Journey
Christmas at the manger
Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, the wise men and Herod: the people around the birth of Jesus, with Luke's telling and Matthew's side by side.
People in this journey
Opening stop: Raised from sleep, Matthew 1:24
In Luke the angel tells Mary what to name the child (Luke 1:31). In Matthew the angel tells Joseph, and ties the name to what the child will do: he shall save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Here Joseph does it. The angel had greeted him as son of David (Matthew 1:20), and Matthew's genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, ends with Joseph the husband of Mary (Matthew 1:1, 1:16). Matthew records four dreams for Joseph, and each time he acts on it (Matthew 2:13-14, 2:19-21, 2:22). The Gospels give no date for the birth.
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
King James Version
The chapter opens as a book of generation and runs a list of fathers and sons from Abraham through David to the deportation to Babylon and on to Christ. Four women appear inside the chain of fathers: Thamar, Rachab, Ruth, and her that had been the wife of Urias. The list reaches Jacob, who begat Joseph the husband of Mary, and the narrator counts the whole as three sets of fourteen generations. The birth account follows. Mary is espoused to Joseph and is found with child of the Holy Ghost before they come together. Joseph plans to put her away privily. An angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream, tells him not to fear to take Mary, says the child is of the Holy Ghost, and gives the name JESUS with a reason. The narrator adds a prophetic quotation about a virgin and the name Emmanuel. Joseph wakes, takes his wife, and calls the child JESUS.
Continue the journey
This journey has 10 stops. The opening stop is free. Premium opens the rest of the guided path, and every Scripture chapter stays free to read.