CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: 3rd Week of December (Part 5)

CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK: We can start looking at the New Testament Scriptures to see what it reveals concerning the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The accounts of Mark and John reveal nothing about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ that could give us a clue as to the time or season. On the surface, the accounts of Matthew and Luke reveal little about the time of Jesus’ birth. No dates are given and no season of the year is actually named. However there are clues whereby we can surmise certain truths. We will not attempt to stress a doctrine out of Biblical silence but we can draw conclusions on limited evidence if the evidence is Biblical and historical. First we will look at some Scriptures from the Matthew account of our Lord’s birth and see if there are any clues that we can draw from. The process of going through these Scriptures may seem elementary and basic Christian teachings, but it is necessary to build truth upon truth, and precept upon precept.

Matthew 1:16 KJV  And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

We know Biblically and historically a man named Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is such a documented fact that even our calendars reflect dates such as B.C. and A.D. around his birth. From this Matthew 1:16 Scripture we surmise that our Lord was born through the genealogical line of Mary and Joseph, which can be studied in detail in Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3. The Matthew account traces the genealogy of Joseph and the Luke account traces the genealogy of Mary. We also see that His name is Jesus but He was called Christ. Christ was not "nick name" or His middle name, but was the role or purpose that He left heaven and took on the form of man. The name "Christ" means anointed or Messiah.