God is doing a new thing: Matthew 1

OK, I'm a bit tired of the Old Testament, so am moving onto the new, and using Chuck Smith's C2000 Bible Study series to help me along the way too. Same as before, one chapter a day :)

Matthew 1:
The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy to prove the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus came from the line of both Abraham and David (Is 11:1-5). I've never really thought there was much to glean from genealogies, but this one has proven me wrong:

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron (Matt 1:3)
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, (Matt 1:5)

What is interesting in these two verses is the mention of Tamar, Rahab and Ruth. All three of these were less than virtuous women: Tamar was the woman who disguised herself as a prostitute and tricked Judah into bed, Rahab was the prostitute, and Ruth was a Moabitess, a race under a curse from God which denied them entry to the temple).

It seems, on one level, remarkable that these sort of people should be in Jesus's family line, but of course it is not: right away, even in his genealogy, Jesus is showing to us God's grace. None of us are excluded from God because of what we have done, and God can use our sins n his plan. Look where the son of God came from, and we can see that there is nothing we have done that cannot be forgiven.