Monday, Oct. 7
Matthew 1:1 – 2:23 Read it here
Many of you have seen the television series, The Chosen, either on your own or watching as a group as we have done in China. For those who have seen it, I’d like to raise a couple of points from the show that will be beneficial as you read Matthew—and one caution.
Two things the TV show does that viewers either love or hate are emphasizing the Jewishness of the life and times of Jesus, and bringing in to sharp focus the individual humanity of each of the disciples. While both of those involve dramatization that goes beyond the words of scripture, I think they are positive, and both will help in understanding Matthew.
Matthew and Luke both relate accounts of the birth of Jesus. Here in Matthew, it is a fairly brief telling which is preceded by a list of ancestors. It is longer in Luke, and that account tells more of the supernatural events surrounding the birth. (Mark begins his gospel with Jesus as an adult being baptized by John, and John begins his gospel long before the birth, with the role Jesus played in the creation of the world.)
This brings me to one of the positive things about The Chosen.
It’s easy in reading the Bible for the disciples and gospel writers to kind of blur together, but the TV show reminds us they are very different people with very different perspectives and backgrounds. As you read the gospel of Matthew and later the other gospels, pay attention to how each has distinct emphases even while telling of the same life. God gave us not one, but four, accounts of the life of Jesus. Chances are that you will not find them equally compelling, and that’s OK…they were written by different people and written FOR different people. It’s OK to have a favorite, and it doesn’t have to be the same one as someone else’s—one really was written more for people like you, whatever that looks like.
The other positive from The Chosen that you’ll see reflected in Matthew is the emphasis on Jesus being part of the Jewish people and faith. From chapter 1 forward he is placed in the context of the Old Testament story and his continuity with it is a recurring theme.
If you have just read Genesis and Exodus with us, the earliest names in the genealogy are familiar to you (others will be before long). Their story is also Jesus’s story.
While Matthew only devotes eight verses to the birth of Jesus, he spends a lot more time on the visit of the magi and the following escape to Egypt. You can’t read the story of Joseph protecting his family by moving them to Egypt without thinking back to the earlier Joseph who did the same thing.
Matthew quotes prophecy suggesting the Messiah would come out of Egypt, and that he be connected to Nazareth. Both of these were unlikely places to be home to the Jewish Messiah, but for Matthew, that very unlikeliness provided further confirmation.
Look for Old Testament parallels throughout Matthew and the other gospels. The people who first followed Jesus would have recognized them, and those parallels helped them believe. We look at it from the other direction, and probably know much more about Jesus than we know of the Old Testament stories…but we can also look at the parallels to help us understand both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And the caution I mentioned: The Matthew of The Chosen is a much-loved character with a lot of quirks, and a particular reason to be interested in his Jewish heritage. Try not to inject too much of the fictional “Chosen Matthew” into your reading of the gospel.