THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 2, Chapter 1
The worldview from which we are going to study the Gospel of Matthew is this:
Matthew (whether that was the author's actual name or not) was a Jewish
Believer. This is an essential starting point because for centuries the institutional
Church has tried to push the narrative that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark
and Luke) were written by gentile Believers for gentile Believers. The Earliest of
Church Fathers Papias, Irenaeus, and Eusibius record that Matthew wrote his
Gospel at the time that Paul was preaching in Rome, so that would place it in the
mid-60's A.D. no more than 30 years after Christ's ministry. It also means it was
composed and in circulation among the Believing congregations prior to the
Romans besieging Jerusalem and destroying the Temple. Very likely this was the
first Gospel account written of the 4 Gospels we find that begin the New
Testament.
Although we have some early fragments of Matthew's Gospel dating back to the
late 2nd or early 3rd century, they are not the original documents nor are they
complete. The earliest complete copy we have comes from the 4th century, and
is included in what is called the Codex Sinaiticus. All of the earliest known copies
(or even just fragments of copies) are written in Greek; however, there is actual
written historical evidence from these same earliest Church Fathers forthrightly
stating that Matthew first wrote his Gospel in his own native language, Hebrew
(perhaps it was Aramaic, a cousin language to Hebrew), before it was soon
thereafter translated into Greek. This says that Matthew's intended audience was
Jews; another key to our study.
Therefore Matthew's Gospel is (in my estimation) the most Jewish of the Synoptic
Gospels, containing a number of Jewish cultural expressions (called Hebraisms
1 / 13

in the academic world), which are typically somewhat obscured or masked
because of their translation into foreign languages (such as English), but also
because while Greek is a very precise language, at times it doesn't have the
vocabulary that can accurately translate Hebrew concepts and their nuances to
the Greek language and culture. It also means that some things that Matthew put
into his Gospel that were inherently understood by Jews in that era would have
been foreign and confusing to gentiles, and it remains especially so to the
modern Church that is so many centuries removed from both the time and the
culture of the 1st century Jews. Add in a deeply embedded anti-Semitism within
Church traditions, doctrines and allegorical teachings, and we have the perfect
recipe for contorting Matthew to fit whatever meaning any particular Church
branch would like it to mean.
Parables play a crucial role in Matthew and when we come to Yeshua's teachings
using parables we're going to talk extensively about them: their nature and their
place in 1st century Jewish society. Just know this much before we get started:
Christ didn't invent the literary style of parables. Parables were common and a
mainstay within Jewish culture for a very long time before Jesus and were a
regular feature used for teaching Torah principles.
Because Matthew shaped his Gospel for reading by 1st century Jews, we're
going to spend much time learning about the mindset of those Jews and their
world in the Holy Land; but also the entirely different world where the bulk of
them lived dispersed into the gentle nations throughout Asia, Europe, and
Northern Africa. We'll study about how their religion was practiced at that time,
their societal norms and nuances, and even what it was like for them living under
Roman rule. These are among the several necessary ingredients that help to
build the much needed context for properly understanding and interpreting
Matthew's Gospel. All too often especially Christ's words, and particularly as
they were spoken in His parables, have been misunderstood over the centuries
because they have been filtered through Western gentile eyes instead of Eastern
Jewish eyes. My goal is for us to understand the meaning of Matthew's words
just as they would have been understood by the common Jewish folk in his time.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 1 all
For those who studied the Torah with me, one of the things you learned was that
2 / 13

those long, tedious genealogies we encountered, full of impossible to pronounce
names, carried more meaning and importance than a casual reading of them
would imply. Genealogies in the Bible era were used for different purposes than
we use them today. For us genealogies are primarily a way to chart precise
family trees. The information they supply has the purpose of telling us exactly
who we are related to and perhaps where our ancestors came from. Hebrew
genealogies, on the other hand, were used for different and varying purposes
depending on the circumstances. For instance they were regularly used to prove
inheritance rights that almost always involved land. Or they were meant as a
bridge to connect a living person to a highly revered person who lived centuries
earlier thus giving the contemporary person an elevated social status. Sometimes
they were used to provide evidence of regal association and provide a basis to
that person's claim of the right to rule. Not surprisingly Mathew's Gospel begins
with such a list and it too had its own purpose and agenda. This was not an
attempt at subterfuge or spin; it was the norm for that era when presenting the
credentials of a very important person.
The second word of the opening verse of Matthew is in almost all English Bible
versions "genealogy ". Webster's Dictionary says that genealogy is "a line of
descent traced continuously from an ancestor". Therefore when we read the word
"genealogy" to us it means that this list of names is but a simple table of distant
family from the past that traces without interruption from a beginning ancestor to
Yeshua of Nazareth. However in Greek the word is "genesis"; yes, the same
word used as the title for the first book of the Bible (or more appropriately in the
case of Matthew and his era, the name of the first book of the Torah). Some
scholars will argue that we are to take this word "genesis" in the sense of a "birth
record". However that is certainly not how it was meant when pointing especially
to the 1st book of the Torah and the Creation account. Rather (as we put on our
1st century Jewish mindset) a theme that flows throughout the Gospel accounts
and all of the New Testament is that the advent of Christ is to be viewed first and
foremost as the beginning of a re-creation: a second genesis. Paul advances this
theme is several of his books:
CJB
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is
a new creation- the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new!
John's Gospel follows along even though his doesn't begin with a genealogy;
rather he opens his story of Messiah by making a direct connection of His advent
with the 1st and original genesis. That is, for John, while Yeshua is the
3 / 13

inaugurator of a 2nd genesis, a re-creation (that we find in the New Testament),
He was also there to inaugurate the 1st genesis, the original creation (that we
find in the Torah).
CJB
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2
He was with God in the beginning.
3
All things
came to be through him, and without him nothing made had being.
Paul in Romans chapter 5 expands that connection as he makes Christ to be the
epitome of a 2nd Adam. W.D. Davies in his enormous, 3 volume 2000 page
commentary on Matthew says that the best possible interpretation and translation
of the opening few words of Matthew should be: "Book of the New Genesis
wrought by Jesus Christ, son of David, Son of Abraham." This concept of Christ
inaugurating an actual (not a metaphorical) 2nd genesis, a full-on re-creation, is
brought home to us all the more in final book of the New Testament: the Book of
Revelation.
CJB
Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there.
2
Also I saw the holy city, New Yerushalayim, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband.
3
I heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's Sh'khinah
is with mankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and he
himself, God-with-them, will be their God.
4
He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes. There will no longer be any death; and there will no longer
be any mourning, crying or pain; because the old order has passed
away."
5
Then the One sitting on the throne said, "Look! I am making
everything new!" Also he said, "Write, 'These words are true and
trustworthy!'"
Because Matthew was a Jewish Believer, then His opening point is also to
demonstrate that Yeshua meets all the requirements of the Torah and the
Tanakh (the Old Testament) to be the Messiah of God the Hebrew people have
longed for, since according to the Scriptures the true Messiah must be a
descendant of Abraham, Jacob, Judah, Jessie, and David. Notice also how the
opening verse is like a preamble that introduces the genealogy. That is, Yeshua's
identity is summed up as simply the son of David, son of Abraham. Only
thereafter (starting in verse 2) does the actual generation by generation
accounting of Christ's ancestors begin. By saying that Yeshua is the son of
4 / 13

David, the intent is prove that He is royalty of the tribe of Judah through David,
which makes Him of the proper family line to rule. By saying also that He is the
son of Abraham, it makes a firm connection that He is a full-fledged Hebrew and
therefore eligible to bring about the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis
12 that through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. So we find
Matthew beginning his table of ancestors with Abraham, the founder of the
special set apart people for God, and so the list of Christ's ancestors is
a descending list (oldest first) that begins with Father Abraham and ends with
Messiah Yeshua.
The other genealogy of Jesus that we find in the New Testament is present in the
Gospel of Luke. It must not be overlooked that Luke's genealogy begins with
Yeshua and works in ascending order (newest first), which ends with Adam and
then God. The usual Hebrew (and thus biblical) way of presenting a genealogy is
one that is organized in descending order. Genesis 4:17 begins the Bible's first
genealogy; it is given in descending order and the Hebrew tradition of presenting
a genealogy beginning with the oldest first seems to have been taken from that.
Luke, the writer of the Gospel named for him, is regularly said to be Dr. Luke, the
gentile companion of Paul (that is very likely so). Therefore I find it informative
that when he supplies a genealogy of Christ, he does it in a very un-Hebrew way;
he writes it in ascending order (that is, backwards from the Jewish norm).
Further, while Luke endeavors to connect Christ to the ancestor of every
human..... Hebrew and gentile...... which is Adam, Matthew seeks to connect
Christ to His Hebrew origins, so he begins with the undisputed Father of the
Hebrews, Abraham. This is more evidence that while Luke was probably a
gentile, Matthew was indeed a Jew.
From an overall standpoint, we should notice that the ancestor list in Matthew's
Gospel is divided into 3 equal parts of 14 generations each. So Matthew has
created a carefully ordered structure in his genealogy that is not found in Luke's.
Between Abraham and David he lists 14 generations. Then from David to the
Babylonian Exile are 14 more generations. And finally from the Babylonian Exile
to Yeshua are the remaining 14 generations giving us a total of 42. Without doubt
the structure Matthew used is meant to convey some kind of meaning, because
the list of ancestors is incomplete and skips generations. Before we explore that,
I'd like to emphasize something I told you a few minutes ago: the Hebrews did
NOT construct genealogies with the same purpose as it is for modern
Westerners. Ancient Hebrew genealogies were most often intended to
communicate a meaning with an agenda. They were not meant to convey a
5 / 13

precise all-inclusive record of a family tree (although there were times, such as in
certain chapters of Chronicles, when they were indeed meant primarily as a more
complete family history).
There are a number of scholarly theories behind the reason for Matthew's
structure of Christ's genealogy, and how we cannot help but notice its rather neat
mathematical basis. Some think he simply borrowed it, as is, from a pre-existing
record. Others think Matthew intended to connect it to Daniel's 7 weeks of years
(490 years). If one assigns a value of 35 years as a biblical generation (which I
think is a reach) and multiplies it by 14 it adds up to 490. Another theory says that
since a moon cycle is 28 days (which isn't really true, it's 29 1/2) with 14 days
waxing and 14 days waning, then the structure of the genealogy characterizes
the ebb and flow of Hebrew history that we find among the persons that form the
3 groups of 14 generations. I could go on with a few other theories but prefer not
to because the one theory that I think acknowledges the mathematical basis of
Matthew's structure in a way familiar to 1st century Jews is that the foundation of
it is Hebrew gematria; that is, the biblical meaning of numbers.
It is hard to ignore that David's Hebrew name consists of 3 consonants and has a
gematria value of 14. Even more, David's name is 14th on Matthew's list. So
what exactly is Matthew trying to communicate to us? While I'm not 100% certain
of it, it seems to me that David is the key to it all because all throughout the NT
Yeshua is said to be the son of David. And in the Old Testament (the only Bible
known to Matthew) as well as in many Rabbinical writings, the Messiah must be
the son of David. So I do think that the mathematical structure of David's name
expressed in Hebrew gematria may well be the best explanation for the pattern
for Yeshua's genealogy used by Matthew.
We should also not overlook the use of the number 42 in the Bible. Matthew
exposits 42 generations (3 X 14 = 42) from Abraham to Yeshua. The prophet
Daniel (upon whom so much of Revelation is based) speaks of the End Times
and the rule of the Anti-Christ using the key numbers 1260 days, 3 1/2 years, and
42 months. 1260 days and 3 1/2 years are the same as 42 months. Did Matthew
intend to communicate a connection between Yeshua's genealogy, David's
name, Daniel's End Times prophecy, and so the purpose for His coming? As of
now (at least for me) it is the most likely of all theories put forward as it
corresponds well to actual biblical information, and the Jewish culture and
mindset of the 1st century. A Jew of that day (especially the more learned ones)
would probably notice the structure at the beginning of the Gospel in those terms
6 / 13

using the numbers 3, 14, and 42 because due to the oppression of Rome,
Daniel's prophecies were hugely popular as well as were Messianic expectations
running high. During that era it was believed that the End Times of Daniel and the
coming of the Messiah occurred in tandem. So it all could have worked together
quite seamlessly in the minds of Jews at that time; especially Jewish followers of
Christ. For gentiles? Not so much.
There's a few interesting and pertinent things to notice within this genealogy. One
of the most obvious is the mention of the Babylonian exile. By highlighting this
catastrophic event Matthew uses Christ's genealogy as a kind of salvation history
lesson. The Babylonian Exile was a game changer for Jews. I say "for Jews"
because 130 years or so prior to Babylon capturing Judah, Assyria had
conquered the northern region of the divided Kingdom of Israel that was occupied
by 10 of the 12 Israelite tribes. Those 10 tribes were deported and scattered
around Asia and Northern Africa and in time that event gained the mythical title of
the 10 lost tribes of Israel. The only Israelite tribes that remained free and in their
own land were those in the southern half of the Kingdom: Judah and most of
Benjamin. These are the people who came to be called Jews. So it was the Jews
(and not all of Israel) who were captives of Babylon.
This event was seen by the Jews as a terrible judgment upon them by God,
because even His own Temple was destroyed, which meant that they had no
means to atone for their sins or to commune with God. It was an event that would
forever change the community of Jews because when King Cyrus of Persia
effectively rescued the Jews from Babylon and allowed them to freely return to
their homeland, even to rebuild their precious Temple, only about 5% of those
exiled made the trip home. The remainder willingly chose to live scattered about
the countless gentile communities in the Persian Empire. Therefore whereas to
the Jewish people the term "salvation" had always meant deliverance from the
oppression of a gentile conqueror, upon the advent of Christ the word took on
new significance as meaning deliverance from sin and eternal death.
Another important factor is the naming of 4 women in Matthew's genealogy of
Yeshua; the inclusion of women in a Hebrew genealogy is rare. The 4 were
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (called "the wife of Uriah" in the text).
Tamar was the daughter in law of Judah (the founder of the tribe of Judah) who
disguised herself as a prostitute and produced twin sons with him. Rahab is the
inn keeper/prostitute of Jericho, who betrayed her own people to help Israel and
Joshua conquer Jericho as they began their invasion of Canaan. Ruth is the
7 / 13

Moabite widow who gave up her allegiance to her own people and gods, and
joined herself to Israel and their God. And finally Bathsheba, whom David had a
sordid affair with and also arranged to have her husband Uriah killed, so that
David could have her as his own (Solomon was Bathsheba's most famous
offspring). While we can't be 100% certain regarding Bathsheba..... Tamar,
Rahab, and Ruth were all gentiles. Or, perhaps another way of looking at it is that
these women BEGAN life as gentiles before joining Israel and converting. It is
likely that Bathsheba was also a foreigner since her husband, Uriah, was a
Hittite. So the mention of 4 female gentile ancestors of Christ is meant to catch
our attention.... and especially to catch the attention of 1st century Jews. But in
what way and to what end?
Assuming that Matthew's genealogy structure is indeed based on Hebrew
gematria, and because numbers play such an important role in communicating a
message in the Jewish community, we should assume that since it was
exactly 4 gentile women included (and not some other number) that the meaning
of the number 4 in the Jewish mind has to be considered. And sure enough, the
number 4 in Hebrew gematria indicates universality; it means the whole world
since there are 4 directions on a compass and since in that era the Hebrew view
of the structure of our planet was that the earth was flat and square and literally
had 4 corners (hence the phrase "to the 4 corners of the earth"). So the message
seems to be that although Yeshua is thoroughly Hebrew, Jewish, of the royal
lineage of David, and born of a Jewish woman in the Holy Land, deep down in
His being and essence there are traces of gentile connections that cannot be
ignored. And even more interesting is that except for Ruth, the background of the
other 3 women mentioned is less than moral and upstanding.
After a long list of Yeshua's ancestors, verse 16 says:
CJB
Matthew 1:16
16
Ya'akov was the father of Yosef the husband of Miryam,
from whom was born the Yeshua who was called the Messiah.
So Matthew is careful to make Joseph Mary's husband, but NOT the biological
father of her child. At the same time, he makes Mary Jesus' biological mother. It
is also informative that Matthew refers to Yeshua as "the Yeshua who was called
the Messiah". Why "the Yeshua"? Because Yeshua was one of the most popular
male names in the Holy Land in that era and it was necessary for Matthew to be
clear about which one of many hundreds if not thousands of Yeshuas he was
referring to.
8 / 13

Matthew, after explaining his genealogical structure of 3 sets of 14 generations
each, in verse 18 jumps right into the birth story of Yeshua. And immediately
Matthew takes on perhaps the most controversial aspect of Yeshua's birth
circumstances if not of His entire life. Matthew explains that although Yosef and
Miryam were engaged, they were not yet married. Yet, Miryam had become
pregnant. This was a terrible scandal within the Jewish community.
The CJB uses the word "engaged" to describe the relationship between Yosef
and Miryam; however a better word is betrothed. The word engaged in the
modern Western world doesn't carry the same sense as the word betrothed in
ancient times. Engaged is an arrangement whereby a man and a woman agree
to at some point become married. Engagements are broken all the time and other
than the typical emotional toll it causes, little other harm is done. Betrothal is
another matter altogether.
Betrothal in Hebrew culture was a solemn promise sealed with a commitment in
which the male and female bound themselves together through a marriage
contract that was signed, sealed and delivered at the moment of betrothal. So the
way we think of marriage in modern times in the West occurred at the time of
betrothal among the Hebrews in ancient times. The only thing left to be done that
in Hebrew culture was called "marriage" was when the bride moved into the
home of the groom and they consummated their union. It was the norm that after
the father of the bride agreed to the formal marriage contract, the woman was
now called "wife". Even so, she typically continued to live under her father's roof
for about another year. The union was considered to be so completed that if the
betrothed husband were to die, the woman was considered a widow. So
essentially the physical consummation was little more than a private ritual. Since
the woman was already legally a "wife", then cheating during betrothal was
adultery and not merely an indiscretion as it is treated today in the West. So the
fact that she was pregnant during the betrothal period (with Joseph certainly
knowing it wasn't his child) put Mary in danger of being executed. Typically if
there was sufficient cause, a betrothed husband would have given his wife a
divorce document (a get) to end a betrothal.
It cannot be overstated how serious it would be for a betrothed girl like Mary to
become pregnant. The Mishnah in the Tractate Sanhedrin, calls for 4 kinds of
death penalty to be administered in descending order of seriousness of the
offense: stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. A man who has sex with a
betrothed woman is subject to stoning. After the girl moves in with her husband,
9 / 13

sex between that girl and another man brings death by strangling. I think it is
interesting to note that within a couple of centuries after Yeshua's day, the
incidences of adultery during the betrothal period became so many that the
betrothal and marriage ceremonies were combined so as to eliminate the typical
1 year period in between the two to lessen the risk of a betrothed husband or wife
committing this grave sin that would demand their deaths.
Matthew says, with no further explanation, that Mary's pregnancy was a work of
the Holy Spirit. That it, it was miraculous pregnancy and she had done nothing
wrong. And the proof Matthew offers is that although betrothed, Mary and Joseph
were not yet living together. So strong were Hebrew traditions in the 1st century
(and before) about how the marriage process and timing worked, that there are
few recorded instances of a betrothed woman having a fling with a man that is
not her betrothed husband, and just as few flings with her betrothed husband
prior to them moving in together. It would have brought enormous shame upon
the woman's father's household as well as upon the betrothed couple. Thus while
it was no doubt quite a different story within the many pagan gentile communities
of the world such that they wouldn't really understand the gravity of the situation
or the seriousness of the Hebrew marriage contract, the Jews reading Matthew's
story would have immediately understood. It would only be an issue of whether
they would believe Miryam was pregnant by the Holy Spirit or not.
One other matter is also claimed and thereby settled. By Jewish tradition, even
though the unborn child is not Joseph's, he is the legal father. So there is no
conflict should Yeshua be called a son of Joseph; actual biological relationship is
not required when the father of the family accepts a child as his own.
The next verse says that when it was clear that his betrothed was pregnant,
Joseph made a decision not to pursue a public action but to quietly put her away.
The reason he did this is because (depending on the Bible version) he was either
a just or a righteous man. Very often just or righteous is, when preached about,
defined as being kind or merciful. Rather, for Jews just and righteous held the
meaning of law abiding. And law abiding meant being observant of the only Law
that mattered to Jews: the Law of Moses. Here is the biblical law that addresses
this situation.
CJB
Deuteronomy 22:23-24
23
"If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man,
and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with
her;
24
you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them
10 / 13

to death- the girl because she didn't cry out for help, there in the city, and
the man because he has humiliated his neighbor's wife. In this way you will
put an end to such wickedness among you.
The very public nature of an execution held at the city gate was to bring
maximum shame upon the criminals and their families. It is difficult to explain the
extreme level of trouble this brings to a family. We must not think that shame is
the same as "ashamed" or "embarrassed" as we think of it today. Shame was
(and remains in the Middle East) a detested social status, not an emotion. Having
gained such an undesirable status, ridding oneself or one's family of it was very
difficult and it dominated that family's daily life. Being shunned by most of the
community was but the beginning. Often the only way to atone for family shame
and regain family honor was to take revenge on the one or ones who were
deemed to have caused it. This could go on not just for years but for
generations.
So Joseph decided not to accuse his betrothed of marital infidelity, the remedy
being to out her publicly and to shame her publicly in order to avoid himself being
shamed. Rather he would quietly give a letter of divorce to Miryam's father (she
was still living at home) and end the betrothal, handling the matter discreetly and
privately. I want to comment here that while one of the several purposes of
Yeshua's speeches was to teach the Jewish people that while Torah observance
was the right and holy thing to do, doing it mechanically or woodenly, without love
and without understanding the spirit of the Torah laws, perverted it. This is why
when He was famously asked what the most important of the Torah Laws were,
Jesus quoted the Shema found in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Taken from verse 5
Christ said:

CJB
Deuteronomy 6:5
5
and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your
heart, all your being and all your resources.
But He also included and quoted Leviticus 19:18:
CJB
Leviticus 19:18
18
Don't take vengeance on or bear a grudge against any
of your people; rather, love your neighbor as yourself; I am ADONAI.
Joseph understood the spirit of the Law of Moses, and knew that even in this gut
wrenching circumstance he was to act in love and not vengeance; even so he
was to obey the Torah. So he risked his own reputation and having shame being
11 / 13

brought upon himself on account of his betrothed wife being pregnant without any
believable explanation. He acted exactly how the Lord wants us to act as we go
about trying to be observant of His laws and commands in our time. Not by
abrogating or ignoring them; and not by applying our own sense of mercy or
justice to any given situation. But rather by doing the commandments based
upon the foundational principle for all the commandments just as Yeshua said to
do.
Joseph, on older man, was not one to decide and act impulsively or strictly on
emotion. So verse 20 says that he was thinking about all this when he had a
visitation from an angel. I can only imagine all the thoughts flying through his
mind. Would this fine upstanding young country girl really commit adultery; and
right under her father's nose? Would she really come up with some lame lie that
while admitting being pregnant at the same time insisting she was still a faithful
virgin? What was the cost going to be to him personally if he more or less let her
off the hook? There was no hiding this; there is so much shame involved that
someone is going to have to bear it. And if he won't avail himself of the justice
system that would condemn her but at the same time leave him free from having
shame heaped upon himself, is that prudent.... or even fair?
In a dream the angel brought Yosef a message that had to be troubling in itself. I
suppose I have to ask myself the question: if I had a dream in which it seemed
that an angel spoke to me about a very troubling matter; and what he said
seemed too fantastic to believe..... would I believe it? Perhaps it's not a fair
question for our time. In Yeshua's day and in earlier times, divine revelations
given in dreams were well accepted and not particularly unusual. We read of
them in Genesis and in Daniel. We hear about them in relation to Job. The
Apocryphal books that were written after the close of the Old Testament and prior
to the writings of the New spoke about divine dreams and messages from God.
Perhaps it is our own modern skepticism that shuts the door to them in our time.
Or is it that the time for this experience is not right now? In fact there is biblical
evidence that we are currently in an era of dream, vision, and prophesying
dormancy, because in the Book of Acts chapter 2, we read that Peter tells the
crowd at that special Shavuot (Pentecost) when the Holy Spirit came in a most
spectacular fashion:
CJB
Acts 2:17
17
'ADONAI says: "In the Last Days, I will pour out from my
Spirit upon everyone. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young
men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
12 / 13

Peter is actually quoting from the Prophet Joel because Peter must have
believed that what was happening indicated entry into those prophesied Last
Days. He was wrong in that he was not living in the time of this prophetic
fulfillment of Joel. But what I would like you to take away from this is that clearly
Joel's and Peter's statements seem to say that that which had not been
happening for a long time, will suddenly start happening when we enter the Last
Days. In other words, this is a divine sign we can be looking for.
Next week we'll begin by examining what the divine dream message was and
how Joseph dealt with it.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
13 / 13