Matthew for Young People

By Cate Davis

Do you long to dive deeper into the Bible, but don't know where to start? Or maybe you struggle to really get into God's Word, because there are a hundred other things competing for your attention.
Reading the Bible isn't always easy. It can feel boring and confusing. It can seem irrelevant to real life. But just because something is challenging, doesn't mean it's not worth your time. Sometimes the hardest things in life also turn out to be the best things.
The Bible is the story of God. It's his Word to you, about everything that really matters.
Whether you grew up reading the Bible every day or have never opened a Bible before, the Growing Roots series is for you. This book will meet you where you are, and walk you step by step through the whole Gospel of Matthew, where you'll meet Jesus face to face. Each daily reading includes important background information, key definitions, and helpful insights, while also challenging you to think carefully about what Matthew's words mean for your own life.
God is inviting you to get to know him today through his Word. It's the best thing you'll ever do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Apr 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666729788

Cate Davis

Cate Davis is a high school teacher in Western Australia, where she lives with her husband and son.

Book preview

Series Preface

All around us people are living restless lives, searching everywhere for contentment but never quite finding it. They’re always on the move, flitting from one love to another, seeking meaning and purpose. They’re constantly changing what they buy, what they look like, what they do, who they’re with, where they are. And yet the ache for something more never quite goes away.

If you’re tired of the endless searching, and long for a deeply rooted life, the Bible is the exact right place to be.

It’s where you’ll find joy that fills your heart right up to overflowing.

It’s where you’ll find hope that never fails.

It’s where you’ll find an identity that can’t be taken away from you.

It’s where you’ll find the steadfast love your heart aches for.

It’s where you’ll find rest.

Not because the Bible is all about you. But because the Bible is where we get to know God. The Bible is God’s story. It’s about who he is and what he’s done. And inside the story of God is where we find out who we are, and what life is all about. Inside God’s story is where we’re given the freedom and safety to finally set down our roots in a firm foundation that will never disappoint us.

The Bible is also the main way God speaks to us, teaching us, encouraging us, challenging us, transforming us, and empowering us. But it can be really hard to know where to start reading the Bible. Even once we do start reading, it can sometimes be confusing and difficult to understand. The Growing Roots series is designed to help you read the Bible for yourself, one book at a time. Studying whole books of the Bible is really important so that we can hear God’s full message to us, instead of focusing on just the most famous verses and topics. It shapes our understanding of the whole Bible as one beautiful picture of who our amazing God is.

Developing a daily rhythm of reading through whole books of the Bible will also help your spiritual roots grow deep and strong. Plants don’t grow healthy roots instantly. They develop slowly, day by day, bit by bit. The stronger they grow over time, the more they’re able to bring life to the plant above. In Psalm 1, people who enjoy God’s Word every day are described as being like a tree planted by streams of water, leafy and fruitful and flourishing. This has been my prayer over you as I write: that as you go deep into the Bible each day, your faith will grow more alive and rich. That your love-relationship with God will blossom beautifully, just like a tree with deep roots that’s planted next to a life-giving stream. That through his Word, God will nourish and sustain you, deeply refreshing you and satisfying you in a way you never imagined could be possible.

Reading the Bible and praying every day isn’t always easy, but the best things in life are never the easiest things. And I promise you: it will be abundantly, overwhelmingly, gloriously worth the effort. Walking closely with God every day is the best thing you’ll ever do. Jesus promises that when we seek him we’ll find him. And Jesus always keeps his promises. So keep making the choice to invest your precious time today and tomorrow and every day after that in the only thing that really matters: knowing God. Pursue him. Run after him as if your life depends on it. Because it does. And you know what? He’s already pursuing you, waiting for you with open arms and love in his eyes.

Then you will call upon me and pray to me

And I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me

When you seek me with all your heart.

(Jeremiah

29

:

12

–

13

)

How to use this book

What you’ll need:

•Some alone time in a quiet place, preferably at the start of each new day.

•Your Bible. In this book I quote the NIV, but you can you use any version.

•This devotional book.

•A journal to write your thoughts and notes in (optional).

•A pen or pencil.

The process:

1.Prayer.

We should always start our time with God in humble prayer. Ask God to open your heart and mind to be able to understand what you’re about to read. Ask that he would show you more of who he is, and who he made you to be. Pray that he would be honored by your desire to get to know him.

2.Bible.

In your Bible, read the verses indicated at the top of the page in this devotional book. Feel free read it more than once, and even to write notes in the margins or underline things as you go. I always find that helps me remember the most interesting and important things later on.

3.Study notes.

Read the notes on the Bible passage in this devotional book. Once again, it can be helpful to write your thoughts in the margins, or underline interesting things as you go.

4.Reflection questions.

Answer the reflection questions at the end of the devotional notes, using your journal if you want to write your answers down. Take your time to really think them through, and answer honestly. This is not a test; no one will be reading or judging your answers afterwards. They’re for you alone, to help you think carefully and deeply about how to apply what you’ve just read in God’s Word to your own life.

5.Prayer.

Talk to God about what you read. You can use the prayer at the end of the reflection questions, or you can pray whatever’s in your own heart. Or you can do both!

6.Meditation.

A Bible verse is provided for you to meditate on throughout the day. Christian meditation means to think carefully about, dwell on, pray through, and reflect on what God has revealed about himself in the Bible. The meditation verse will be short, but it will remind you of one of the key ideas from your devotions. Keep a photo of it on your phone, or write it on your hand or on a small notecard in your wallet, so that you can keep focusing on it as you go through your day.

Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew

Every book in the Bible was written by a human being, but inspired by the Holy Spirit. How this works exactly is one of the amazing mysteries of God, but it means the Bible you have in front of you is 100 percent the words of God and 100 percent the words of the human authors who wrote it. Each book also has its own unique genre (style and structure), and original audience, and it’s important that we understand a bit of that context around the book of Matthew before we start reading.

Day 1

The Genealogy of Jesus

(Read Matthew 1:1–17)

The book of Matthew begins with Jesus’ genealogy, which is the record of his family’s history. At first glance, this is just a long, boring list of names. Just remember though: nothing is in the Bible by accident, so there must be something important for us to learn about Jesus in this passage.

Jesus was a real historical person

This list of Jesus’ ancestors is included in the Bible to show us very clearly that Jesus is not a made-up character. He’s not a fictional superhero. He has a well-known, historically accurate family history. By listing some of Jesus’ relatives at the start of his book, Matthew is showing his readers – who were originally Christians of Jewish descent – that Jesus’ story is rooted firmly in history, not in folklore or legend. He’s challenging us to take the story we’re reading seriously, and to believe that the events he wrote down actually did happen.

Not only does this list of names show us that Jesus was a real historical person, but it also shows us he was a direct relative of two of the most well-known and respected people in Jewish history: Abraham and King David. In ancient Jewish culture, your family was your identity. People were known by who they were related to, and a family’s reputation was extremely important. Matthew’s ancient Jewish readers would have respected Jesus based on his impressive family connections.

Jesus can use anyone to be part of his amazing story

You might not have noticed it, but this list of names includes four women. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah (whose name was Bathsheba). This might not seem very unusual to us, but in ancient Jewish culture women weren’t normally included in genealogies because they weren’t considered to be equal to men. So this must be something special!

If we dig a little deeper, things get even more mysterious. These women have very unusual stories: Tamar tricked her father-in-law into getting her pregnant by pretending to be a prostitute (Genesis 38); Rahab was a prostitute (Joshua 2); Ruth was a poor widow and an outsider from a different cultural and religious group (Ruth 1); and Bathsheba was seduced by King David before he killed her husband Uriah so he could marry her (2 Samuel 11). That’s quite a controversial family tree!

So why are these particular women’s names singled out in Jesus’ genealogy? Matthew uses these four women to remind us that no matter who we are, what we’ve done, or what we’ve been through, God still has a great plan for our lives. Just look at Jesus’ own heritage! God was in complete control of when and where Jesus was born into human history. He could have chosen to only have the holiest and most respectable people in Jesus’ family tree, but instead he deliberately included people who the rest of society might ignore or look down on. Not only are they women in a male-centered culture, but they’re poor women, immigrant women, women with questionable morals, women who had survived trauma and abuse by powerful men.

This is great news for every single one of us! We all make bad choices. Little secret ones every day and big horrible ones that have the potential to ruin our lives and the lives of the people around us. But God loves us in spite of our mess, and offers to forgive us. Many of us have had terrible things done to us. We’ve been hated and rejected and treated as if we’re worthless. But God honors the value in every human being. He treasures us, and invites us to be adopted into his family and to become part of his amazing story.

Hebrews 2:11 says, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. Soak in the truth of that for a moment and let your heart be encouraged by it. He is not ashamed of you. He is not embarrassed to call you his own. He doesn’t regret loving you. He’s chosen you specifically. He promises that no matter how badly your life has gone up until now, he can make the mess into something beautiful. No matter how terrible you think you are, he can use you to glorify his name. No matter how badly other people treat you, he thinks you’re valuable and special, and he has a role in his story designed just for you.

Reflect and respond

1.How do you feel knowing that God chose prostitutes and murderers and outsiders to be in Jesus’ family tree? How do you feel knowing that he isn’t ashamed to call you his family too?

2.Why can it be hard for you to believe that God wants to make something beautiful out of your messy life?

Dear God,

Thank you that you’re real.

Thank you that Jesus was a real historical person.

Thank you that you have a place in your beautiful story for hurting, messy people like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and me.

Please help me trust that you have a wonderful plan for my life.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

Meditation verse for the day:

Jesus is not ashamed to call

them brothers and sisters.

(Hebrews 2:11)

Day 2

The Birth of Jesus

(Read Matthew 1:18–25)

Maybe you were confused when you read this story of Jesus’ birth. Where was the donkey? And the little town of Bethlehem? And wasn’t there meant to be a manger in there somewhere? There are actually four books in the Bible that tell us about Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They’re called the Gospels – which means ‘good news’ – and they are each slightly different because they’re written from different perspectives. For example, Mark and John don’t tell us anything at all about Jesus’ birth, and Matthew doesn’t include as many details about it as Luke does. If you’re interested in reading the version with the manger and the shepherds and the host of angels, you can read all about it in Luke 2.

But are you still wondering why the two versions of Jesus’ birth are not exactly the same? It might help to think about it like this: if you and your friend went to the zoo and were telling someone else about it afterwards, would you both tell the story in the exact same way with the exact same details? There’s no way. You might talk mostly about the elephants and how the weather was hot, and your friend might focus on the orangutans and the delicious ice-cream she ate.

Just because your stories aren’t identical, does that mean one of you is wrong? Does it mean that you’re lying about going to the zoo together? Of course not. They are simply two versions of the same event, told from two different perspectives.

The Gospels always describe events slightly differently, because they’re based on eye-witness accounts from a variety of people. As we know, everyone focuses on different parts of the event they’re observing. The Gospels were also written for different audiences, so with the leading of the Holy Spirit, their authors picked the specific parts of Jesus’ life and teaching that were most important for their audience to know about. Because Matthew’s audience was mainly Christians who had Jewish family roots, he focuses heavily on events in Jesus’ life that connect to his Jewish heritage. Matthew is particularly careful to highlight the fact that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Messiah means ‘Chosen One’ in Hebrew, the Jewish language.

Mary and Joseph

Let’s focus on Mary and Joseph for a moment: they were a poor couple from a small country town, who were engaged to be married. Back in those days, peasant girls got married any time after the age of about twelve, so Mary was probably a young teenager and Joseph might have been just a bit older. Think about how a pregnant, unmarried teenage girl would probably have been treated in that traditional little town. It’s unlikely that many people believed her miraculous story, or showed her any respect. People must have gossiped about her behind her back, and other parents might not have wanted their daughters to be friends with her. Her own family might have been ashamed of her!

As for Joseph, how do you think he felt being told by an angel to go ahead and marry a woman who was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his? I’m sure he felt hurt and confused, and maybe even angry. He must have wondered if he could trust Mary and the angel. He definitely would have been tempted to just leave her and find someone else to marry. In fact, legally at that time he could have even had Mary stoned to death for adultery!

But Joseph had the courage to trust and obey the angel’s instructions and he stood by Mary, raising Jesus as if he were his own son. Because of this hard, brave decision, he had the privilege of becoming part of the greatest story in human history. Imagine if he’d given in to the temptation to take the easy path out of the relationship. Someone else would have become Jesus’ step-dad instead of him! He would have missed the opportunity to care for the most special little boy ever born on earth, the Savior of the world. Do you think you would have had the faith to trust God’s plan and risk being laughed at or rejected by your entire community?

God could have chosen for his precious Son to be born into a rich family, or even a royal family. He could have been born into a family in Rome, the most powerful city on earth at the time. Instead, Jesus was born to a couple of poor teenagers who lived in a country town in the middle of nowhere. Isn’t it just amazing that the King of kings and Lord of lords would humble himself like that just for us? By choosing Mary and Joseph, God is also sending us a clear message that he doesn’t judge people by the world’s standards. He doesn’t care if we’re rich or attractive or powerful or popular. He doesn’t care if no one around us thinks we’re valuable. He knows us and loves us, and he has a purpose for our lives that’s beyond our wildest dreams. All he asks is that we trust and obey him.

The humble birth

The most incredible thing about Jesus’ birth is not actually that Mary was a virgin, even though that gets a lot of attention. The most mind-blowing thing about Jesus’ birth is that God became human. This is called the incarnation. In verse 23, one of the names given to Jesus is Immanuel, which means ‘God with us.’ Think about that for a moment! God came to be with us!

This is the real beauty of Christmas: that the helpless little baby lying in that manger is the magnificent Creator of all things.

He left heaven for us.

He gave up being equal with God for us.

He lay down his divine glory for us.

He lowered himself from creating galaxies to being a sleepy, poop-filled blob who couldn’t even hold his own head up.

All out of love for us.

What a God!

Don’t leave it until Christmas each year to marvel at this reality. Every time you see a baby, remember baby Jesus and let awe awaken in your heart. He was a real little human child. He was God come to earth to be with us. Standing with us in the fire. With us through the flood. With us in the middle of the messes we make of things. With us in the best and worst moments of our lives. We have a God who cares about us so deeply that he made a way to be with us. And he’ll never leave us or forsake us. Let it never stop amazing you! Let it never stop leading you to worship him!

Reflect and respond

1.What does this passage teach/remind you about who God is?

2.Joseph was probably confused and terrified, but he chose to trust and obey God anyway. What makes trusting and obeying God hard for you?

Father God,

Thank you that nothing in this universe is too hard for you, like creating the stars in the sky, or making a virgin pregnant.

Thank you that you love me so much you sent me Jesus, your precious Son.

Thank you for the humility and compassion Jesus showed by becoming human.

I’m sorry that I sometimes struggle to trust your plan.

Please give me the courage to trust you and obey you like Joseph did, so that I can play my part in the amazing story that you have planned for my life.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

Meditation verse for the day:

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means, God with us).(Matthew 1:23)

Day 3

The Wise Men

(Read Matthew 2:1–12)

What picture do you have in your head of the wise men who visit baby Jesus? Let me guess: There are three of them, and they’re holding gifts and bowing to Jesus (who is in the manger), alongside the shepherds and lots of animals. Right? But is that actually what the Bible is telling us happened? Read the passage again carefully to check.

Looking closely at the text

Firstly, the wise men definitely bring three gifts, but does that mean there are three of them, like we usually assume? We don’t actually know. All we know is that the Greek word used to describe them is plural, so there was definitely more than one wise man. But there could have been two, or there could have been thirty, or even more!

Secondly, every Christmas nativity scene is probably wrong, because it’s not likely the wise men visited Jesus at the exact same time as the shepherds. Luke 2 tells us that the shepherds were at the stable on the night of Jesus’ birth, but we really don’t know exactly when the wise men came. There are a few clues in this passage, however:

•Clue #1: In one translation of the Bible, verse 1 says the wise men arrived about that time but not necessarily on that exact night. In some other translations, it says that the wise men visited King Herod in Jerusalem after Jesus was born, which means they wouldn’t have made it all the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on the same night he was born.

•Clue #2: Verse 11 says the wise men worshipped Jesus at a house. So, we know for sure that by the time the wise men arrived in Bethlehem, Jesus’ family had moved from the stable where he was born into a house.

•Clue #3: Verse 16 explains that the wise men told King Herod the star had first appeared two whole years beforehand. We don’t know if the star first appeared as soon as Jesus was born, or if it appeared before his actual birth, but this does tell us that Jesus could have been anywhere up to around two years old by the time the wise men reached him.

Why does it even matter?

After all that, you might be wondering why it really matters how many wise men there were, or when exactly they visited baby Jesus. Honestly, it doesn’t matter much. The main point here is just to show that we sometimes get caught up believing things about Jesus that are not in the Bible. Our culture or church traditions might teach us something that’s completely different from what the Bible actually says! The Bible is the Word of God, and it’s trustworthy. Anything else that your pastor says, or that you hear from your family, or that you read online or in a book (including this one!) might be teaching you something about God that just isn’t true. This is really, really dangerous. If we don’t read the Bible carefully for ourselves and test everything we hear against it, we can easily start believing things that the Bible never actually says. We can end up following a