All right, amigos, it is time to land the plane on this conversation we've been having for a couple weeks about the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, Chapter 1, 1 through 17.

We have looked at this from so many different angles, but this is part of the fun of doing this as a podcast,

is we can take the time we need to really dissect the thing

and again come away from our time

with each of these passages and with this book in general, feeling like, all all right I might not know everything

about that I might not agree with everybody I might not be the smartest but I got that

in my hip pocket I understand the questions I understand it fits, and in this conversation I want to put a bow on it so that we come away from this clear on what it looks like we're supposed to take from this unusual seeming opening to the story of Jesus as scribed by Matthew.

So here's what we're seeing. One, we looked at a whole bunch of the controversies

that are involved here.

Again, I'm always going to lean into that stuff.

We're going to try not to duck it.

If any of these controversies proves to be something that is head scratching for you or even

damages your faith or causes a hicup, I still think it's worth it.

We can't lie to ourselves about Bible things and Jesus things.

We have to do this with eyes wide open and if that means that it raises questions and it's hard at times,

tough. I think that's good. If we get in a habit of feeling like we cut corners or

lie to ourselves, that's a faith time bomb just waiting to go off. If we walk

into the hard stuff and we stare it down and we think about it, even if we can't

reconcile everything immediately, that's not a faith time bomb. It's the opposite. That little voice in the

back of your head says to you then, well that might be tough but you're not cutting

corners and you're not lying so we can live with it being tough but we're not cheating in order to believe something that we just want to believe.

And you want that voice on your side.

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