Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man: A Sermon Based on Matthew Chapter 1:1-17

A Love Works Daily Commentary

Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man

A Sermon Based On Matthew Chapter 1:1-17

It's easy sometimes, I think, as we read through the word of God, whether it's the Old Testament or the New Testament, is to skip past the difficult passages; especially those long lists of names.

Has anyone just passed right by a section or a few chapters because it just seemed so boring or repetitive? I certainly have. There big chunks of Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy that are that way. 9 Chapters of 1 Chronicles are all names. And the books of Matthew and Luke both start with genealogies.

These sections are rarely read publicly and especially out loud. For one thing, no one really knows how all the names are pronounced. Even the best biblical scholars differ in their opinions, and at the end on the day we can only do our best, but we can really struggle with them. And even if we can sound out the English versions of these names and lists, the task often seems tedious, and there seems to be little to be gained from reading these things.

So we skip them. It's only natural. But something to remind ourselves, and hopefully we'll see some evidence of this today, and as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, 2 Timothy chapter 3 tells us: all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. It's profitable for many things, Paul says to Timothy that it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness - so we must conclude that no matter how difficult the passage or the reading might be, or no matter how little spiritual truth or insight we may think there is in certain verses or chapters, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable.

Do we agree that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable?