Back to ... Bible Study!!!

Every summer our Bible study class takes a break and many of us have goals of individual studies on our own or getting a head start on the next study. I am sure there are the motivated women who pursue their goals like a general in search of the enemy where failure is not an option. But after this summer I am convinced that perhaps the best plan might be to recognize how time flies when we're off and to simply commit to the daily reading of the Word which tells you this summer I was Napolean at Waterloo.

Today was our first day back and it was so good to be among girls of a shared faith and heart. Karen Harpole, our teacher who is pictured above with her trophy deer - sorry it was the only picture I had available :) , was gracious enough to have purchased tapes of Kay Arthur on location in Nazareth teaching Matthew. I love Kay, pictured above as well, and though I have only met her in person once when she calls us beloved I always feel it!!

I love that Kay can take that first chapter of Matthew where he walks us through the genealogy of Jesus and where I would only give it a cursory read, Kay shows me the grace of God that I might of missed on my own.

In this genealogy is the unusual presence of four women. Women were rarely mentioned in ancient genealogies, and the four mentioned here are worthy of special note as examples of God's grace. They show how God can take unlikely people and use them in great ways.

Tamar sold herself as a prostitute to her father in-law Judah to bring forth Perez and Zerah. Rahab was a Gentile prostitute, for whom God took extraordinary measures to save from judgment and her lifestyle of prostitution. Ruth was from Moab, a Gentile. Bathsheba was an adulteress, infamous for her sin with David.

Jesus identifies with sinners in His genealogy, even as He will in His birth, baptism, life, and His death on the cross. He did not come from a "pure" aristocratic background.

Oh, Matthew is going to be wonderful - full of grace and faith!!!!

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Matthew 5:17