I forever had the way that I look at the FedEx logo changed when I was in high school. We were on a trip, and a girl said that if you look between the e and the x in the logo, you will see an arrow. Now even to this day, I still see that arrow when I look at a FedEx logo.
This same thing can be applied to many different parts of scripture, and one that I would like to change for you is the genealogies (especially the one in Matt. 1:1-16). When you look at that passage do you read it like I used to where you see “person was the father of person, blah, blah, blah, and then Jesus!” Well when I look at it with fresh eyes,
I see a different story altogether now. It starts off with a story of a man without a home leading to a king, but then there is a kingdom that is lost. Then I look closer and see in verses 3 and 5 women who were brought into this family even though they had no connection. I see a story of tragedy turned to rejoicing in verse 5 with Ruth.
The story then changes to redemption with Solomon coming from David “by the wife of Uriah.” There is a story of bad kings that give way to good kings that give way to more bad kings with Hezekiah, Manasseh, Josiah, and Jechoniah. The story shows providence while the people are in Babylon and then coming back to connect all the pieces to Jesus.
This is one of the cool things about knowing the history of the Old Testament, you can start to see the story unfold before your eyes and why Matthew and Luke would put genealogies in their books. When we spend time learning what happened before us, we can appreciate what led to Jesus coming and it makes God seem even more powerful. How awesome is it to have God controlling and seeing history so that we ended up with Jesus the way he came.
Bible Minutes 