Alafia River State Park, Lithia, Florida
So now, we begin our walk through the first book of the New Testament. The Gospel according to Matthew. Why according to? Because God gave the writers of His Word the freedom to tell the Truth in a way that suited them personally. In other words, God didn’t dictate our Bible to them. Instead, all the writers were filled with the Holy Spirit and put to pen the life of Jesus in a way that God breathed into them, so each of the four has a bit of a different perspective. On a personal note of my own, I enjoy the Old Testament. It’s loaded with history and stories of the lives of everyday people who were touched by and used of God Himself in some way. I’m actually a bit intimidated by this upcoming journey. It’s the life of Jesus and I don’t want to get it wrong, so I too, will rely on the Holy Spirit (as well as some good commentators) to help me.
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: . . . ~ Matthew 1:1
Matthew begins with a list of names that most of us completely skip over. It’s true that today, we don’t really care very much about ancestry, but to the Jews, it meant everything. One of the first promises of the coming Messiah was that He was to come from Abraham and through the line of David. Matthew spells this out for his Jewish readers through the genealogy of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. Luke does the same, but through Mary. It’s important for a number of other reasons as well, like fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would come from the line of David and Bethlehem. Or teaching us that even Jesus had colorful characters in His family tree.
This morning, we took off to navigate a small portion of the Alafia River. We were supposed to put in at a dock at Alderman’s Ford Park, but the river looked to be blocked by fallen trees. So Blaine had to regroup. We ended up driving to what was supposed to be our end point. It worked out for the best because the first option would’ve included a long bike ride along a narrow two-lane road for Blaine.
Instead, we had to paddle more strenuously than we like upstream most of the time. But we did it, and it was fun! The river is so full of obstacles though, you can’t really relax going back, so we were tired by the time we were done.
Still, all in all, it was a very good day! Actually, any day I get to have fresh-from-the-oven-tasting, homemade chocolate chip cookies is a very good day! 😊