Monday, January 15, 2024

Revelation from my quiet times - Reading through the Bible

2024 has rolled in and, like many who make New Year's resolutions, I return here after a few years of hiatus to again pen down some new revelations from the Lord. I am not promising myself anything, as old-fashioned writing in my journals using penmanship has caught me pursuing tangible paper, fancy writing instruments, and the messiness of ink. However, I do miss the conveniences of technology in putting my thoughts here from time to time.
At the start of the year, I made some FB blurb posts on a few revelations from the book of Matthew. As a start, I'm going to post or collate a couple of them here and hopefully, it will bless someone.
From my quiet time today: Revelation#1

The Gospel of Matthew in chapter 1 shows the genealogy of Christ, establishing His royal line as the son of David, and Luke’s Gospel shows the genealogy of Christ, establishing Him as the Son of man. Matthew’s genealogy starts with Abraham and Luke’s starts with Adam. The curse was on Jeconiah’s seed that no one of his line would sit on David’s throne, but God’s mercy and plan still establish the throne of David through Mary, who came from David’s line through Nathan. Interestingly, 14 generations are mentioned from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian captivity, and 14 from captivity to Christ the Anointed One! To blow your mind more: 14 is the number for Passover, and 14 is the number for Spiritual Perfection. 14 is mentioned three times in Matthew’s genealogy. 14 times 3 is 42, and brilliantly, 42 is the number of generations to Christ and 42 is the number of months Yeshua ministered in His earthly ministry. Coincidence, I think not 🙂

Revelation#2: From Matthew’s Gospel, we are told the Magi visited to worship Jesus after following a shining star that appeared in the heavens, and they followed it to Bethlehem. Their arrival created quite an uproar in Jerusalem. It is quite possible this entourage of the Magi was over a hundred people, and it's very unlikely there were only three people as represented in our cute nativity scenes and sets. It would be rare just three visitors would have created such an uproar in Herod’s court or among the people for a newborn King. They brought treasure chests of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The word 'branch' of the Lord is translated from the Hebrew word 'netzer', the root word for Nazareth. The teaching “the branch of the Lord” is a concept throughout the Bible from the Tree of Life, seven branches of the lampstand, to Jesus the Vine, and calling us His branches, and furthermore, branches that are transplanted and grafted into Israel etc. However, the word netzer also means keeper, watchman, keeper of secrets, and guardian, and the Aramaic meaning is “the victorious one” or when translated as Jesus being called the Victorious branch of Nazareth. Be Blessed & Shalom!

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