Ancestry.com?

I Chronicles 1

Some people really like studying ancestries. Another (like me) don't really care. If I did, I would look into mine, but I don't. Part of my apathy towards my ancestry is that my position in life is not dictated by my ancestry. I am a pastor and a teacher in America regardless of who my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. are. If I were in a different country, my lineage may prevent me from being those things. For instance, had I been born into the royal family of England, I would not be allowed to have those jobs (I really hate calling pastoring a job). Also, if I was born into the wrong caste in India, I could not hold those jobs. In America, my ancestry isn't really all that important in defining who I am, unless I chose for it to be.

If you can't tell, today's text is genealogies. I know some people that care about their genealogies, but I don't know anyone personally that enjoys reading about them in the Bible. Don't get me wrong, I have heard some great messages preached around "Matthew's Begats" (Matthew 1). The last time I preached from that text, I had more people ask for copies of my notes than any other message I have preached. But, to sit down and read a chapter like ours today, most people close up shop and walk away from it.

There is no real way to summarize this chapter. So, I am going to hit some points that struck me as I was reading this chapter today.

First, as we read verses 1-4, the genealogy is rushed. Then ,when we get to verse 5 we start breaking the families down by descendants for each son. Our tree starts looking more like a tree and less like a pole.

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1 ADAM, Sheth, Enosh, 2 Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, 3 Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, 4 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 5 The sons of Japheth...

I Chronicles 1:1-5

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From a summary position, the descendants of each man listed above did not matter. Only the son listed next mattered. Why you might ask? Well, the answer to that is that all of the descendants not listed in this line died in the flood. Only this direct line from Adam survived because of Noah and his sons. So, if you read in Genesis about Seth's (Sheth above) brother Cain, you read about his sons, and their sons, and so on. However, when we are tracing the lineage of a king, they don't matter because there are no descendants of Cain on the earth then or now. They all died in the flood. So, without mentioning it, the writer included the significance of the flood in our reading today.

The next thing I notice is the parenthesis in verse 12.

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8 The sons of Ham... 12 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (of whom came the Philistines,)... I Chronicles 1:8-12

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The Philistines were NOT the friends of the Hebrews. They were a fierce group of coastal people. We first read about them in Genesis 21 and 26, during the time of Abraham. He had a good relationship with King Abimelech. The next time we hear about them is in Exodus 13.

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And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.

Exodus 13:7

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This verse is almost a foreboding statement of the future relationship between the Children of Israel and the Philistines. They were a fierce warmongering people who would harass the Jews from the time of Joshua until the Babylonian captivity under Nebuchadnezzar.

The final point I want to mention is in the end of Chapter 1. Verses 34-54 take us from Abraham to Esau's descendants. From this, we see how the kingdom of Edom was established. But why? If we are studying the Bible, and it is a book about the the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's family being the line through which God sent salvation through his Son Jesus, why are we talking about Esau's family?

The answer to this is that God keeps his promises. God told Abraham, "Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee" (Genesis 17:5). Actually, if we back up to verse 28 of I Chronicles, we will see that half of this chapter is devoted to the descendants of Abraham. While we focus on Isaac, and sometimes Ishmael (Abraham's oldest son), he actually had a total of 8 sons. Ishmael by Hagar, Isaac by Sarah, and 6 sons by his concubine Keturah after Sarah died.

After Abraham, we follow the lineage of his son Isaac. Isaac had two sons: Esau and Jacob. By seeing how Esau's family prospered and made a nation of its own, we see God keeping His promise to Abraham mentioned in Genesis 17. Esau's family became the Edomites who had as shaky of a relationship with Israel as Esau and Jacob (whose name was later changed to Israel) had with each other. Just like their progenitors, the nations of Israel and Edom sometimes got along and helped each other, and other times they wanted to kill each other.

When looking at genealogies, you have to look at the stories behind the names. A list of names is boring. However, just like you and I, we are more than just names. We want people to KNOW us. We also don't want to be simply know as our parent's child. We are more than that. We are individuals. We may or may not be proud of our family names. Regardless, we are individuals with our own stories. When we know the stories behind the list of names in the Bible, those lists can be REALLY interesting!