Day 3 | Was Born Jesus
December 19, 2015 - WEEK ONE
Sallie Poet, Women in Christ’s Line. Museum of Church History and Art, Salt Lake City (used with permission).
DAILY READING
CONSIDER AS YOU READ
- Why does the lineage of Christ matter to us?
- Do you sense that Christ had a lineage that would give him standing among the people of the day? Is this as important now? What has taken its place?
- Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and David are ancestors of Jesus, and include a harlot, a convert, a murderer, and adulterers—why would He have accepted this lineage?
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
Matthew’s account is that of the royal lineage, establishing the order of sequence among the legal successors to the throne of David, while the account given by Luke is a personal pedigree, demonstrating descent from David without adherence to the line of legal succession to the throne through primogeniture or nearness of kin.
Luke’s record is regarded by many, however, as the pedigree of Mary, while Matthew’s is accepted as that of Joseph. The all important fact to be remembered is that the Child promised by Gabriel to Mary, the virginal bride of Joseph, would be born in the royal line.…
In all the persecutions waged by His implacable haters, in all the false accusations brought against Him, … no mention is found of even an insinuation that He could not be the Christ through any ineligibility based on lineage. Genealogy was assiduously cared for by the Jews before, during, and after the time of Christ; indeed their national history was largely genealogical record; and any possibility of denying the Christ because of unattested descent would have been used to the fullest extent by insistent Pharisee, learned scribe, haughty rabbi, and aristocratic Sadducee.
At the time of the Savior’s birth, Israel was ruled by alien monarchs. … Had Judah been a free and independent nation, ruled by her rightful sovereign, Joseph the carpenter would have been her crowned king; and his lawful successor to the throne would have been Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1915, 81–82).
FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
QUESTIONS FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
- What did Zacharias and Elisabeth pray for?
- What name did the angel say they should name their baby?
- Why couldn’t Zacharias talk until John was born?