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Matthew and Luke are the two gospels that deal directly with the birth narrative of Jesus. Matthew dives straight in with a genealogy of Jesus. This seems odd to us, Luke’s approach is much more sensible from our perspective, but that is Luke is writing primarily for Gentiles, Matthew is aimed at a more Jewish or Hebrew audience. If we look at the Old Testament we see that most times when a character is introduced there is some mention of his ancestry. Ancestry was very important from a Jewish perspective, hence Matthew starting with the genealogy. By the way, when we say Matthew was aimed at a Jewish audience, and Luke aimed at a Gentile one, that most definitely does not mean Jews cannot gain much from Luke, and us Gentiles from Matthew. There is one gospel and one Lord.
Critics are keen to point out that there are differences between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Yes there are, but that is because they were not intending to give the complete genealogy in “register of births and deaths” sense. They were highlighting a point. Luke starts with Joseph and works back to Adam, and then to God. Matthew starts with Abraham and works forward to Joseph.
Matthew also begins by declaring that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Son of Abraham. That Jesus is the fulfilment of all the promises in the Old Testament is a key theme in Matthew.
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