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Advent 2022 – Week 1 Discussion Guide

DISCUSSION GUIDE

Note—As you work through the discussion guide, remember that you do not have to answer every question; pick and choose which questions work best for your group discussion.

Introduction: Our everyday lives are full of mystery yet we are so accustomed to them we don’t think of them as mysterious. No one fully understands gravity or light or any number of things we depend on and take for granted. This isn’t to say that we don’t understand anything about them but rather that many things remain, for now, beyond the scope of human knowledge.

Activity: Name some everyday things that are a mystery to you.  (Computers, cars, your spouse, photosynthesis, etc.). How is it that the mystery side of these things doesn’t keep you from making use of (having relationship with) them? What does it mean that we can have adequate and accurate knowledge of something without having exhaustive knowledge of it?

Explain: Matthew, the former tax collector, was a man of attention to detail. He was a Jewish background believer writing to others like himself. He begin with the genealogy of Jesus because this would have been an important resume for his readers. This is not a strict accounting of everyone in Jesus’ family line Matthew selected the people who were in the Lord’s background that were pertinent to the point that he was making.

Read through Matthew 1:1-17 on your own.

Question 1: What are some reasons for why Matthew might have selected these particular people to include in the Lord’s resume?

Explain: To us, a genealogy may seem a very tedious way to begin a book, and a waste of space. To the Jewish world in which Matthew belonged it was a matter of importance, as a glance at the numerous genealogies of the Old Testament makes clear. But Matthew is not merely conforming to Jewish literary convention. The way he presents his genealogy shows that it introduces several important strands into his presentation of Jesus as the Messiah. 1. It places Jesus fully in line with the history of Old Testament Israel, as one famous name after another reminds the reader of the forward movement of God’s saving purpose. 2. By organizing that history into a regular scheme of three groups of fourteen generations (see on 1:17), it indicates that the time of preparation is now complete, and that in Jesus the time of fulfilment has arrived. 3. By tracing Jesus’ descent through the royal line of Judah, it stakes his claim to the title ‘King of the Jews’ (see p. 45). 4. It establishes his status as ‘son of David’, not only by emphasizing David’s place in the genealogy (see on 1:6), but, perhaps, by a play on the name of David in the use of the number fourteen (see on 1:17). 5. The mention of certain ‘irregularities’ in the ancestry of the royal line of Judah serves to counter objections to the manner of Jesus’ birth (see on 1:3–6). The genealogy is thus a vital part of the conception of Matthew’s introductory section. It is ‘a résumé of salvation history, of God’s way with Israel’.

Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary, R. T. France

Read: “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)

Question 2: How do you see both “history” and “mystery” in this verse?

Explain: A contradiction is two things that cannot be true in the same way at the same time. For instance, “Jesus was fully God and Jesus was not fully God at the same time.” A mystery or what some might call a paradox is something that appears to be contradictory but is not. “Jesus was fully God and Jesus was fully man at the same time.” We are not able to fully comprehend this but this doesn’t mean it is contradictory or false only that it is mysterious to us.

Question 3: What Scriptural truths do you struggle with because you can’t fully get your mind around them?

Question 4: How can better knowing and trusting God help you trust him with the mysteries of faith?

Read: 18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Question 5: How does Star Wars or your favorite fairy tale begin? How did Matthew begin?

Question 6: Matthew quotes from Isaiah 7. Anyone know from memory some of what that chapter is about? What famous song is taken from this chapter?

Question 7: When you think about God weaving together his sovereign plans through the ages together with the choices that individual people made along the way does it cause you to have greater confidence in his plans for you or does it cause you so struggle with questions of how it all works together? Maybe some of both?

Question 8 : Let’s ask the question again, how can better knowing and trusting God help you trust him with the mysteries of faith?

Conclude: Take some time to pray through the things that God has revealed and give him thanks and commit to obey him in those things. Take some time to mention the mysteries and confess trust in God to take care of the things that you cannot understand.

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