Matthew 1.18-25.
The gospel of Luke tells of Jesus’s birth from Mary’s point of view, but Matthew does it from Joseph’s. Which is useful, ’cause it gives us a better picture of Jesus’s dad and what kind of person he is.
And let me preemptively say yes, Jesus’s dad. Way too many Christians try to downplay Joseph of Nazareth, and say he’s only Jesus’s foster father, only step-father, but his real dad is God.
No; Jesus’s biological dad is God. But God himself chose Joseph to be the guy to raise Jesus. And the guy who raises you is your actual dad. Doesn’t matter what custom and law say.
Although custom and law, in first-century Israel, likewise considered Joseph to be Jesus’s actual dad. And no, not because of any subterfuge on Joseph’s part; not because Joseph pretended to father Jesus or anything like that. Once you read the gospels, once you learn the historical background, you’ll realize Joseph is Jesus’s legal father. No foster- nor step- prefix needs to be added.
First the text.
Matthew 1.18-25 KWL - 18 The genesis of King Jesus is like this:
- His mother Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph,
- before coming to live together,
- is found to have a child in the womb
- from the Holy Spirit.
- 19 Her man Joseph, a right-minded man,
- not wanting to make a show of her,
- intends to privately release her.
- 20 As he was thinking these things,
- look, the Lord’s angel appears to him in a dream,
- saying, “Joseph bar David, you shouldn’t fear
- to accept Mary as your woman:
- The child in her, fathered by the Spirit, is holy.
- 21 She will birth a son.
- You will declare his name to be Jesus,
- for he will deliver his people from their sins.”
- 22 (All of this happened so it could fulfill
- God’s message to the prophet, saying,
- 23 “Look, the maiden will have a child in the womb,
- and will birth a son,
- and they will declare his name to be Immanúël,”
Is 7.14 - which is translated “God is with us.”)
- 24 After rising up from his sleep,
- Joseph does as the Lord’s angel commands him,
- and accepts Mary as his woman,
- 25 and doesn’t ‘know’ her till after she births a son.
- Joseph declares his name to be Jesus.
The bit where the angel tells Joseph, “You will declare his name to be Jesus” in verse 21, and Joseph actually does this in verse 25? Naming a kid, in first-century Israeli culture, was something the child’s father, and only the child’s father, did.