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NASB | Matthew 1:1 The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 1:1 The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son (descendant) of David, the son (descendant) of Abraham: [Ps 132:11; Is 11:1] |
Subject: i just dont understandthe verse. |
Bible Note: I can only add my testimony from my own personal life. As you may know from my profile, I spent several years in the military, including 4 years each in Athens, Greece and in Okinawa, Japan. Christianity is a particularly tough thing to share in the Japanese culture. The main religion in Japan is Shintoism, which is the worship of the Japanese ancestry. Family is incredibly important to these folks as you may have heard, and that's a good thing...to a point. It's far more important than most Americans dare to imagine. It consumes them because it forms the basis for their religion. When the Japanese die, they look forward to their descendents taking care of them in a spiritual sense thereafter. Their bodies are buried in the family tomb, then years later, their family dig up the bones left behind and put them into a smaller place within that tomb. (I guess you know land, space and room is an extreme commodity of high value in Japan.) Anyway, every year the Japanese celebrate the holiday of Obon and every family prepares a large plate of food items and take it out to the family tomb for homage and "feeding" the spirits of their ancestors. A week after leaving this food out there, they retrieve the plate of food with obvious signs of nibbling which in their minds is proof of their ancestors' spirits and their consumption of this food. Now comes the tough part. Most Japanese can accept the idea of adding to their pantheon of gods and will gladly "add" Jesus and His Father. BUT when you mention that this ADDING is NOT to be done in accordance with God's word but Jesus and His Father must TAKE the place of and be in total dominance, that's when the older family members are totally incensed and literally disown the younger family members for this disecretion. As you can imagine, over the past few decades, christianity has been making some progress and some inroads into the Japanese culture but again it is very, very tough and at TREMENDOUS cost to those poor folks. They literally give up everything that's precious to them with reference to anything that's represented by the family relationship. So consequently, the growth of christianity in these countries with this kind of mentality (as in Muslim countries) is very slow. We have SO VERY much for which to be grateful in this country. Now let's pray we can keep this country this way for our kids and their kids. God bless. --Rowdy |