Jesus the Christ: Studies in Matthew 1-4

I’m no artist, but I do appreciate art in all its shapes and forms. Paintings, like the one on our cover, always amaze me. To the average person (that’s me) it’s just a cross that isn’t painted particularly well, but does have some cool textures. Yet to someone who understands art (perhaps that’s you) you can see the technique used and the colours used and so it has a deeper meaning for you.

That’s exactly how I feel about Jesus and the Gospels. On the one hand, as we engage with the gospels and learn about Jesus, it’s very simple and easy to understand. On the other hand, as we dig deeper and gaze at Jesus for longer we start to see his beauty and complexity a lot more.

My challenge for all of us this term is not to be satisfied with the surface level beauty of Jesus the promised King. Rather that we would spend time gazing into the greatness of Jesus the Christ. Jesus is the promised King, he came as God with us (Matt 1:23), he came to save us from our sins (Matt 1:21).

Matthew is a very structured and well-put together Gospel, which will help us to grow our view of Jesus the Christ. The focus of the author Matthew is the arrival of Jesus the Christ, that is Jesus the promised King, and his Kingdom.

The short section we will be working in this term is an introduction to the rest of the Gospel. In this short section, we will get a feel for Matthew’s writing style and we will touch on all the major themes Matthew will flesh out in the rest of his Gospel. I pray that this taster will make us hunger for more and that we won’t stop reading at chapter 4, but continue till the end.

This Christmas let us fight hard against the pull of the world with all its many temptations to gain as much as we can. Instead let us focus on the greatest gift we have already received in the coming of Jesus the Christ who came to save us from our sins and is with us till the very end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20).

For God’s glory and in Christ’s name. Amen!

Jared Hey
September 2017