I Chronicles 1-2

Who is your father? What is your ethnic heritage? What is your spiritual heritage?

Ever since I was a kid I had a fascination with family history, from the family tree building in middle school to the Ancestry.com documentation all the way to doing genetic testing in college. The beautiful truth about humanity is that while many might not be able to parse out family trees beyond four or five generations, we can certainly know that every man and woman on the planet has common ancestry linking back to Adam in the beginning. The people of Israel remembered history through a strong oral communication culture, according to tradition Moses wrote the Torah with kings and prophets writing the rest of the Tanakh or old testament. Keeping the entire Bible in context we can understand the chronology of God's people from the beginning leading up to the first advent of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, the family tree of the Son of God weaves a beautiful story of grace, redemption and hope. 

While it's easy to just skim through the genealogies there is beauty in the margins of the names. Just as all people are given a birth name from their parents, whether biological or adopted, the meaning of names are purposeful and tie into God's purpose and will. Earlier this year in January I wrote out the record from Adam to Noah including separate trees between Cain and Seth along with the Hebrew name meaning, I was encouraged by a brother in Christ to investigate the message in the meaning of the names of the first men who lived on earth. If you haven't done this before I too recommend it!

Psalm 125:1-2 (NKJV) "Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people from this time forth and forever." 

God loves His chosen people not because they are special or better for any human reason but because God is love and he chooses to love them. C.S. Lewis said it best in his book Miracles, "Christianity involves the belief that God loves man and for his sake became man and died. Christ did not die for men because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely."


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deuteronomy 1-2 (Psalm 69)

In these first few chapters of Deuteronomy after Israel's exodus from Egypt and 40 desert years Moses reviews their history of God's hand of power, provision, protection and purpose. Consistently the Israelites are faced with the decision of operating in faith and courage in the way God has for them though they continually with stubborn hearted rebellion walk in fear and discouragement. The theme of presumption continues to resurface in the story of the Israelites and I am greatly convicted of this even in my own life. Deuteronomy 1:42-43 (NKJV) "And the LORD said to me, 'Tell them, "Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies."' So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the LORD, and presumptuously went up into the mountain." This presumption is referring to when the Israelites invaded the Amorites on a mountain after the 12 spies came back with a bad report from Can...
Read more

Genesis 16-18

 Today's reflection in Genesis 17 and 18 is on how God said he wants Abram to walk faithfully and blameless, similar to Job in his blameless and upright life, I align my life in a way that pleases and honors God by being faithful (consistent, demonstrative of unwavering trust in action). Additionally, I found the comparison of God's will for the destruction of Sodom and Nineveh (in Jonah) to be interesting. In Abraham's case he pled for God to be merciful and spare Sodom, while for the Ninevites God intended to display the liberality of his grace all while Jonah wanted God to destroy the people.  Psalm 86:15 "But you LORD are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." As an image bearer of God, we must aim to be faithful like God is. The mighty God we serve is unendingly faithful and full of unfailing love - I want to be more loving and faithful the older I get! 
Read more

Exodus 22-24

 Exodus 23:2 (NIV) "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong." I was watching NHL hockey with my wife the other night and the teams that were playing began getting frustrated and consequently began playing unfairly and fighting. When penalties are given it's not indicative of cheating per se, though you would be hard pressed to find a definition making the distinction between a cheating scandal and a game misconduct or penalty. Often penalties can be properly called by the official referees, though at times it seems the calls are made incorrectly - it's ultimately the best judgment of the ref on the ice at the time and sometimes after the time the rule infraction was witnessed, many times to the great dismay of those in attendance of the hockey game even when the hockey players admit guilt in some instances. Fighting is an entirely different scenario. In just the past 3 years I have noticed a marked increase of violence in the NHL though I'm told that "original...
Read more