Do you like playing number games like Sudoku or are you more a word person and love Crosswords or Wordle? A lot of Jews loved playing with numbers and when we read a Gospel like Matthew we often don’t realise that there is a number game going on in the background. At the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel is his genealogy where he makes a list of descendants going from Abraham to Joseph. There are 14 in the list until you get to King David, then 14 to the Exile and then 14 to Joseph. What we often don’t appreciate is that Jews gave the Hebrew letters of the alphabet numerical values. If you add up the values of the word DAVID in Hebrew the total is 14. Not only is David (King) mentioned in the list but the number game repeats it 3 times. Anything mentioned 3 times tells us it is important to the writer.

So Jesus is a descendant of King David, surprise, surprise the Jews believed that the Messiah, the Christ, would be a descendant of David. Indeed the gospels make the point that some did’t believe Jesus to be the Messiah because he came from Galilee. There is a reinforcement of this as Matthew quotes from the Old Testament to show the connections between Christianity and the Jewish Scriptures. Guess how many quotes there are from the Old Testament, yes there are 14 quotes.

Is that the only number game? No, the Transfiguration tells of Jesus meeting with Moses on the Mount. In order for Moses to enable the Hebrew slaves to escape from Egypt, guided by God, he performs 10 miracles or plagues as we call them. In Matthew’s Gospel he writes about the 10 miracles that Jesus performed.

By playing the number games Matthew is teaching us how Moses, King David and Jesus are inextricably linked, this is all part of God’s plan! It is surprising how much we learn when facts are reinforced by games. Parents and teachers have been doing this for years and often we don’t even realise how much we are learning. This is just one aspect of what we are giving thanks for on this Mothering Sunday, that those who love us and care for us have helped us by making learning fun. To all of you Mums, Dads, teachers, friends and carers thank you for all you do in helping us to grow up and mature, not only as human beings but as followers of Jesus Christ.

Thank you,

Andrew SSL