The Forgotten Chapter of the Christmas Story & the Women in Jesus' Family Tree...Continued from page 1

Ray Pritchard

Genealogy was also crucial in determining the priesthood. The law specified that the priests must come from the tribe of Levi. Genealogy also helped determine the line of heirship to the throne. That helps explain why Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 contain lengthy listings of the various people returning from captivity. As the Jews re-established themselves in Israel, it was crucial that they know which families had historically held which positions in the nation.

But that same principle applies directly to the Christmas story. "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world . . . And everyone went to his own town to register." (Luke 2:1, 3) That meant that each man must return to his ancestral hometown?the town from which his family had originally come. But the only way you could be sure about your ancestral hometown was to know your genealogy.

Which is why Mary and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the ninth month of her pregnancy. They had to make that long and dangerous journey because Bethlehem was Joseph's ancestral hometown?a fact they knew from studying their genealogy.
 
I. Why This Passage Is Important Today
You may readily grant all that I have said and still wonder why we should study this passage. Although it was important 2000 years ago, what relevance does it have today? Let me suggest three answers to that question. 
A. It establishes Jesus as part of the royal family of David.
This is no doubt the central purpose of Matthew 1:1-16. To a skeptical Jewish reader, no question would be more central in his mind. God had said 1000 years earlier that the Messiah must come from the line of David (II Samuel 7). In the time of Christ, Jesus wasn't the only one claiming to be the Messiah. Other men?imposters?claimed to be Israel's Messiah. How would the people know who to believe? One answer: Check his genealogy. If he's not from the line of David, forget it. He can't be the Messiah.

That's why Matthew 1 begins this way: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." David is listed first, even though chronologically Abraham came first in history. Why? Because the crucial issue was not, "Is Jesus a Jew (a son of Abraham)?" but rather, "Is he a direct descendant of David?" In order for Jesus to qualify as the Messiah, he must be a literal, physical descendant of David.

We can see the

same principle at work in the recent controversy concerning Prince Charles and Princess Diana. This week Buckingham Palace announced that they were separating?a prelude to a possible divorce. Beyond the personal tragedy involved lies a much greater constitutional crisis for the royal family. Because the sovereign is also the head of the Church of England, no divorced person may sit on the throne. When Queen Elizabeth steps down, who will take her place? Prince Charles is next in line, but if he is divorced, he can't take the throne. Who is next in line? Genealogy gives the answer. The oldest child of Charles and Diana would be second in line, their second son would be third in line. But the monarchy itself has been called into question by this crisis. The rulers of England must come from the house of Windsor, and those rulers are determined strictly by genealogy.