Compare the first chapter of Matthew with that of Mark, and you'll notice a huge difference.
Whilst Mark goes straight into the action, Matthew steps back, and gives what everyone hopes they'll never had to read in church - a massive list of names.
Before you skip over this to get to the 'action' however, consider the history there. Look to the left of where you are in your bible - all those pages, and Matthew sticks the genealogy down in one page.
There's so much exciting significance in Matthew's list of names, not least in the fulfilment of promises by God. Promises made to Abraham and David, in the books of Genesis, 2 Samuel and Psalms that from them would come the Messiah - God's plan to redeem the world.
For those of a mathematical bent, there's something fun going on with the numbers too - 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Exile, and 14 from the Exile to Jesus.
And for those of you who remember stuff, there's some juicy characters in there. If the media got a whiff of this, there'd be scandal! World's oldest father, attempted child-killer, human trafficker, prostitute, bigamist, foreigner, paedophile...yikes!
So all that, before the story even gets going - looks like Matthew will be a good read too. Whoever said a long list of names was boring?
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