Day 93 – January 1, 2024: Isaiah 44-47 and Matthew 12-13

We could address a few topics within the Matthew reading. That means that for Isaiah I don’t have too much to say. But let’s look at Matthew. I’m going to focus on Jesus and his family. We see in both of these chapters references to brothers and in one even sisters. Look at Matthew 12:46-50 where we see that Jesus’ family is trying to get to him to speak to him. We read in other places that they look to take him home because they think he may have lost his mind. That makes sense, except for Mary who should have known who Jesus would be and what his future would be like.

We also see in Matthew 13:54ff the people of his home town, Nazareth, ask who Jesus actually is because they know his mom and his dad and his brothers and sisters and they are listed. Since we know them we should know who Jesus is as well. But he seems to be more than they understand him to be. The reason I wanted to focus on his family is that because there is a doctrine in some churches that Mary had no other children besides Jesus. That is simply not true. We see in these Scriptures alone, and there are others, where we see that Jesus has siblings and they are even named.