Okay. Show of hands. How many of you derive a secretpleasure from skipping over the “begats” in the Bible? You open yourread-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan and today’s assignment is five longchapters. As soon as you discover the first four contain nothing but genealogy,flip, flip, flip go the pages. Bingo! Presto! Your usual thirty minutes of readingonly takes you ten.
I’ll confess, I do that most of the time as well. There aredays, however, when I push myself to read every last biblical name in hopes ofdiscovering a hidden treasure. After all, it was a tiny clip of Scriptureburied under stacks of names that brought us that little gem called The Prayerof Jabez–a book that went viral before anyone knew what “viral” meant.
Tracking the “Begats”
Why did God make sure these genealogies survived inScripture until now? I mean, why should we care anymore?
Maybe this inventory of names, so carefully preserved downthrough the ages, affixes something of a tracking number to God’s promise tothe list’s originators. The promise’s fulfillment can be traced by followingthe names throughout history.
As soon as sin marred the Garden of Eden, God promised Adamand Eve a Seed who would come through them to redeem all the evil they hadintroduced to the world. A Son of theirs would deliver not only the two of themfrom death but everyone who proceeded from them. (Genesis 3:15)
Well, that got all the begetting started. Adam begat Cainand Abel. Then, after Cain killed Abel another son, Seth, appeared. Cain begatsome “seeds,” but Seth produced the line that carried THE “Seed.”
Soon Seth begat Enosh who begat Canaan who begat some moreuntil Noah showed up. He begat three seeds (Shem, Ham, and Japheth), but Shemcarried the promised Seed forward to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob (who was knownas Israel). From Israel to Judah to Jesse to David, the names drew a straight linefrom the “promisees” (Adam and Eve) to the Promised One–Jesus.
Then, all the begetting stops. Or does it? The “Begats” Change Direction
Jesus gave birth to no children in the natural. Yet Paulcalled him “the firstborn of many children.” (Romans 8:28) If his line wasgoing to continue, the manner of begetting was going to have to change. Insteadof giving birth to seeds through a natural womb, Jesus delivers children forhis Father through a spiritual portal.
He reaches out his hand to us from his place in theheavenlies and invites us to join him. As our hearts touch him, he draws us outof our old life into a new one, begetting us into his bloodline and making uspart of his genealogy. Our names may not appear in Scripture, but they’rerecorded, nonetheless–in God’s Book of Life (Philippians 4:3).Merging Bloodlines
It may feel odd to think of merging our bloodlines with his,blotted as ours are with ugly episodes of sin. But Jesus isn’t afraid of ourfoibles or the bobbles of morality filling our family history. He understands.His own human bloodline was filled with ancestors bent on murder, rape, incest,deceit, jealousy, rage, apostasy, and more.
He knows both the beautiful and the ugly in our genealogy.Still, he stands at the end of all our “begats” holding out his hand saying,“Come up higher. Be born into something new and wonderful. Let me take the seedthat is you and combine it with the Seed that I am.” Read the rest on my website...
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Want to learn more about the tabernacle? Check out my devotional, A Place for Me in God's Tent
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