afterWORD Matthew 7 PART 1 Genealogy

Life Truths Family,
I labored a long time over this week's study of Matthew 7. I am still laboring and worry that the lesson was too much, or uneven. Maybe you got that clue when we finished the small group and introductory discussion with 10 minutes left in class...

I want to offer two critical texts as a follow up that we didn't have what I felt was sufficient time to cover as they deserve (or were too delicate to go into depth), thinking rushing would do it disservice or even cause more harm than good.  The purpose of these two parts, much like the rest of the lesson, is to illumine the whole sermon on the mount as an actual sermon.  We sit as a congregation for a 20-40 minute sermon. But you can easily talk through Matt 5-7 in much less time.  But if you approach it as a sermon, given in one standing, contiguous session to people in a very different culture, you'll have to understand that culture and that setting on the mount to get the richer bigger picture as well as the richer detailed picture.  And flip the tapestry of scripture around to see the threads on the back, and two of the biggest, most colorful knots in this sermon are these two, but to untie them would take significant time and without understanding their colors might cause us to rush and break the strings rather than follow them to fruition.

So I want to take these two in different emails.  Read or dump as you feel necessary. It may take a few minutes to read it all, but hopefully it will be worth your while.

The first is an expansion of "a tree and its fruit" and the second, the broad vs. the narrow way.

word 1. tree and its fruit: genealogy
core phrase: depart from me workers of iniquity, I never knew you.
competitive phrase: did we not prophesy, cast out demons, perform miracles in Your name?
culture:  all Israel is steeped in the first 5 books, and you'll see at the beginning of Matthew he says "this is the genealogy of Jesus," tying the King to the Davidic kingdom as well as to Abraham and the founding of the faith.  It matters what tree you come from.
core word: genealogy - "generations, birth, history, where it came from." 
context: 
   Gen 2:4 - g of creation (though most English versions translate "generations" or "history" it's same word)
   Gen 5 - g of Adam  6 - g of Noah    10-11, 25, 36, 37 and so on.  We call it a family tree.

In creation, He made animals to produce "after their own kind" (Gen 1:20ff) and it repeats in the description of the ark, animals coming in that then repopulate the earth "after their own kind", the ability to reproduce is a definitive function of creation.  When I learned "evolution" as a theory xx years ago, the definition of "species" back then was "two species that breed would have an offspring that was infertile."  The Bible uses the word "kind" and describes it similarly as ability to procreate. 

In the plants (Gen 1:11ff) He says "yielding seed...and fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself..."

With that context, think again "a tree is known by its fruit" it can only produce seed (in its fruit) after its own kind.  It's not a surface picture of an apple tree bearing an orange. Not at all.  It's about the seed within the fruit, that the tree produces after its kind.  It's not a picture of the fruit but the seed carried by the fruit.  Apple tree seeds can only be carried in an apple.  This would be heavily laid on anyone in the Jewish tradition of the scriptures.  Or anyone with any sense of farming or agriculture or husbandry even today.

One last little tidbit, the word "know" in Jewish culture is a euphemism for you-know-what, as it is written in Gen 4:1 "and Adam KNEW his wife Eve, and she bore a son."  If you go back and read the scriptures where God speaks of the seed, it's not a mere standpoint of descendants in a record book.  Activities had to happen to get those people born, very intimate acts.  So when they said "we did these amazing things in Your name" He says, "you're not my children simply because you claim my name, I never knew you, so you are not of the righteous seed."  Or "your fruit is not after righteous kind."  It's not just a symbol of relationship as in we have friends we know very well. 

Workers of iniquity.  This is profound.  You bore iniquity because the Lord wasn't part of the conception.  Consider the child of the bondwoman and the child of promise.  Both produced mighty nations.  Both were offspring in the human sense from Abraham. But the "seed of faith" was when Abraham believed God, not when he tried to accomplish of his own human effort.  God may have blessed Ishmael, but Isaac was fruit of the tree after its kind that led to Jesus. 

Consider going back through all of scripture and studying the word "seed" (suggest KJV or a Strong's concordance to keep the words straight with the original language).  Also the word "fruit" or "tree"
I will put enmity between your seed and the woman's seed...
story of Tamar... (also in Matthew's genealogy)
tree planted by the river, fruit in its season
a farmer sowed seed, in the night the enemy sowed tares in among the wheat...
some fell by the wayside...among thorns...stony ground...fertile soil...bear fruit.
bear fruit that is meet with repentance
fruit of righteousness
fruit of the Spirit...
you must be born again...born of the flesh is flesh, of the Spirit is Spirit...


Ok, I know I know, too much.  Maybe also TMI.  Well let me at least ask the question, "how does this make the Sermon on the Mount one cohesive sermon?"  Well tie it to the beginning and the end.  Matt 5 --blessed are ye BECAUSE the Lord has done all these things (where faith came from)...so bear fruit after its kind.  I came not to abolish the Law, I wrote it! I'm here to fulfill it in your midst. Our Father, Thy kingdom come. Matt 7 -- He taught as one having authority (He was the author) not as a scribe (someone who studies it or copies it).

Next time, Matthew 7:13-14.

Love you folks!  Thanks for reading this far and letting me blab on and on.

Tim