The "Name-Dropper"
Google Images I went to seminary with D. A. Carson. That’s the only name I can “drop” that might have any significance to the broader world beyond my own little one. Matthew, as he begins his gospel, immediately drops some very impressive names. He does it quite deliberately because he wants to impress his Jewish audience, not with WHO he knows, but with the significance of WHAT he knows. “ A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham ” (Matthew 1:1) is how the book begins. You see, Matthew had discovered that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah, the Redeemer sent from God to restore His people to Himself. Now his task is to try to convince his Jewish kinsman of that truth. To the knowledgeable Jew, the promised Messiah would come from the kingly line of David. Just as importantly, religious Jews knew that the Messiah was the fulfillment of a promise made to the patriarch of all Jews, Abraham. In Genesis 12, God had told Abraham this: “I will ma...