Welcome to a year in the Bible with daily grace. The Bible tells one big story of

redemption and we want to spend five minutes every day journeying through the Bible from start to finish, and exploring how all of it

points to Jesus. Hey friends welcome back to a year in the Bible with Daily Grace. My name is

Shelby Turner. I'm one of your hosts for this podcast and today is the day that you and I have been anxiously awaiting.

We are finally beginning the New Testament.

Today is the day that Jesus enters the story of redemption in the flesh.

Throughout the Old Testament, God has always been with his people,

but he is about to send Emmanuel.

Jesus, God with us, and things are never going to be the same.

First I want to address the time between the old and New Testaments.

There is a 400-year period of prophetic silence.

That means that we don't have any recorded prophets

declaring God's word between Malachai and John the Baptist who are going to see at the beginning of the New Testament.

But that doesn't necessarily mean God wasn't working.

In fact, that doesn't mean that at all. During that time Jerusalem

was under the control of Persia, Greece, and eventually Rome who will be in

control of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' birth. In Daniel, chapters 2, 7, 8, and 11, God actually

tells Daniel that all of these different countries would be controlling Israel at different times.

So we know that this time is under God's control, that he orchestrated these 400 years to perfectly execute his plan.

Then we finally get to Matthew.

Technically, Matthew has an anonymous author, but it's almost surely Matthew, the former tax collector and disciple of Jesus.

We believe that Matthew wrote this book to the Jewish people living in Jerusalem to testify that Jesus was

...