Lawrence Grott
If you remember from last month’s blog, we were discussing how God conceals things in His Word for the purpose of bringing glory to the ones who search them out and discover them. In turn, God ultimately gets the glory for the glory He gives us in this endeavor. I originally was going to share something I discovered concerning the “end times”, but I feel there are important details I still need to uncover. Therefore I will share another example of when the Lord answered a question I had concerning what I thought was an inconsistency/error in His Word
We can see this in the following area of Jesus’ life.
My Question: Joseph (Jesus father) is a descendant of King David. So how can Jesus be called the Son of David if he was only adopted by Joseph, Mary’s husband? I mean, there are no blood ties to King David right? We get the answer to how God resolves this in advance to the question ever being asked. After all, He knows the end from the beginning!
God’s Answer: Genesis 48:1-6 (NKJV)
1 Now it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, “Indeed your father is sick”; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 2 And Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph is coming to you”; and Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed. 3 Then Jacob said to Joseph: “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 “and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ 5 “And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Ruben and Simeon, they shall be mine.”
When reading the Genesis account above, we are actually witnessing Jacob adopt Joseph’s two sons as his own. Jacob even goes so far as to say his grandsons are to be indistinguishable from his own biological children. This is not only what paved the way for Jesus to be called the Son of David, but for it to be true. Joseph was in the lineage of David and was technically Jesus’ step dad, but due to practices established centuries earlier, a way was made by grace for Jesus to be legitimately recognized as a descendant of King David .
Does it end there? No! By making a way for Jesus in advanced, Jesus made a way for us in advance in the exact same way. Because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross we are grafted in (adopted by blood) to the family of Abraham (Eph 2:11-22, Eph 3:6, Rom 11:11-31 Please take the time to read these passages) when we receive Him and are saved.
This may not have been the question you’ve ever asked, but if you’ve spent any time in the scriptures you’ll have questions of your own. Write your questions down in a journal. Maybe it’s a situation where you just don’t understand what the bible is conveying. Perhaps it appears the scriptures are contradicting themselves. After you’ve written it down, pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit to show you the answer. The bible says in John’s Gospel that, “the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). After you’ve done that, on day you will be reading your bible, watching a sermon, or talking to a friend and you’ll discover the answer to the question you had. When you get the question answered write it down in your journal next to the question you started with, because one day in the future your faith is going to be tested or you will be struggling, you’ll be able to look back on these and see how God showed up for you when you needed Him to.
Another reason this is important is because the belief in Jesus and the accuracy of the scriptures are being challenged more and more as we near the return of our Lord. The day is going to come (if it hasn’t already) when someone is going to challenge your faith or the scriptures. The practice we discussed today will give you the tools you’ll need to defend your faith. We are commanded to “contend earnestly for the faith” in Jude 3. We are to be “light and salt” and can’t do that by being silent. Just keep pressing the scriptures, they can take it! I pray this has been an encouragement to you in your studies of God’s Word when you have questions or concerns about the accuracy of the bible. God bless.
Lawrence Grott
If you’d like to learn more or get a copy of my book: The Purpose for the Passion, please visit me at: https://spiritandtruthministries.life 