Matthew’s Antidote for Gnosticism
A Lesson for Modern Evangelicals
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Not being from an oral communication/event-oriented culture, my recollection of the details of the following account might be a bit fluffy. But the story is true nonetheless.
Decades ago, my pastor and his wife worked in Papua New Guinea for what was then known as Gospel Recordings (now known as Global Recordings). They have many stories of their own and I hope to share some of those, but this one was related by one of their colleagues, who was translating the Gospel of Matthew into one of the local dialects. He left out the genealogy in Matthew 1 because he didn’t think it was relevant.
With the help of the locals, he completed his translation and it was read to the entire tribe. They weren’t very impressed. They asked if there was any more, to which he replied that there was a genealogy at the beginning. They requested to hear it. He read it to them. Their reply?
“Ah, now we know this story to be true.”
