Mary | Women in Jesus’ Line

We actually know very little about Mary. We know she lived in Nazareth, a town in Galilee (Luke 1:26). We know she was engaged to Joseph who was a descendent of David (Luke 1:27). We know that she had lived, up to this point, a pretty virtuous life, good enough that the angel addressed her as “highly favored” (Luke 1:28). But we don’t know anything about her parents, what her interests might have been, what she enjoyed doing, what her hopes and dreams might have been.

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Bathsheba | Women in Jesus’ Line

The story of David and Bathsheba is a sad one in a number of ways. It put a permanent blight on David’s legacy.  We read in 1 Kings 15:5, “For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite” (emphasis added).

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Ruth | Women in Jesus’ Line

As our story opens in chapter 1 of the book of Ruth, Naomi, Elimelech and their two sons have left Bethlehem (ironically, “the House of Bread”) because of a famine. They settle in Moab where Elimelech dies. Both sons, who have married Moabite women, also die, and Naomi is left a bitter widow.

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Rahab | Women in Jesus’ Line

Two men have been sent by Joshua to secretly check out the city of Jericho to get a feel for what the Israelites would face when they got there. Unfortunately, either they weren’t very good at covert operations, or they just stood out as “not one of us,” and the king of Jericho found out about them. He sent soldiers to the house of Rahab, where he had been told the men were staying.

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TAMAR | WOMEN IN JESUS’ GENEALOGY

We find the story of Tamar in Genesis 38. As the chapter opens, Jacob’s son Judah has married a Canaanite woman named Bath-shua, with whom he had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah. Er, the oldest son, married a Canaanite woman named Tamar, but he died before they had any children. Genesis 38:7 explains, “But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.” The exact nature of his wickedness is not given.

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Jesus’ Genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel

Okay, here’s a pretty random thought that’s not connected to anything I’ve written lately, but I’ve had it on my list of potential articles for several months. The question comes from Matthew 1:17: “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and…

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Commonly Misunderstood Verses About Jesus

Some Bible verses are not as easy to understand as others. Peter once said of the apostle Paul, “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3.16). The difficulty of understanding some verses is illustrated in the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from Isaiah. Philip, an apostle, asked him, “Do you…

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