The Time Machine.

What if you could go back to the days of Job or Abraham? There are no written scriptures.  Everything you know about the One True God came to you by word of mouth passed down through generations: stories about families and wars and the flood and animal sacrifices and a God who might be listening to your prayers but otherwise seems as remote as the North Star, way off in the sky somewhere, blinking and uninvolved. 

Then someone from the future steps out of a time machine, carrying a black, leatherbound Bible, its thin onion paper nearly see-through, many passages underlined, some parts printed in red.  And you are astounded. 

“This whole book is about God?”

“Yep.  It contains everything you need to know about God and faith and how to live on this earth.”

“Amazing! Can I read some of it?”

“You can keep it.”

“Oh, no.  I could never—”

“Keep it.  I insist.  I have a dozen more just like it.”

So you dive in.  The stories are incredible, this God is a God of love and forgiveness and He gets involved and He cares.  You read about the way He is going to rescue His people from slavery in Egypt.  He will perform miracles.  He will prove Himself to be the greatest, the God of Gods.  And He will give His children laws to guide them on every subject. 

And then you get to genealogies.  “Eleazar begat Phineas, Phinehas begat Abishua, Abishua begat Bukki, Bukki begat Uzzi, Uzzi begat Zerahiah, Zerahiah begat Meraioth” .…  1 Chronicles 6:4-6.

What do you make of these long lists of children?  Some famous, others obscure.  Some twenty-five times the Bible provides lengthy genealogies, chronicles of the extended family lines of various people.  To put it another way, God gives pages and pages of space to these long, difficult-to-read records of people most of us have never heard of.  In fact, God put those genealogies in the Bible even though He knew many first-time readers would quit reading when they hit the second or third list of “begats.”  Why would God put those lists in there?  What’s going on?

Adam Clarke writes, “How barren to us is this register, both of incident and interest!”  In other words, he admits these records make dull reading.  But he goes on to argue they provide the history of God’s providence and grace and therefore no one should ignore them. 

Here are a few things we can learn by reading Biblical Genealogies:

1. God loves families and FAMILY TREES. How many of your ancestors can you name?  God knows and loves them all; we should all learn more about our ancestors.
2. God loves you.  No matter how small a part you may think that you play, your role matters to God!  If scripture were being written today, your name would be in the list!
3. God uses families to create patterns.  Sometimes genealogies highlight groups of people with specific trades: “Meonothai fathered Ophrah, and Seraiah fathered Joab, the ancestor of those in the Valley of Craftsmen, for they were craftsmen” 1 Chronicles 4:14. “They were the potters and residents of Netaim and Gederah. They lived there in the service of the king” 1 Chronicles 4:23. In addition to craftsmen and potters, these passages talk about families of hunters, warriors, musicians, shepherds, priests, and more.  Obviously when people are gifted in one area or another, that gift may be passed to many of the children and grandchildren, creating a whole family working in the same field. (For example, I once wrote down every job held by every person in my family tree. More than half of them were teachers of one kind or another.)
4. You are not an island; don’t try to be so independent.  You are a product of your family.  You have their strengths and weaknesses.  You have your family’s gifts and talents, and more importantly, you have your family’s encouragement and applause. The generations that have gone before are standing behind you, offering you their love and support!
5. No family is perfect.  Biblical genealogies include plenty of unsavory characters—both the ancestors and the descendants.  And your family has them too.  There are bad apples in every family tree.  We should raise our children to love the Lord but we must also give grace to ourselves and other parents when children rebel.
6. Finally, because God has given so much Biblical real estate to genealogies, mature readers of the Bible should not skip the “begats.”  You will always find a nugget of truth in them.  Just keep reading!

God, teach us to love Your word more every day.

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