Bible Reading Challenge Blog

We remain in the infancy stage of Jesus in the second chapter of Matthew. We find the wise men who make their way to Herod. Notice two things about this story: 1) It never mentions how many there are and, 2) it says that the wise men go to the “house” in vs.11. Those are two things that the Christmas story normally assumes, and yet Scripture does not. I hope it isn’t a buzz kill. In the midst of this story we find Jesus and his mom and dad flee their country in the dead of night and make their way into Egypt, which wasn’t known to be much safer. But it was all they could do. I can’t help but think of those families that we helped as a church while we were in Moscow who were fleeing their countries, thinking they were landing in Europe, but ended up in Moscow, which is anything but Europe. We were able to get some of the refugee status and they settled in the US. Some others were able to return home and we helped them do that as well. Jesus fled to a foreign land and then came back, it is a part of his story that we often forget. We will see soon, next chapter, how we go from baby Jesus, or very young Jesus, to a 30 years old.

In Joshua 2:1 we read that the spies of Israel went to look over the land and began by staying the night in the house of a prostitute named Rahab. It is said matter of fact, but in our ears today it rings harshly and we wonder why did they choose that house? The first chapter of Matthew contains the geneaology of Jesus where we see the family history of the one who is called the Messiah. The fact that Jesus is the Messiah is mentioned by Matthew twice in this chapter. But it isn’t only Rahab. We read about Ruth who was a foreigner like Rahab and yet is within the line of Jesus.

Finally, the story of the birth of Jesus lays before the scandal of Mary being with child and not yet being married to Joseph. The history of the person Jesus is not a straight line and it is not clean at all. We often imagine that in order to get ahead in this world things have to line up for you perfectly. Not with God, God allows us all to embrace the vision and the future that he wants for us, a vision that we find in Jeremiah 29:11 that states very clearly for all of us: “I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future.” What a great beginning to our time togethe as we read through the Gospels.

90 Day Challenge 2026