Yesterday, the Student Ministry at Karns began our challenge of reading through the New Testament in only 90 days. The nice thing about beginning yesterday is that last night we had our Thursday night Bible study and 15 kids and 4 adults were able to discuss the reading for the day.

In this post I want to share with you a few things that we talked about last night.

1.  The genealogy of Jesus mentioned in the book of Matthew is from Joseph’s family history (Matt. 1). One of the students found this interesting because Mary was the one chosen by God to give birth to the Messiah. However, Matthew writing to the Jewish people included Jesus’ family’s kingly history. Read Luke’s account for the genealogy through Mary’s family.
2. A lot of the people mentioned in Matthew’s account of the genealogy of Jesus aren’t the kind of people you would expect to find in the family history of the Messiah (Matt. 1). We concluded this is important because it shows two things. 1) It shows Jesus’ family tree is a lot like ours today and 2) It shows failures and sinners were the whole point of the birth of Jesus even among His own earthly family.
3. We discussed the righteousness of Joseph; particularly the fact that he wanted to put Mary away privately and not make a big deal about what had happened (Matt. 1:19). This is interesting when you consider how most people would have responded if this were to have happened today. By God choosing Mary to be the mother of Jesus, He was in turn picking Joseph and his righteous character to be the earthly father of Jesus. Amazing!
4. When considering the temptations of Jesus (Matt. 4:1-11), it’s worth noting that 1) This wasn’t the only time Satan tempted Jesus (read Luke’s account) and 2) Jesus demonstrated the best means of dealing with temptation is by keeping the Word of God in the forefront of one’s mind. What a great reminder for us all.
5. The first apostles called by Jesus left everything “immediately” (Matt. 4:18-22). They walked away from their livelihood and followed Jesus not really knowing what was going to happen. How many of us are willing to walk away from almost everything else in order to follow after Jesus? This takes an extraordinary amount of faith.

Last night was incredible. Singing, praying and discussing the Word of God with the teens was both encouraging and uplifting for me personally. I am looking forward to continuing in our challenge together to become the image of Jesus. What a great year this is going to be!

What has stuck out to you during your daily Bible reading over the last few days? Leave your comments below.