FBC Morning Light (10/12/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Good Saturday morning, people of faith. This Saturday morning, we are on our 286th day of this year, and there's only 80 days left.

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And we are going to do something today in our daily devotionals that we have not done yet, and that is have our passages from the

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New Testament. We are finally finished with the Old Testament, and our reading this weekend is from Matthew chapter 1,

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Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 3, and John chapter 1. And so what

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I'm going to do today is just talk briefly about the beginning of Matthew, Luke, and John, and hopefully give to you the reasons for the writings of these books, these

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Gospels. So let's start with Matthew chapter 1, and it says, "...the

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book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."

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So the son of David, the son of Abraham, it's connected...this is going to go on and give the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Abraham, and the reason that that would be important is because Abraham is the father of the

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Israelites, and in particular also then the Jews. And so what's going on here is the book of Matthew was written specifically to the

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Jews. In essence, it's like a Christian manifesto to the

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Jews. Why? Why Christ? And so, as further evidence of that, and why the book of Matthew would be the first book of the

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New Testament, the Hebrew Bible, the

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Old Testament, was ordered a little differently than our...than

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the way we order the New Testament. It didn't have anything different in it, but the ordering of the books was different so that their

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Bible ended with Chronicles, and I say Chronicles instead of First and Second Chronicles because they put both of those books together.

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And what is one of the major components of the book of Chronicles?

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Genealogies. And so the idea of the book of Matthew being the

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Christian manifesto to the Jews and starting with...and

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starting with this genealogy would be in the mind of a first century

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Jew that what God had done in the past, he is picking up and continuing here with Jesus Christ.

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And so, hence, the book of Matthew is written primarily to a

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Jewish audience. Let me read Luke chapter 1, just the first couple of verses here.

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This is Luke writing. It says, "...inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the

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Word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent

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Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed."

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So what's happening here is Luke has gone back and done much research in a fairly recent time after the resurrection, not so long that the eyewitnesses from the beginning were all gone.

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All right? So there's a what we would call an internal attestation to the timing of the writing of the

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Gospel of Luke. All right? And so he is putting in order, which is why

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Luke is a synoptic gospel, he's putting in order those things that happened, and he is writing to most excellent

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Theophilus. And so Theophilus, the name means God -lover.

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And so this is a more universal audience, and it's possible that Paul may have commissioned

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Luke to do this while Paul was being held in Caesarea Philippi awaiting trial, and so that Paul could use this document in the preaching of the

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Gospel. That is one possibility. But this has, the book of Luke then, has a more general audience, which would include the

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Gentiles, to show the good news of Jesus Christ.

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Now I'm going to read a little bit from the Gospel of John, chapter 1.

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And John chapter 1 starts with a very famous verse. It says,

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

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Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

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In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

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All right, so this, notice this book, the Gospel of John, has a very different focus.

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It makes no claim that the Gospel of John would be written in an orderly fashion.

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Instead, it starts by proclaiming that Jesus Christ is

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God. And the primary emphasis then of the

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Gospel of John is to show the deity of Christ to the whole world.

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And this, notice that this is something that is, there's this contrast between the light that is in Christ and the darkness that is in the world, and that will be a theme throughout the

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Gospel of John as well. Let us pray. Lord, thank you so much for your

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Word, that in your Word we see the broad topics of the truth that you give to us, and we see the truth even in all the way down to the finest details and the purposes that you have with your

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Word, and in the writing of your Word. May we gladly embrace your

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Word, and let your Word be the light that shines into the darkness that we might live by the light of your

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Word. It's in your Son's name, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Have an excellent day, people of faith.