As a bit of an introduction, I wrote quite a bit about the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount a year or so ago (you can access those posts here: The Lord’s Prayer – Lord, Teach us to Pray…). Since that time, I’ve written about the book of James (you can find those posts here: James’s Letter to the Church) and have continued studying the book of Matthew. Recently, I’ve seen some uncanny connections between Matthew’s Gospel and the Lord’s Prayer. As such, I will begin posting my thoughts regarding Matthew’s Gospel and how it, both in part and in the whole, seems to be related to the Lord’s Prayer.

As usual, I would love to hear back from you as to what you think about my posts. Feel free to respond directly to the post or, if you prefer, send an email to onthefoothills@gmail.com.

Here is the first post; it is titled…

Matthew 1:1–17 – God’s Eternal Plan

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

What does it mean to revere the name of God? While it can, and does, mean that we place a high degree of reverence on his actual name, and it can, and does, mean that we do not take his name in vain by using it inappropriately or applying his name to things that are not of his doing as well as not applying it to those things that are of his doing, it also means that we praise him for his mighty works — those things that he does, many of which only he can do, some of which he does through the mediation of others.

Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy leading up to the birth of Jesus, the Christ. While it may seem like a somewhat mundane listing of names, I believe, if seen properly, it is anything but. In reference to the gift of God’s grace found in Jesus, Paul writes in Ephesians 3:11, “This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Before the foundations of the earth, before the spirit moved across the face of the waters, before Adam and Eve found themselves in the Garden of Eden, God had planned that his son would be born to a virgin by the name of Mary in the small town of Bethlehem. But it is more than that, God also made a promise to Abraham that through him all the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3) and he made a promise to David that from his line would come a king who would rule forever (II Samuel 7, esp. vs 12-16). As such, this genealogy is not a somewhat mundane listing of names but is the evidence that God fulfilled his eternal plan and his promises to both Abraham and David.

This genealogy also speaks to how God can and does work through sinful man. Take a look at those who are on this list and you will not find one who is without sin. Of course, they are all human and everyone is sinful, but there are some fairly big names on this list when it comes to sin. Think of the duplicity of Isaac, the hate and jealousy of Judah (and his brothers), and David, of course, was no saint when it comes to marital fidelity; does it not surprise you that God chose the line of Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, the former wife of Uriah the Hittite whom David had killed? Time might run out if we were to detail all of the sins of the kings in the list from verses 7 – 11, but notice that Manasseh is in the list. Manasseh is the one who placed an idol to Asherah in the house of the Lord, thus sealing God’s judgment upon Judah and Israel. And yet, in spite of all of this sin and duplicity, God’s power prevails. There seems to be no deed so evil, no heart so broken, that God cannot redeem it or use it for his purposes; Manasseh, as you will read in II Chronicles 33:10-20, repented and God forgave him. This didn’t remove the punishment and the curse, but even through this, God brought his long-awaited son, Jesus, the Messiah. If you aren’t moved to say, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name!” after reading Matthew’s genealogy and seeing how God worked out his eternal purposes despite the fallibility of humanity, then I don’t know what will move you to pray those words.

But there is another thing — a fairly subtle thing — to be found in Matthew 1:1. Matthew begins his Gospel with the words, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” By themselves these words might seem to be fairly simple — they are just an introduction to what follows, aren’t they? — but I think it is possible that Matthew might have meant these words to be an allusion to something else written many centuries before he was even born. Matthew, as many have said, wrote his Gospel to a Jewish audience. His audience who would have been familiar with the books we currently call “the Old Testament — note how many times Matthew refers to Old Testament prophecy; it is far more than any other Gospel writer — and as such, I think that when his audience read the words “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ” they would have thought about the Book of Genesis.

Moses, the most frequently accepted author of the Pentateuch, used the Hebrew word “toledot” 11 times in the book of Genesis. Toledot, in English, means “the generations of” or “the genealogy of.” Some have suggested that Genesis is actually organized by Moses’s usage of the word, toledot. His 11 uses of toledot in Genesis are as follows:

Genesis 2:4 – The toledot of the heavens and the earth when they were created
Genesis 5:1 – The toledot of Adam
Genesis 6:9 – The toledot of Noah
Genesis 10:1 – The toledot of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth
Genesis 11:10 – The toledot of Shem
Genesis 11:27 – The toledot of Terah
Genesis 25:12 – The toledot of Ishmael, Abrahams’ son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant, bore to Abraham
Genesis 25:19 – The toledot of Isaac, Abraham’s son
Genesis 36:1 – The toledot of Esau (that is, Edom)
Genesis 36:9 – The toledot of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir
Genesis 37:2 – The toledot of Jacob

If nothing else, it seems that the book of Genesis is a book of generations. It begins with the creation of the earth, follows those families and people God chose, and ends with Jacob, his father, and his brothers and their families in Egypt. Exodus continues that story as we follow the Israelites out of exile and into the Promised Land. But their story doesn’t end in Exodus. It actually continues all the way through Malachi. The Israelites left Egypt and were established in their promised land, but they continually failed to live up to their end of the covenant God made with Abraham. I realize that the following may seem as though I am reaching a bit, but I find it quite interesting that Matthew a) uses this terminology “the book of the genealogy” and b) then proceeds to write about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; he even writes of how Jesus and his parents went to Egypt and then returned. It is almost as though Matthew is saying, “the Israelites didn’t quite get it, so I’m going to tell the next book of the genealogy of God’s plan to bring salvation to mankind. And by the way, it begins with a baby named Jesus who comes out of Egypt!” Is it possible that Matthew begins his book with the words, “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ” as a way to tell the 12th and final chapter in the story that began so long ago in the garden in Genesis?

Regardless of the answer to that question, it seems clear that these brief introductory verses in Matthew 1:1-17 are one way that Matthew introduces us to the greatness of the name of the Father. God’s plans, from the depths of eternity, cannot be thwarted. He works through those who love him and follow him, but he also works through those who don’t. The story God began telling us in Genesis — that story ending in Egyptian captivity — continues with the birth of Jesus, the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah.

For God’s power and wisdom to work out all the details of his eternal plan we pray…
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

• Click HERE to go to the page containing all the posts for this study on The Lord’s Prayer and Matthew’s Gospel