" New Testament.

                              " He left Nazareth and went down to live in Capernaum by the sea...
                                  A people living in darkness has seen a great light" (Mt 4:13, 16).
Through the Prophets, of whom  Malachi was the last in the traditional lists, the Eternal never stop talking through the Holy Spirit to men to announce the coming of His Kingdom. Through the prophets  God also gradually delineated the features of His anointed , " His Christ"; the Messiah.
 Through the "people of Moses," the desert community, as well as through  the civilized people of the return from exile, God also laid the foundations of the future Messianic community, the community of the New covenant: the "Church", (the family of believers). in the fullness of time, the "Son of man" who is also the "Son of God." invited all men to share, through faith in His person and His mission, the very life of the heavenly Father, in the power and fire of the Spirit.
 Jesus life was short.. The three or so years that are generally attributed to His preaching and apostolate had as their immediate result of training only a few men, who were sent out on a mission to bear witness and transmit a call. However till the end of time all men will continue to be invited to take sides: "and you, who do you say that I am?"  (Matthew 16:15). For the Kingdom is far from being completed, and what is ahead for the Church of Christ is not repose but suffering and persecution. There were times when even the first Christians already asked themselves: "How Long?"
  Yet hope has continued to triumph,  for the eyes of Christ's disciples remained focused on the final certitude: " I saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband (Revelation 21:2). " the light of the world (Jesus)" Said I am the light of the world, he who will follow me will not be in darkness, but shall have the light of lift." (John 12:8) and He dwelt among us, and the example of that life shines forth today. the four Gospels reveal the essentials of the life of Christ; the Acts of the apostles give the history of the primitive Church; twenty-one letters, the Epistles, of which fourteen were written or inspired by Paul the so-called "Catholic" letters, are attributed to James, Peter, Jude, and John,  clarify or complement the teaching collected. Finally, a  prophetic book explains the Church's "expectation": The Book of Revelation. ( I pray for them)  "John 17:9"
 We are told  in Johns text of something that Jesus does for us. Did I say rightly that "He" does for us? He said, "I pray for them",  and He was speaking immediately  of the little company of men who were right around him, the disciples. On the evening before the crucifixion, at the close of His fare well address, he said, " I pray for them," but you remember how a little later he said, neither do I pray for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through the word;  that they all may be one."
 ( Lord we need them prayers now down here, for your world  and your creation, is falling apart).
I invite you dear Christian friends, to take this prayer in the 17th chapter of John as giving you an idea of what sort of things the Lord Jesus Christ is asking for  now in your behalf. Oh, that it may come home to us as downright reality that the Savior who ever lives, prays for you and me, knowing us better then we knows ourselves and that such things for which he prays.
 first then, notice this petition: " I pray not that you should take them out of this world, but keep them from evil. What a common mistake it is among men to think that the only object Jesus Christ has with The reference to the human race is to gather a few of them out of this worlds destruction and carry them to a better world. But He said, " I pray not that you should take them out of the world. He was going out of the world, and His heart longed after those who had been with him. They wondered why they could not go with him, and one even said, in self-confidence fervor, " I am ready to die with you to death. Many good people think hard of themselves because they do not want to die. I have heard some people, so unwilling to die, I think anyone that loves God ought to be willing to die." Well, that is against nature. It is impossible; it is wrong. The Lord Jesus Christ proposes not merely to rescue some souls from this world's ruin, but to rescue them in this world and make them live in this world, as they were meant to live. "The first book of the New Testament opens with a genealogy that poses many problems. actually it is Joseph's genealogy and not Mary's. and Joseph's was only Jesus legal father. Besides, this genealogy is in most respects different from that given in Luke's Gospel. Some critics go so far to look upon Matthew's genealogy as purely an apologetic fantasy, intended to provide Jesus with a Davidic ancestry. Such a view really makes the authors of the Gospels very naive people, to have been flagrantly mistaken. So wrote the Cardinal Danielou, in his work on the childhood of Jesus. He offers to the readers this article, a brief preview in this article that follows.
 To begin with, we must note that the purpose of the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel is not merely to give Jesus genealogy. The text begins with the words: " a family record [literally, 'Book of the Genesis'] of Jesus Christ son of David, son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). We do not find an equivalent anywhere else in Scripture, except in Genesis (5:1). " This the record of the descendants of Adam," and in Genesis (2:4).: such is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. The similarity cannot be accidental.  Matthew establishes a parallelism between the creation of Adam and the incarnation of the word. For the incarnation is the creation of a new humanity, a renewal of the first creation of a new humanity, a renewal of the first creation. So, just as the creation of Adam was the work of God, so the creation of the new Adam was the work of God. The parallelism implies the affirmation of the virginal conception. What follows makes the authors intentions clear.
 Thus in verse 18, Matthew repeats: Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about [ this is how the  Genesis of Jesus Christ came about] " And this sentence introduces the account of the angel's apparition to Joseph announcing that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit (1;20). So the first half of the chapter shows Jesus as the one who comes at the end of the Old Testament and inaugurates a new humanity.The second portion shows that the Genesis of the New Adam is the work of the Holy Spirit, that is to say, this new humanity also receives its existence from God alone.
 If we consider the genealogy itself, we find it contains three groups of fourteen persons. This was obviously  a significant number for the author. The best proof of this is that to come up with the number fourteen he had to perform several subtractions and additions. This solves the difficulty: the alleged "errors" in the text were really intentional. The Evangelist was not interested in genealogy per
se. he was well aware that the genealogies he was using were historical documents. But  he assumed he was addressing himself to intelligent people who would grasp his way of using these documents.
 when he grouped and rearranged them to achieve his two fold purpose. On the one, the genealogy points out the continuity between Christ and the Old Testament. On the other, it reveals a rupture. It is limited to Joseph, and Jesus is not his, but Mary's son according to the flesh. Now, we know nothing of a Davidic ancestry of Mary, although some overzealous critics have tried to invent one.  Therefore God's power alone has brought forth Isaac, the offspring of Abraham and David. He is at the same  time the absolute beginning of the human race regenerated by Him. The preparations are now complete, and the hour of fulfillment had arrived.The incarnation was the "Kairos," the decisive moment when God intervened  personally in the history of salvation.The incarnation is the center of this Divine intervention, as shown in the "genealogies" presented by both Matthew, and Luke. The Old Testament led up to it.  The Church was born of it. This perspective makes of the Gospel the center of history and not merely a private individual  experience. Any other view would make the enumeration of "Christ's ancestors " simply a ridiculous piece of folklore