Read: Matthew 1:1-17
The Ancestors of Jesus the Messiah
1 This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham [a] :
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac.
Isaac was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar).
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram. [b]
4 Ram was the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab was the father of Nahshon.
Nahshon was the father of Salmon.
5 Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab).
Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).
Obed was the father of Jesse.
6 Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).
7 Solomon was the father of Rehoboam.
Rehoboam was the father of Abijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa. [c]
8 Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat.
Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram. [d]
Jehoram was the father [e] of Uzziah.
9 Uzziah was the father of Jotham.
Jotham was the father of Ahaz.
Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.
10 Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh.
Manasseh was the father of Amon. [f]
Amon was the father of Josiah.
11 Josiah was the father of Jehoiachin [g] and his brothers (born at the time of the exile to Babylon).
12 After the Babylonian exile:
Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel.
Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.
13 Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud.
Abiud was the father of Eliakim.
Eliakim was the father of Azor.
14 Azor was the father of Zadok.
Zadok was the father of Akim.
Akim was the father of Eliud.
15 Eliud was the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar was the father of Matthan.
Matthan was the father of Jacob.
16 Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
17 All those listed above include fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to
the Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah.
Read: John 20
The Resurrection
20 Early on Sunday morning, [a] while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found
that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 2 She ran and found Simon Peter and the
other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the
tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. 4 They were both running, but the other
disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He stooped and looked in and saw the linen
wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. 6 Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also
noticed the linen wrappings lying there, 7 while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up
and lying apart from the other wrappings. 8 Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also
went in, and he saw and believed— 9 for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that
said Jesus must rise from the dead. 10 Then they went home.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. 12 She
saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the
body of Jesus had been lying. 13 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.
“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
14 She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize
him. 15 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you
have put him, and I will go and get him.”
16 “Mary!” Jesus said.
She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).
17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers
and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them
his message.
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19 That Sunday evening [b] the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of
the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he
said. 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy
when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am
sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive
anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Jesus Appears to Thomas
24 One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), [c] was not with the others when Jesus
came. 25 They told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them,
and place my hand into the wound in his side.”
26 Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors
were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he
said. 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the
wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”
28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.
29 Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe
without seeing me.”
Purpose of the Book
30 The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this
book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe [d] that Jesus is the Messiah, the
Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
Evidence For the Resurrection of Jesus | Dr. Frank Turek
How do you know the resurrection is true? How can you be sure it’s not just all made up?
Can you believe in such a thing like a resurrection? We don't see miracles anymore.
Well, I actually think it's really easy to show that Christianity is true you only need to answer four questions:
1. Does truth exist? 2. Does God exist? 3. Are miracles possible? And 4. Is the New Testament true about the
resurrection / Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
If God doesn’t exist, and Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, Christianity is false.
The evidence for the New Testament being true, is very good.
EMBARASSING STORIES:
You are never going to invent details in stories that make you look bad. You might lie to make yourself look
good, but you won’t like to make yourself look bad.
New Testament writers have filled the new testament with embarrassing stories they never would have
invented.
They (the disciples) all ran away, and the women were brave. The women were brave enough to go visit the
tomb. The women were the first witnesses. Women would not have been considered to be creatable
witnesses. So if the story was made up, and a lie, the writers would not have chosen women to be the first
witnesses of Jesus resurrection.
There is embarrassing information about Jesus. There are two prostitutes in Jesus’ blood line - Rahab and
Tamar. King David had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. David had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah
placed at the front lines of battle, so that he would be killed. None of these facts are favorable to Christianity,
so why would they be included, unless they were true.
IMPACT EVENT:
A recorded event in history so drastic that it changed the lives and behaviors of individuals; this indicates that
the documented event actually took place.
Was the resurrection an impact event? Yes, it had to be.
What did the New Testament writers get out of making up a new religion?
- They gained nothing and had every motive to say the resurrection did NOT happen!
One of three reasons to motivate someone to murder, (and sin): 1. Sex, 2. Money, or 3. Power
Did the New Testament writers become popular? - No, they were persecuted.
Did the New Testament writers gain money or power? – No.
Therefore, what motivation would they have left? - because it’s the truth.
The disciples of Jesus died horrible deaths. Yet they continued to believe and continued to make disciples.
No one will willingly die for a lie. They will not die for something they know isn’t true.
Christianity is the only world view where you achieve your identity by just accepting it. We accept what Christ
has done and accept the free gift of salvation. We are forgiven and given His righteousness.
Discussion questions:
Have you ever looked at Matthew 1 and realized the scandalous names in Jesus’s bloodline? If this was all made up, why would the New Testament writers include those names? Thoughts?
Christianity originated with an event – the resurrection, and there were thousands of Christians ever before. the New Testament was written because they witnessed the resurrected Jesus and wrote it down. Agree/Disagree?
The New Testament writers did not create the resurrection story, the resurrection created the New Testament. Agree/Disagree?
What are some impact events that you can recall in your own life? (1963 Assassination of JFK in Dallas, TX; 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, in Memphis, TN; 1972 Watergate Scandal; 1973 Oil Crisis;1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon; 1988 Pan AM Flight 103 (which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland); 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall; 1993 World Trade-center bombing; 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing; Sept. 11, 2001 World-Trade Center and Pentagon bombing; Flight 93; 2008 Stock Market Crash/Financial Crisis; Sept. 2012 Benghazi attack; 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370; 2020 COVID-19 pandemic; 2021 fall of Kabul, Afghanistan;2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine… etc.)
Biggest takeaway?
Read John 21: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+21&version=NLT
See this Clip, Clavius meets Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZobW1s2CG0
Challenge: Watch the movie Risen, which is fictional movie about Clavius, a Roman Tribune, who supervises the crucifixion of Jesus. Risen is a 2016 American/Spanish biblical drama film directed by Kevin Reynolds and written by Reynolds and Paul Aiello. The film stars Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth, and Cliff Curtis, and details Clavius' search for Jesus’ body following the resurrection.
Go Further:
Check out the full Dr. Frank Turek video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fd7bvruM8U&t=4183s