Two days are still given to Matthew, closing with the wonderful commission, the promise of our Saviour that He would be with His children always. The last five days of the week are upon Luke, carrying us from the first to the eighth chapter, giving more of a detailed account of the birth of John the Baptist and of our Lord. Very clear Luke is in his particulars. He tells us that he had placed special study upon these things. The expression in the third verse of the first chapter, "from the very first," is rendered by some "from above." That is, he had not only taken particular pains himself, but God had given him special light in regard to these things.
LUKE was better educated in the schools of his time than were the other disciples. He was himself a physician, and medicine had already reached some standing in the world in his day. The fact that he was such is indicated by the Greek that he uses, and the way in which he speaks of diseases is different sometimes from that of the other evangelists. He refers to them as a doctor would.
SOME are troubled between the genealogy of Matthew and the genealogy of Luke. We will have no trouble in understanding the differences between these if we will but consider that the one in Luke gives the genealogy of the family of Mary, tracing our Lord's ancestry back to Adam, showing that His life was given for the race itself. Jesus is called the Son of Joseph, because it is the rule of the Scripture and of the Hebrews to trace ancestry through the male, not through the female. Joseph is called the son of Heli; he is really son-in-law, but as the ancestry came through the male, Heli was his legal father and he was the legal son of Heli. The genealogy in Matthew 1 is traced through Joseph, showing Christ's royal lineage. As He was the reputed Son of Joseph He was heir to the throne; consequently the genealogy does not carry it back farther than the time of Abraham. These genealogies cross at two different points, proving clearly from both sides of Christ's ancestry that Jesus was the Seed of David according to the flesh through Mary, and the successor of David in the royal line, through Joseph.
NOTE the particulars that he gives in the first part of chapter 3, clearly showing that he had no fear whatever regarding his data. He gives the year of the reign of Tiberius C\u00e6sar, tells us who was governor of Judea, who tetrarch of Galilee, who of Iturea and Trachonitis, who of Abilene, and who were high priests. In the latter part of the chapter he gives a genealogy.
