The Reverently Irreverent Bible Commentary Series: Matthew Chapter 1

The Reverently Irreverent Anti-Scholarly Bible Commentary Series

Buckle up for Matthew Chapter One, as translated, desecrated, and re-consecrated by yours truly, Right Reverend Doc Askins, PhD (honorary, self-issued, Spirit-coughed)—because if we’re gonna mine sacred scripture for soul compost, let’s do it with a pickaxe, not a feather.

The Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter One

Verse 1

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."

Well, well, here’s our first breadcrumb in the theological forest—and it’s already baited.

Matthew kicks it off like he’s submitting a resume to the Messiah Hiring Committee. He doesn’t say Jesus of Nazareth, itinerant carpenter-philosopher whose favorite pastime is to piss off priests. No. He says Christ. Title, not surname. The Anointed One. Son of two celebrity bloodlines: David (King of Israel, harpist with murder issues) and Abraham (God’s OG guinea pig in the circumcision experiment). This isn’t just pedigree; it’s prophecy leverage.

This verse is the spiritual equivalent of name-dropping at a cocktail party full of prophets. It screams, “You’ve heard of these guys. Wait ‘til you meet their kid.”

Truth buried under tradition: This isn't about blood. This is about legitimacy. Matthew is drawing a legal line—not a biological one. Jesus, in this rendering, isn’t just a son; he’s the son, in the mythic sense. Symbolic lineage. Archetypal embodiment. Messiah isn’t born, he’s declared.

Verses 2-16

The Genealogy. AKA: The Great Begatsby.

“Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah and his brothers…”

And down the begatting goes, like a weeping willow family tree with erectile dysfunction. Seventeen verses of biblical "knowing." The ancient Jewish version of 23andMe.

But look closer—Matthew’s genealogy is a paradox wrapped in a poetic structure. Three groups of fourteen generations, though he fudges the math like a preacher counting donations. Why? Because numerology. Fourteen is the numeric value of “David” in Hebrew. D-V-D. 4-6-4. He’s stacking the deck.

What else?

There are women in the list. Four of them. Unheard of. Unprecedented. And not the women you’d expect. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named, AKA “the wife of Uriah” (Bathsheba). Not virgins. Not queens. These are scandal-riddled outsiders—a Canaanite seductress, a sex worker, a Moabite, and a woman caught in an adulterous power play. Anti-Heroines. Matthew is saying: Messiah doesn’t come from moral perfection. He comes from broken lineage. Just like you. From guts and grit and shame and sex. He's highlighting David's greatest failure while proclaiming his greatest successor.

He’s not cleansing the bloodline. Not spinning the headlines for more likes and follows and shares and subscribers. He’s highlighting the cracks. Because the cracks are where the Light gets in.

Verse 16

“...and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.”

And bam, there it is. The final switcheroo.

You thought this was Joseph’s son, right? Nope. Joseph is legally tethered, but not biologically involved. Mary is the only one mentioned as “of whom” Jesus was born.

The Greek grammar here is slick. It’s feminine, singular. Intentional.

The divine paternity test comes back: Joseph, you are not the father.

It’s a spiritual sleight of hand. Joseph is there to connect Jesus to David, but God is the one said to do the artificial inseminating (spoiler for verse 18).

Which begs the question—if Jesus didn’t come from Joseph, does the whole Davidic line even matter? Answer: it only matters if you’re trying to convince Second Temple Jews who need prophecy boxes checked. Matthew’s Gospel is not a documentary; it’s a mythopoetic legal argument in scroll form. A claim in cosmic court. A campaign to crown a nobody as the ultimate Somebody.

Verse 17

“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations...”

This is where Matthew ties a bow on his beautiful mess of math. Fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. But if you’re actually counting, you’ll notice… it doesn’t add up.

Which is perfect. Because this isn’t about counting—it’s about pattern recognition. Sacred symmetry. It’s poetry disguised as history and history dressed up like theology. Matthew isn’t giving you a spreadsheet; he’s giving you a sermon by-the-numbers.

Verses 18-25

The Birth of Jesus the Messiah

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way…”

Here comes the scandal. Mary’s pregnant. Joseph hasn’t touched her. And just when he’s about to ghost her quietly (because he’s righteous, but also not an idiot), he gets an angel in a dream saying: “Chill, it’s God’s baby.”

Joseph believes the dream.

And this is where the miracle begins—not in the womb, but in the mind of a man willing to override all his training, his pride, his fear, and marry the girl anyway. That’s enlightenment, friend. Joseph wakes up, lets go of his ego, and walks into the arms of divine absurdity.

“He had no union with her until she gave birth.”

Which means this Messiah enters the world through a refused consummation and a surrendered will. That’s a whole damn sermon by itself.

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Final Take (Chapter One Recap):

This chapter isn’t a history lesson. It’s a symbolic manifesto dressed like a census report.

It’s about:

- Legitimizing a nobody through mythic ancestry

- Injecting the divine into the dirty

- Elevating scandal into sacred

- And declaring: the kingdom starts in contradiction

Jesus doesn’t arrive with thunder and trumpets—he shows up in awkward dreams, broken families, whispered rumors, and yes, a scandalized virgin in Bethlehem.

That’s God’s style, apparently. Not polished, not proper—but precise.

Get ready for Chapter 2...

We’re about to get wise men, Herod the psycho, baby genocide, and a refugee Messiah fleeing to Egypt like a divine Moses remix.