What was the reputation of your family when you were growing up?
Why do we care so much about family heritage?
Verse 2-17: Do you have any black sheep in your family? What’s the difficulty of having black sheep in a family?
When you look at the lineage of Jesus, what are highlights of his lineage?
What are some areas of Jesus’ lineage that are less than stellar?
- Genesis 16:1-4 (Abraham has a child by Hagar)
- Genesis 20:1-2 (Abraham claims Sarah is his sister and hands her over to Abimelech)
- Genesis 26:6-9 (Isaac claims his wife Rebekah is his sister and hands her over to Abimelech)
- Genesis 29:15-35 (Jacob took two wives, preferred Rachel, but Judah was born to Leah)
- Genesis 38:6-30 (Tamar pretends she’s a prostitute and gets impregnated by her father-in-law Judah)
- Ruth 4:4 (Ruth is a Moabite)
- 2 Samuel 11 (David sleeps with one of his best friend’s wife, impregnates her, has her husband killed, and takes her for his wife)
- 2 Chronicles 10:12-19 (Rehoboam shows poor leadership and splits the kingdom)
- 2 Chronicles 28:1-4 (Ahaz sacrifices his children to Baal)
- 2 Chronicles 33:2-9 (Manasseh sacrifices his children to Baal)
Despite the poor behavior of Jesus’ most famous ancestors, God promised to establish a brand new kingdom (see 2 Samuel 12-16). What does it say about God that he chose to establish an everlasting kingdom through this particular lineage?
Are there any areas of your life that feel like they are falling apart? What are the areas of your life that need to be redeemed by Jesus? Consider the story of Joseph in Genesis. What happened to Joseph during his life? How did Joseph respond? Read Genesis 50:20.
Verse 18: One could imagine that the reputation of Joseph and Mary would have been tarnished because Mary got pregnant before she was married to Joseph. Jesus would have been considered an illegitimate child of a messed up family situation. Look at the reputation of Jesus’ family in Mark 6:1-6.
A genetic fallacy is a fallacy in which someone accepts a claim as true or false on the basis of its origin. Are you apt to have a bias for or against what someone says because of who says it?
Verse 19-22: Can you describe a time when doing the right thing was the hard thing? How do we become people that always do the right thing?