Photo of the Week: December 10, 2025

Posted on December 10, 2025 by Don Merritt
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Virginia Colonial Militia, Williamsburg, VA

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Glory!

Posted on December 10, 2025 by Don Merritt

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, 
   and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 

Like 2:14

Thus sang the host of angels the night that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  The shepherds who witnessed

this were dumbstruck.

The eternal plan of Almighty God was beginning to unfold.

Shepherds were at the bottom of the social structure of the day… why did the angels announce the birth of Christ to them and not to the king?  And, why was the King of kings born to an unknown girl in a stable instead of to someone in a high station?

I’ve heard countless ideas; here’s mine:

Those who lived at the bottom of society in those days were not filled with pride at their earthly status; they had no status.  They were not full of themselves; they were ‘nobodies’ as far as society was concerned.  Jesus came to save those who would be willing to follow God.  He came to set us free from our sins… And let’s not forget that when the king found out about this, he started killing babies.

Think for a moment:  If the baby Jesus were born in our time, do you think that high society would welcome the news?  How about the ruling “elite,” or the Hollywood crowd or the various grandees of our world?

The shepherds were humble men.  They were men who held no position that needed hanging on to.  From their point of view, having the Son of God in their midst was a pretty cool thing, and when He grew up and began His ministry, these were the kinds of people who followed Him while the grandees of the day plotted His death.

Those who are satisfied in themselves, their positions, their riches and in what they think they are, lack the humility to follow God; in fact, many probably don’t see any need for God, and would prefer to forget all about Him.  In order to follow Christ, we must put self aside and serve Him.

How can we do that if we are at the center of everything?

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Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus

Posted on December 10, 2025 by Don Merritt

C. The Last Part

Matthew continues his genealogy as he moves from the first group of 14 names to the next. The first group culminates in King David, that glorious figure who is “a man after God’s own heart”, with whom God made a covenant that one of his descendants would always be on his throne, and quickly the second group of 14 comes along, ending with no one on David’s throne. This scenario underscores the failure of the people of the Abrahamic covenant, and the lack of fulfillment of their covenant.

We can see Matthew’s historic vision in this sequence, a vision of election and high privilege, followed by human failure and lost opportunity. It would seem that this is a preview of what would follow in Matthew’s story as the pattern of Israel’s rebellion and subsequent judgment unfolds in Israel’s rejection of Jesus, and Israel’s loss of kingdom, (21:33-22:10) the destruction of the nation, (21:41; 22:18; 23:29-24:3) and eschatological destruction (8:10-11; 22:11-14).

The final group of 14 is an interesting one for several reasons. For the most part, the names found in the first two thirds of the genealogy can be found in the Septuagint, but the nine names in vv. 13-15 don’t follow any Old Testament genealogy. In addition, Matthew uses only nine names to cover about 500 years, while Luke uses 18, and of these, only four are in both lists; two of the four are Joseph and Jesus. To be fair, this is not uncommon in comparing genealogies, as we have mentioned, and neither Matthew nor Luke are recording genealogies as strict historical pedigrees.  Finally, Matthew’s progression from father to son is suddenly broken when there is no direct link between Joseph and Jesus, leaving the father of Jesus not strictly identified (see verse 16). Notice that Matthew instead shifts our attention from Joseph to Mary as “mother of Jesus”.

Matthew will answer the obvious questions about this ambiguity in the next scene, and the implications of that answer will be the subject of the entire story… and to say that those implications are huge, would be an understatement, to say the least.

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The Third Christmas Lesson

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Don Merritt

This is a Christmas carol that contains the essence of the yearning of a people for a savior.  “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel”

Hold on, wait!  Ransom…?

Yes, Ransom. Israel was in slavery to sin; so were we.  Being held captive to sin, living in rebellion against God because of sin… yes, “ransom” is exactly the right word.

Jesus came to this earth to pay the ransom for our release from this bondage, and He did so by giving His life for us.  By giving His life for us, He paid the price for our redemption, and by doing this, He took away sin.  Yes, I know that this is a familiar story, but it isn’t the whole story…

In a nutshell, we were living in rebellion against God from the time of the fall of Adam.  All of the rest of the Old Testament tells the story of God working to rebuild the relationship that was lost, and progress was made, but fellowship was never restored between man and God until Jesus paid the ransom for our sins.  This is the indispensable act that makes the resumption of fellowship between man and God possible.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel has come to thee O Israel!

This is our third Christmas Lesson.

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Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Don Merritt

B. Second Part

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: (1:1)

Matthew begins with this verse full of content and contextual implications. It would seem that Matthew is intent on linking the story of Jesus to the larger context of Israel’s history. Notice his reference to “the genealogy of” in language which in the original Greek parallels that of the Septuagint in Gen. 2:4 and 5:1, alongside the names of David and Abraham, two of Israel’s most illustrious heroes. That Matthew uses the terms “Jesus the Messiah” (or Jesus Christ) makes it quite clear that this son of David is special (cf. 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 24:5, 23; 26:63, 68). In putting the personal name together with the messianic concept, Matthew is referring back to the hopes of an entire Nation.

With the reference “son of David” our author is hearkening back to the glory days of his people and God’s covenant promises concerning the Davidic royal house, David may well be considered the pivotal name in the genealogy for it is mentioned 5 times, and is the only name associated with the title of “king” (v. 6), singling him out of all other royal references as the greatest. Many scholars also point out the presence of the numerical value associated with the Hebrew numeric consonants. For the name David, the numerics look like this: d (4) w (6) d (4) or 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. The number 14 is the number of David to be sure, but here it appears that, as some suggest, it has more meaning than that, for it is also arrived at by multiplying 2 X 7. Seven is the number of completeness or perfection. Jesus is the second Person of the godhead. Thus, some suggest that 14 is the number of Messiah, and when you compare that to David, and recall that the Messiah would be the son of David, these scholars conclude their case.

As for me personally, I don’t know who is right or wrong about the numbers, but in noticing how often the number 14 appears here, and remembering how the ancient Jews felt about numbers, it appears to me that at the least, Matthew is trying in every way possible, to make sure that his readers get “son of David” and “Messiah” out of this discussion.

Matthew goes on to mention that David was a “son of Abraham” which is another interesting component. Recall God’s covenant with Abraham: Isaac was the son of promise through whom all of the nations of the world would be blessed. Here, David is named “son of Abraham”. Jesus is mentioned as “son of David” and “Messiah” with the obvious attempt to reinforce Matthew’s contention that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham.

While Matthew doesn’t mention every man who could be mentioned here, the inclusion of the names of four women is worthy of our note. As scholars like to do, they often differ about why these four names are included. My thought is that these women are all Gentiles; yet here they are in the genealogy of Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the very non-Gentile Abrahamic covenant. It strikes me that this may be important for two reasons: First, because Matthew makes certain to point out when Jesus breaks the ethnic barrier between Jew and Gentile (cf. 8:5-13; 15:21-28; 28:18-20), and second because of the way that social outcasts received His message. Whether or not this was Matthew’s thinking, one thing is perfectly clear: This is no ordinary genealogy, and with the arrival of Jesus the Messiah, nothing would ever be the same again.

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Simple Things

Posted on December 8, 2025 by Don Merritt
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Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems to me that life is getting way too complicated these days.  I can remember an earlier time when people got along in life just fine without electronics, instant information and constant contact.  Back in those times, you opened the garage door yourself, set things out to thaw and ate food that was actually what it appeared to be.  Back then, if you wanted to cool your house, you closed the blinds, and to cool your car, you rolled down the windows… with a crank. What was really strange back then was that most households survived with only one income, but then those people didn’t have bills for multiple phones, internet, cable or satellite; well you can see where we’re headed.

Yes, this must be the musings of someone who is ancient.

The funny thing is that back in those days, people spoke of “what is really important” and it was about the same list that we have today.  I interpret that as showing that all of the modern things that we think of as essential, haven’t really made much of anything “important” any better.  I might even go so far as to say that they may have even made some worse.  Here’s an example:  Today we have so many time-saving devices that we have no time to simply talk.  You would think that with mobile phones in everyone’s pocket, we would talk to other people more than ever, but then we started texting. You would think that in a social media world, we would really stay in contact with one another, but instead we are slaves to the very media that are supposed to bring us together.  Last Valentine’s Day, I sat in a restaurant across from a nice young couple who were sitting at their table, each of them texting other people; they hardly had time for their “Valentine” across the table!

So what is really important?  Our faith, our family, close friends… our relationships!

Maybe we need to make time for our relationship with Jesus Christ, our relationship with our spouses, or families and close friends.  Maybe this needs to be a time free from media, electronics, games, TV, and movies. Maybe we as a people need to re-discover a lost skill: Conversation!

I don’t want to go crazy here, but I wonder if so many couples would need to work so hard to make ends meet if we were willing to live a more simple lifestyle…

OK, that is crazy!

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Matthew’s Genealogy

Posted on December 8, 2025 by Don Merritt

C. The Genealogy of Jesus Matthew 1:1-17

  1. First Part

Matthew begins his telling of the story of Jesus Christ by giving us some vital insight into just exactly who this Jesus guy is, and He is no ordinary man. It is no coincidence then, that this is no ordinary genealogy. When most people look at a Biblical genealogy, we assume that this is an exact record of biological ancestry; a pedigree one might say, but this isn’t always the case, in fact, it seldom is just that. Sometimes, genealogies in the Bible don’t match up exactly, and skeptics and scoffers have no end of fun criticizing the Scriptures for what they assume to be historical inaccuracies, because they overlook the fact that the Scriptures are not like other books, for they are God’s revelation of Himself to Man, not the mere musings of the human mind.

In order for us to get the value of Biblical genealogies, we must realize that they are not so much concerned with a person’s biological ancestry as they are with demonstrating a person’s corporate and tribal status within the larger community. We can see this by noticing that in most cases, the great names are first, and the last name is the person who is being magnified by the presence of the greater names. By doing this, a storyteller can set up the basis for telling the descendant’s story by putting the descendant (last name) into the context of his great ancestors.

Matthew does not follow that pattern here, for he does not build Jesus up by associating His name with His great ancestors, rather he builds up the ancestors by associating their names with that of Jesus, which is the first and last name that is mentioned.

First off, we are looking here at Matthew 1:1-17 which is broken into three main sections. Verses 2-6 cover the time in the history of the Jewish people from Abraham to David, a period that culminates in the high point of Israelite history in the beginning of the Davidic monarchy.  In verses 7-11, Matthew reminds his readers both of the glory of the Davidic reign and the steady slide that resulted in Israel’s darkest period of captivity. The third period, in verses 12-16, extends from the captivity to Jesus, a period in which there is no king, a period in which the Jews are at the mercy of foreign powers, and in which their hopes of redemption grow and are finally met when Jesus comes onto the scene as the culmination of Jewish history. Notice verse 16 where Jesus is born and is named by Matthew as “Jesus who is called Christ”. In doing this, Matthew is making all who have gone before subservient to Jesus, the Redeemer of Israel.

Note verse 17:

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

In this summation, Matthew has done two interesting things: First, he has tied Jesus to the history of Israel, so as to place Him at its very center, and second, he set up His arrival as the beginning of a whole new era, an era that is not like any that has come before. In doing this, Matthew has also forced us to notice the number 14, since he mentioned it three times in his summary verse.

I’ll let all of this sink in, and we’ll dive into the Genealogy in detail when we get back together next time.

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Sunday Reflection: December 7, 2025

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Don Merritt
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John’s Conclusion

Posted on December 6, 2025 by Don Merritt

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Up to this point, we know that the Word was with God and that the Word was God; the “Word-God.” We have also seen John refer to this Word-God as “he”. Now, for the first time, John identifies “him” as the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Yes, for it was none other than Jesus who became flesh and made His dwelling among us at the incarnation, it is of Jesus that the Hebrews author asserts, “and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:2) which is parallel to John 1:3; there can be no doubt about whom it is that John is referring to here. It is Jesus who is the Son, having come to us from the Father.

Now that we are certain of just who John has been talking about, we can look at the attributes John mentions about Him, He was full of “grace and truth.” Notice the balance between those two; how many of us maintain that kind of balance between grace and truth when we are interacting with others? Some of us have a great deal of grace, so much so in fact, that we can overlook almost anything; we might even make the truth hard to find. Others are so strong on truth that we find ourselves pointing fingers at those around us, seldom displaying love or compassion or understanding.

John’s text continues as he mentions that John the Baptist testified concerning Jesus in verse 15, and then in 16-18 gives his own testimony about Him.

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

John 1:16-18

John’s first statement is about the abundance of grace that we have received through relationship with Christ. Then, John expands on his statement, pointing out that while the Law was “given” grace and truth “came.” I think that’s worthy of a little thought, for as John has structured this, the Law is a rather top-down thing. The Law was handed down by God to Moses, and then from Moses to the people; the people could take it or leave it. They took it, and then for the most part, they left it; there was no relationship with Law, for Law just is. The result was that the very Law became their condemnation, not their salvation.

And then, grace and truth came to them…

Grace and truth came to them in a person; they could talk and laugh and cry and walk together; there is relationship with grace and truth, for grace and truth become a part of who we are as human beings; there is no fear in grace and truth.

In the remainder of this text, John reveals to us that through Jesus, God can be known to Man, for Jesus is Himself God. Through Jesus, therefore, we can have relationship with God, the Creator of everything: Grace and Truth.

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True Love

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Don Merritt
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that  whoever believes in him shall  not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

This verse may well be the best known of all the New Testament, yet how often do we really think about that kind of love?  Yes, God sent Jesus to die on the cross.  We know it, we recite it, and we have feelings about it; some shed tears at the thought. Do we ever actually think about it clearly?

Let’s give it a try now…

What does that really mean?  It means that Jesus was willing to set His life aside for others.  In order for this to happen, it was necessary that he consider everyone else as being more worthy of life than He.  Oh, yes, He was really dead when they put His body in the tomb! We mustn’t rush past this fact so quickly that we forget it: He was really dead! When I was a kid, I used to think that Jesus’ going to the cross wasn’t really that big of a deal, because He was the Son of God and knew how the story would end, but that was the understanding of a child.

 He really died!

So then, how much did God love us?  How much did Jesus love us?  Enough to put the life of Jesus to an END. In so doing, Jesus brought glory to God because He accomplished that deed that changed everything: He set self aside completely in the service of His Father in Heaven.  Jesus glorified God in this; God responded by raising Jesus from the dead and put Him over all things. In the process, Jesus paved the way for us to be forgiven our sins and to inherit eternal life. Now, this is the part of the story that we love to hear, but let’s not forget how it came about: Jesus put us over Himself and set His life aside.

What does God expect from us in response to this?

Oh, was I not supposed to ask that question? Sorry, but God expects us to love one another as Jesus loved us.

Scary though, isn’t it? Don’t worry though, it really isn’t that big of a deal, because we also know how our story ends.

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