the birth of new rulers were announced through stars and the Jewish tradition of the Messiah being the “star out of Jacob.”
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
No comments:
Post a Comment