The Literary Art of Numbers | Matthew 1

June 13, 2019

Genealogies might look boring. But every profession trades in particularities. Biology has cells, programmers have bits of code, and designers have colors and shapes. The particularities here are people, people particularities, the best kind. And particularities make up the language like letters. Of course you won’t appreciate the fullness of Goethe if you don’t know german.

The Subtlety of The Son of David and Abraham | Matthew 1:1

June 13, 2019

Matthew

We often think that genealogies are lists of names, just a collection of people without any purpose or perspective. But nothing could be further from the truth.In Jesus’ family tree, there are hundreds, if not thousands of names missing.

The Literary Structure of Matthew's Gospel

May 30, 2019

Matthew

Matthew organizes his book into alternating sections of stories and teachings. And we know this not only because we see Jesus doing things and then having long speeches but also because after each of the teaching sections Matthew repeats the same phrase, “when Jesus finished saying these things…” And Matthew does this to indicate the end of each teaching section (7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1).

Matthew 1:1 - Jesus' Subtle Identity

May 11, 2019

Matthew

The first sentence in Matthew’s Gospel is this, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” Why start this way? By the time we get to Matthew’s Gospel, we’re in the fifth act of a five act play, we’re at the end of the story, so where are we in the story, what’s happening?

Judges 1:1-7 - Should Judah Have Invited Simeon?

May 9, 2019

Judges

One of the difficult questions in Judges 1 is whether it was right for Judah to invite Simeon to lead the fight against the Canaanites given that God had said that Judah was supposed to lead. Often when there are multiple interpretive options if there is an allusion to another text, that can provide the correct perspective.