Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the YA podcast. Lean in as we dive into the practicals of life with Jesus as spirit filled young adults.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome back, young adults to the YA podcast. We are so excited to be back with you in this season talking about the Gospel of Matthew, which is gonna be so much fun. Hopefully you've already listened to the introductory episode and getting an overview of what this book is about and also are going through this book with your life group as a family and newer church. So we're excited to dive into the first three chapters today and I am joined by the wonderful Hadass.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Hello everybody.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Why don't you introduce yourself to us, tell us who you are. Who is she? What is she doing?
[00:01:05] Speaker A: So I'm this amazing human being.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: You are. You really are.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, my name is Hadassah. I'm. I help out at NUMA in terms of the uni ministries, mainly love the young adults community. Have a heart for that space and uni specifically. And yeah, yeah, you might see me around.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, you'll hear her laugh before you see her and then you'll see her and you'll catch the joy that exudes out of this woman. She has been such a blessing to our university ministry and served in that space and also leads an incredible young adult life group. Shout out to you girls. Hope you're listening to your favorite life group leader. And yeah, you ready to dive straight into this?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Let's do this.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: So listeners, if you're not in your car or in the shower, you're somewhere where you can sit down and open your Bible. Would encourage you to open your Bible with us and read along. Follow along as we go through the first three chapters of Matthew and dig into what is the message? What is Matthew trying to communicate to us here and what can we take from that? We might not go chronologically exactly, but we're kind of going to go through it. So yeah, join in with us, have an open heart and let's just dive straight into it.
So the book of Matthew, where does it, where does it even start? Like chapter one. What are we looking at?
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah, so it starts off with our favorite thing to read in the Bible, a bunch of names is doing the genealogy. Jesus and really from Abraham all the way down to Joshua, Joseph, sorry, and, and Mary. And it really starts off by positioning Jesus as the king and tracking him and his genealogy all the way back to Abraham and David as well and establishing him as kingship by linking him with the divinity and the kings of the past, if that makes sense. And really right off the jump, Matthew is saying that Jesus. Pay attention to Jesus because he is a king. He is coming from this royalty, but in not just human royalty, but later on, he goes on to show how he also has, like, heavenly royalty. So he's both royalty in both realms, I guess is the word, but, like, really establishing that position and his authority right from the jump.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And so if you listen to our previous episode, we talking about the audience that Matthew is writing to, he's writing to a Jewish audience. And so they had a knowledge and an understanding of the scriptures. So with that in mind, it's. It's important for Matthew to even communicate to them, hey, this is the. You know, this is the Jesus.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: That we are presenting to you as the fulfillment of all of these previous things. So normally, genealogy is kind of boring.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Not gonna lie. Like, why. Why am I reading a bunch of names? But actually, if we understand this, everything in the Bible is put there for a reason. Matthew's putting that there to present to his audience. Hey, this is. This is the lineage of this. This man Jesus. And this is why it's important to have that.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: And it's also really intentional. We were talking earlier about how the whole idea of 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian exile, and then 14 from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah and just how purposeful God is as well, right from the start and where Jesus comes into the story as well. Yeah, yeah. So. Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: And so then from there we go into the birth of Jesus.
How does this sort of, I guess, play a role in the presentation of Jesus as coming as the king?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: So I think one of the things that you see is sort of, I think, the way the enemy was trying to attack Jesus in his infancy, and just this idea of, like, Jesus being this important person that right from the jump, the enemy was trying to come against what he knows Jesus was coming to do and the authority he was coming to establish and the new kingdom he was coming to establish right from the jump. But you also see it in terms of the parallel of his story with Moses and the Israelites. So, you know, Matthew isn't just talking about Jesus in terms of his lineage with Abraham and David, but he also parallels him to Moses and how Jesus sort of fulfills in perfectness what God was trying to do in the Old Testament with Moses and the Israelites. So I see both of those elements coming into the story of the birth of Jesus.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So Matthew is laying a foundation of who Moses was. And knowing that these guys, like, look to Moses as their.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: That's the great leader.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: And so this presentation of Jesus as another Moses or the second Moses is foundational for them to grasp.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Who. Like the, I guess, the legitimacy of Jesus and him actually coming to fulfill the wall. So what are some of those parallels we can see? Do we draw this conclusion of. Of Moses, of Jesus being like Moses?
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Well, you have Herod trying to, like, killing all the firstborn boys, the same as what Pharaoh was doing.
You have Jesus coming out of Egypt when they got sent to Egypt, coming out again. Same thing that happened with the Israelites coming out. You have the passing through the waters of baptism, also passing through the waters of when the sea was parted in the Old Testament as well. And then a lot of the other sort of parallels might not necessarily all be in chapters one, two, three, but they're still sort of sprinkled out through Matthew, just linking Jesus back to Moses. You know, Jesus delivering the law in the. With the Sermon on the Mount, Moses delivering the ten Commandments from the mountain. And then you also have feeding the 5,000, Moses doing the miracle, feeding the Israelites as well. So, like, you have those parallels in there, sprinkled out through.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you're so right. So it's like, it's heavy on the front here. So in our passages one through three, there's. There's a handful there. And we sneak into chapter four a little bit, with even Jesus entering into the wilderness before starting his ministry. And it says he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, which was a representation of the 40 years in the wilderness which you read about in numbers 14. They had to experience 40 years of wilderness season as somewhat of a punishment for 40 days of spying at the land. And so even that is Jesus going, hey, like, I've gone through the wilderness too, but I'm gonna be the one to deliver you and to bring you promised land. So, yeah, it's awesome how, like, those things which. Which kind can seem insignificant to us. Like, you know how Herod wanted to kill the young boys because. Yeah, as you said, an assignment against Jesus.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: From the very beginning.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: But also, a Jewish reader would read that and go, oh, okay, this reminds me of something. Yeah, yeah, this sounds like. This sounds like a story I've heard before.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: And. And Moses, Sorry, Matthew is presenting this story.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Going.
You know, he's quoting Old Testament scripture, which they would have known, and going out of Egypt. I called my son, for example, in chapter one, verse 15, and saying, like, okay, yeah, Jesus, you know, also came out Of Egypt and then to go through all of those things and to present Jesus in this way as the fulfillment.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Of what? Matthew, what. I keep getting the two names of what Moses started.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: That Jesus came to actually finish and that it was God's plan all along.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: And Jesus does it. He goes through all of these things and he remains sinless. So it's that idea of he's also has dominion over the things of this world that we struggle with. Jesus has dominion over those things as well. And he went through that and came out sinless. So dominion over the things of the world also presenting that in that sense. Yeah.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: I mean, if you look at the story of Moses, he. His sin is what kept him from entering into the promised land, and that was the downfall. And then what ultimately led to, you know, all the law and the sacrifices and everything. But Jesus is coming to go, like, I'm actually showing you the way it's supposed to be and like, God's plan from the beginning for the redemption of his people. And I love, like, the point you made earlier about, like, the law, how Moses got the law from the mountain. But then Jesus, as we go into the Sermon on the Mount, he's like, standing on the mountain and presenting a new law and saying, you heard it said this way.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: I'm telling you this way.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: This is actually what. Yeah. This is why God is asking these things of us. Don't murder. Not just for the sake of, like, obviously that person.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Because it begins in the heart.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: God just wants your heart. And so he's like taking people on this journey. I love that. Yep.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: And I think you made a point earlier when we were talking about Jesus coming into this new law. Like. Like his connection to the old law is presented, but his. He's sort of showing a new way of looking at it. And he has. It's like he has the authority to show us this new way of looking at it because he is king over that law, if that makes sense.
So, you know, when he does the sermon of the month, like you were saying, and when he says, you've heard it said, but I say this way, it's like, how do you have the authority to do all those things later on? Because of what Matthew shows us in chapters one to three, it's like, this is why he has the authority to tell us look at the law differently. I'm coming to do this. I'm coming to change how you look at the law, how you act out how you live under this new kingdom. And it's like, how does he have the authority? Matthew, chapter one to three, if that makes sense.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think so. You read throughout. As you go throughout Matthew without getting ahead of our. But as you go through Matthew, you will see these times where someone who was an irreligious person and they could see that Jesus had authority, unlike the scripture scribes, unlike people that just read the scriptures and read the law. He actually was someone who had authority.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: The people that had an issue with that were ones that had come from a religious background generally. So Moses is actually setting them up to say, hey, this man has authority.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, he does. Yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: By his lineage and by the fulfillment of prophecy.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Can we just talk about fulfilling of prophecy, like, everywhere?
[00:12:09] Speaker B: The reason why I say have your Bible open. I currently have my Bible open to chapters two and three even like. Yeah, I mean, chapters one, two, three, four.
And I just went through with an orange highlighter and highlighted when every time that Matthew quotes what was written by the prophets and how Jesus was the fulfillment of that. And just looking at this now, there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in the first four chapters, at least. So he's really like, taking on this journey of fulfillment. Why is that important? And how is Jesus the fulfillment of prophecy?
[00:12:46] Speaker A: I think it's important for the audience that he's writing to, the Jewish audience. It's important for. Because they will have known, a lot of them will have known what the prophecies were. So it's so important to position Jesus as fulfilling the prophets and the prophecies of the Old Testament because again, it's sort of adding more legitimacy to who Jesus is and who his character is. And it's. I think a lot of what Matthew is doing is, hey, pay attention to Jesus. He's not just another person who passed by and did good things for people. Pay attention to him. Pay attention to who he is and what he's here to do. And again, establishing the authority of. He's fulfilling that prophecy. He is what we have been waiting for. He is, you know, the messianic king. And I think it's so important because again, with the audience he was dealing with needing to. To sort of go back and be like, look at this is. This is what the word says and he is fulfilling that word. And he did all of this to fulfill all of that.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome.
In just not necessarily in, like, the specific scriptures, but in what other ways can we parallel who Moses was to the people of Israel to who Jesus is? For the Jewish People at this time.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: And for us today, Moses was a major character in. In the story of the Israelites. He was.
They were in really a period of darkest, what probably one of, if not the lowest period of their lives as a people in being slaves in Egypt for 400 years. I think it was. Might be wrong about that. Check your Bibles, guys. But. And they had been there for a really long time and Moses was who God used to get them out of that space. So they. He really was. He had such a high place in their minds and in their literature. I mean, he wrote the Torah basically. Like he, you know, he was that person for them. So to parallel Jesus to that is to say this. He is the new authority. He is the new highest order in who we should be looking to.
He is the essentially the guy, if that makes sense. Like.
And so, yeah, to. It's, it's. It's. He was holding him in such high regard by parlaying him to someone as highly held by them as Moses was. And so, yeah, I think for us today, it's sort of this idea of Jesus is the ultimate person in the story of the Christian J. He's the deliverer. He is who we've been waiting for.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: If that makes sense. When you know as. As human beings in general, how. You know, it talks about how we are all looking for something. And it's. I think Matthew is saying Jesus is that person that we have all been waiting for. The Jews in terms of what was prophesied, but also us Gentiles in terms of what was prophesied for us as well.
Yeah. You get to be included in this person who's fulfilling the ultimate fulfillment of all of these prophecies. So it's. Yeah, it's so important.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And you just made me think about Stephen the apostle.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: In Acts 7. I love this verse. It says in. In chapter 7, verse 17, it says when the time of promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt. And then it says that he raises up Moses to fulfill the promise of Abraham.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: And look at how even that story wasn't. Didn't go exactly as those people expected. And it was a big, long journey. But then Jesus also comes as an unexpected king to fulfill the promise of us actually being made sons and daughters and being entered into the family of God. Like, Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice that paves the way for us. So it's cool even seeing stuff like that and you know, just to quickly go through a couple of other things. Like, he's both. Yeah. He's a deliverer out of our.
For them, for the people of Israel, it was slavery to, you know, a rule, but for us, it's slavery to see.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: And Jesus comes and delivers us from that. He was also the mediator.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: So Moses would mediate for the people. He would sit there and he would hear their problems, and he would speak for them to God. Jesus came to mediate for us and to, on our behalf, bear our sins on his body so that we could be reconciled to the Father. Moses was the one who would say, you know, like, go to. Go to God and, like, give us your presence. Show us your glory, you know, and that's exactly what Jesus did as well. So there's so many. And they're like, we're just scratching the surface of even those parallels of how this man that temporarily fulfilled God's plan.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Representing and revealing the heart of God to people.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: That Jesus is so much.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So much more. Yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: The fulfillment of that.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: It's so cool. There's something else really cool in these chapters that we read about. So we go to. We get to John the Baptist, and we were just chatting about this earlier and, like, how. Even how Matthew has paved out the red carpet.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: So that, like, whoever walks down that carpet, you know, they must be important because he's laid the way. So Matthew does that in a literary sense of the genealogy and the fulfillment of prophecies, as we've just talked about. But then John. John the Baptist does that in a very physical sense.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: So he baptizes Jesus to start Jesus's ministry. So we kind of jump from chapter two being baby Jesus or toddler Jesus to adult Jesus in chapter three. And John baptizes Jesus. Can we talk about for a second the significance of that of John baptizing Jesus and then the Father's response to that?
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Well, I think as we touched earlier, there's again a parallel here with the Israelites and the sea parting and then Jesus coming through that water. But, like, this being so significant in terms of what the Lord says or God says over Jesus. This is my son, in whom I am well pleased. And I think such a short sentence, but so powerful in the completeness of what it says over Jesus, who his identity is. I mean, you know, Matthew has been pointing to, like, you know, the genealogy and all of these other things. And. But then this is like, direct from the source. Direct from God himself, sort of like putting a stamp on. Yes. This is who Jesus is. This is his Authority. This is his identity. He is the fulfillment of the prophecies. He is the deliverer, he is the king, and he is my son. So as I mentioned earlier, it's not just the, like, human royalty that Jesus is tied to, but it's also the divinity of. Of God. And like that, that part of him, fully man, fully God. And in this moment, those. That those two things are fully stamped that, yes, he's fully man in this moment, but he's also fully God.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: And I think it's so powerful in what God says over Jesus in that moment. And even just the act of that beginning his ministry from that point. Everything that comes after is just Jesus demonstrating that. But this is really who he is. This is really like the. One of the moments. Obviously, it also builds to Peter saying, you are the Messiah. But it's one of those moments in Matthew that is so important. It's like the. The stage lights are pointing to this moment of, yes, he is. He is God's son, He is our deliverer. He is that person for all of us. So, yeah, I think that's really what the significance. Well, some of what the significance of this moment is.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And as we touched on in the previous episode, in the overview, the whole book of Matthew, it is central to this revelation of Jesus as the Christ. Yeah. Where Peter says that in Matthew 16, he goes, you are the Son of God. You are the Christ.
And it's cool because it's, it's leading to our revelation. But Matthew starts us by going, yeah, God, that's actually God. The way that God sees Jesus, the Father says over him. And it's this beautiful Trinity moment. Actually, the Father speaks over Jesus. This is my beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit rests on him. And we see this intersection of heaven and earth.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Seeing the, as you've just said, the holiness of Jesus and the divine nature of who he is, but also his humanity in the humility to be baptized by another. Not to mention the humility of even coming as a baby, fully grown man, if he wanted to. But the humility of his submission to humanhood.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: And to all of the sufferings and the temptations that we will face and see that in the next chapter, when Jesus is tempted by Satan, but to submit to all of that, but to still hold his divine nature. And for the Father to say, this is my beloved Son. And I think, what a beautiful way to start your ministry.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Of the Father declaring your identity over you. And yes, Jesus is the messianic king. He's the Fulfillment. He's coming to bring a new kingdom here on earth, but he's also the Son. And I think that that's so important for us to take is like, we are sons and daughters and our identity is first received from the Father. So let's talk about that for a sec. Like, how can we take what we've learned about Jesus even in these few chapters, and how he is the king and he brings the kingdom and how he is the Son of God? What does that mean for us today? And how do we actually apply that and what we've learned about Jesus here to our lives?
[00:22:50] Speaker A: It's a hard. There's so much to touch on, but I just want to build off of what you said before, and then I'll also chat through the kingship of Him. But in terms of him being a son and this, this, this identity that's established right here before Jesus even does anything, really, because up until this point, he hasn't really actioned anything in Matthew, but it really has just been God establishing who he is and his identity. And I think there's such beauty in the fact that, you know, when God looks at us, he doesn't look at what we've done. That's not what is brought up in terms of who we are when he looks at us. It's who we are in his eyes. And we are his children and he loves us and he's pleased over us. Before any of the works, before any of that starts, before any of Jesus's ministry, before we even had Jesus speak. Yeah, like, he's already established in such a. Such a precious way in God's eyes. And I think there's such freedom in that and such beauty and intimacy in that as well. For us as believers, like, who you are is not for God. It's not attached to anything that you're doing or anything you've done for Him. So I think for me, that's something that really stands out to me there. But just in terms of Jesus's kingship, I think knowing that the God we serve is a God of authority, understanding that he is here to do business, like he is, you know, like Jesus, like I said earlier, he is that guy. I think it's so. It's so awesome to see him be this fulfillment and be this king and come with the authority and dominion that God has given him to operate and understanding that that's still something that's here, that he's still king in this realm. And that is so powerful to know. It's such a Powerful revelation for when we go through the things in our everyday to understand who is for us, you know.
So that's always something that always sticks out to me. His authority is really so present in this first few chapters. Like, yes, Jesus has authority, you know, all authority in heaven and on earth. So I think that's something that really stands out to me.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: That's so good. And I think just knowing that this man came as king.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: And exercise that authority, but it didn't look the way they expected it. He didn't come riding in on a white horse and with a sword and come and kill the Romans, oppressing the people. Just like, you know, I guess touching back on the parallel to Moses, like Moses had to deliver the people in an unexpected way. Jesus also came and in an unexpected way revealed his kingship and lips on our heads.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: The idea of what a king actually means is not someone who is demanding with people or that is like lording it over them, but it's actually this humility and this submission to the Father and to that it came to serve, that came to be a baby that come, that came to fulfill prophecy. Not just because that was a nice thing to do, but he himself was like, I know the mission that I have and I'm here to fulfill a mission. And I'm here to bring the kingdom of God to people and show them that God is love and God's kingdom is not in the ways of the world.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: And so he just changes all of that for us. But he shows us what true kingship looks like. I think it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful way to learn that and it's a beautiful start to this book.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: And Matthew, any final thoughts before we close out? Anything to leave people with, to reflect on?
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Honestly, I think Matthew, when I've like this is one of the first times like doing the study that I've read through the entire book. I feel like with Matthew you sort of. We know it well, it's preached on so well. But like reading it, like reading those first three chapters all together, I think it just who Jesus is is highlighted so strongly and sort of this idea of like you're saying what he came to do was different from what we thought it was, what they would have thought it was in terms of coming to freedom. In that sense, the authority that he has to bring us the freedom that we actually need, which is from our sin is so important and I think it's so beautiful as well that the Jesus that we love has all authority to do the. To heal us and to strengthen us and encourage us and to free us. And it's. Yeah, it was such a reminder of the God we serve. Such a beautiful reminder. Yeah.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So good. Well, I hope this has encouraged you guys. And you know, as Hadassah's just said, like, sometimes we just read Matthew and we just jump to the sermon on the ground and we go straight to the application. But to actually know that everything that's written here and everything that is in the Word is for our teaching and for edification. So we want to encourage you to ponder on these things, look at the message of Jesus that is being presented to us, and receive the fullness of the Gospel, because there is so much there. So listen or listen to this podcast, listen to an audiobook of the Bible, read through those first three chapters, discuss it in your life group. Come and discuss it with us whether have the conversation with us on. On Instagram. I'm pretty sure you can comment now on podcasts that comment and let us know your thoughts. We'd love to hear just some of the reflections and some of the applications that you can take from these first three chapters. We hope this has blessed you and we can't wait to see you or to for you to hear us in the next episode. Thank you, Hadassah, so much.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Forget again.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Bye.
