FINDING YOUR ROOTS
1 Chronicles 1:1-4 NET.
1 Adam, Seth, Enosh, 2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jered, 3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, 4 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
We began reading 1 Chronicles this week and started with an always-exciting genealogical list. Since we have committed to reading through the Bible in eighteen months, I should have warned you about genealogical lists. We find several of them in the Bible. Consider this sermon your warning. You can also view it as special instructions for when you encounter such lists. They are not like the fine print in the instructions for a product you buy. You know, the fine print that the manufacturer has to include, but nobody reads?
I titled today’s sermon “Finding Your Roots” after the PBS series of the same name. I genuinely enjoy watching that show. I appreciate how Louis Gates Jr. reveals interesting facts about a celebrity’s family tree. Some of the Black guests discover they have slave ancestors, while some of the White guests find they had slave-owner ancestors. Others realize they have a king, a general, or a preacher in their lineage. Conversely, some uncover murderers, horse thieves, and deserters among their relatives. Some hear a mix of good and bad news. The show is fascinating because it teaches so much about history connected to real people and real families.
We should not be surprised that God provided us with so many genealogies in the Bible. He had the most important message ever to share through the pages of His word. However, He did not simply give us a bullet list of facts and philosophical ideas. Instead, He wrapped His message in the stories and everyday events from biblical times. He ensured that those who would listen to and read His word had a context that helped them see its significance. They could understand His story because it was part of their own story. The opposite was also true. Everyone could see how important they were to God because He revealed how their story was part of His story. In both the Old and New Testaments, the truth of God’s word is conveyed within the context of the history of His people.
Today’s short text reminds us that all roots are connected. If you go back far enough, everyone is related. Everyone’s family tree begins with Adam. He and Eve were my first parents and yours too. 1 Chronicles is all about David, the greatest king of the United Kingdom, not Britain, but Israel. So we would expect it to begin at David’s coronation. But that is not recorded until chapter eleven. The first ten chapters trace the history of God’s people from Adam to David, doing so primarily through genealogical lists.
God wanted the people of the United Kingdom under David to know that they were important to him, so he wrote their names down in his holy book. The book also included their stories—good and evil, famous and infamous. As we read these stories, we need to recognize that they are our stories, too. We may not trace our ancestry back to King David, but we could trace our lineage back to Father Adam. To make that point, the Holy Spirit began this book not in Jerusalem, but in Eden. Everyone’s story begins there. The spiritual message of 1 Chronicles is not about one ethnic group. It’s about God’s purpose for every nation and every language. The sons of Noah produced children from three major language groups all across the planet: the Semitic, the Hamitic, and the Indo-European. We’re all in there.
As we read through the genealogical lists, we often come across names that are hard for us to pronounce, even though they were not hard to pronounce by the people who named them. Names are root clues, clues to the culture of the owner. For example, the Hebrew word for God is El, short for Elohim. Lots of Hebrew names in these genealogies contain that name. It shows up in Eldad, Eleazar, Eli, Eliakim, Elihu, Eliphaz, Elisha, Ariel, Bethel, Daniel, Gabriel, Immanuel, Ishmael, Israel, Nathaniel – and these are just a small percentage. You will also find the name Yah – short for Yahveh in many Hebrew names. Yahveh is the proper name of the God of the Bible. Yah is in Jason, Jehu, Jesus, Joanna, John, Jonathan, and Joshua.
The deity names point to the people’s connection with God. Other names emphasize the connections they had within their families. Many Hebrew names contain the syllable ‘ab. Names like Abigail, Abihu, Abner, Absalom, Ahab, Joab, Moab, and Aholiab point to the father of the person named. The syllable ben is also in many names. It means son. It is found in Benjamin and Reuben. Lots of other names became place names, and people began naming themselves after that place.
The names appearing in genealogical lists serve as clues to the culture from which those people emerged. One way archaeologists authenticate a document or inscription they find is by comparing the included names. If the document contains personal or place names that don’t correspond with the period it is supposed to have been written in, that indicates the document may be a forgery. Many books written around the same time as biblical texts were excluded from the biblical canon because they were found to be inauthentic, and the names they included offered significant clues.
When we start doing our genealogical research, we are sometimes embarrassed by what we find. Every family seems to have some bad apples. But the biblical genealogies highlight a helpful truth. Roots are not prophecies. You don’t have to match your roots. You don’t have to follow in the footsteps of your father. As we examine the kings of Israel and Judah, we find that some kings established dynasties that turned away from the covenant with God and sought other gods. Yet, even in those dynasties, occasionally a king would emerge who did not walk after the pattern established by his ancestors. There were some good kings, like Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah. They did not follow the bad examples set for them.
The lesson for all of us is that we are free to be nonconformists as well. If it is evil, and everybody is doing it, then we do not have to be like everybody. If we have alcoholics in our family, we do not have to drink alcohol. If we have horse thieves in our family tree, we do not have to become thieves.
As we read the Bible, we also discover that roots matter in both Testaments. Both have genealogies. In fact, the New Testament begins with the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew did his research and found that God had been at work in the family of Christ for millennia. Jesus descended from Abraham, the man to whom God promised that he would be a blessing to many nations and would father many nations. Jesus was going to be the ultimate fulfillment of those promises. Jesus descended from Jacob, a deceiver whom God blessed despite his character. God inspired him to become more than he was. Jesus descended from Ruth, a foreign woman who found grace in the eyes of Boaz, and in God’s eyes. She was rescued by love. Jesus descended from David, a man after God’s own heart, a king whom God established, and to whom God promised a descendant who would rule eternally. Jesus is that descendant.
The Bible does not contain your family tree or mine. What is essential is not that we can be traced physically to Jesus’ family. Jesus himself said that his mother and his brothers are those who hear and do the word of God. When we repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ, we become part of his spiritual family.
Roots connect us. They show us our context. One of the fallacies that Jesus encountered during his earthly ministry was the belief among the physical descendants of Abraham that they were automatically saved due to their lineage. However, Jesus told them that God could raise children for Abraham from the rocks. What truly matters is our connection to Christ, which is established not by a blood test but by our faith in Him.
However, some Christians fall for another fallacy: that since we are saved by faith in Christ, all the Jewish elements in the Old Testament are irrelevant. They view the Old Testament as a shell from which they can extract the gospel, ignoring the shell itself. Those who embrace this fallacy essentially treat 77% of the Bible as unimportant. But God’s word is not merely directed at a group of ancient Jews; it is meant for us—every part of it, one hundred percent. The ancient roots preserved in the family trees recorded in the Old Testament are our roots. We are connected to them through Christ, making them significant for us because of Him.
That is why, even when we consider the 23% of our Bibles known as the New Testament, we find over 300 direct quotations and hundreds more allusions and indirect quotations. These references indicate that Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecies. They demonstrate that the New Testament apostles utilized the Old Testament as Scripture to teach theology to the New Testament church. They reference the Old Testament to explain the person and work of God, since God remains constant in both testaments. Even when the New Testament authors discuss the old covenant, they do so to help their listeners understand the new covenant by comparing the two.
We decided to embark on a project to read the entire Bible this year and part of next year. We chose not to skip ahead to the more familiar passages of the New Testament because we wanted to become skilled in using the whole sword, not just the handle. It’s a shame to be a Christian and not know the entire Bible.
In the television show, guests talk with Dr. Gates because they want to find their roots. They aim to learn more about themselves by researching their family tree. Most of the time, they are astonished by what they discover. They uncover where their families originated, what they experienced, and who they interacted with. Sometimes, they find ancestors who made choices similar to their own. Other times, they encounter ancestors who faced different challenges and made distinct decisions. However, nobody finishes the show and says, “What a waste of time.” They seek to find their roots because pieces of the puzzle of their present lives are missing.
The Bible can guide you and me. It serves as the voice of God addressing our current circumstances. We might be Cain, tempted to respond violently when things don’t go our way. We might be Enoch, choosing to walk with God when the surrounding culture has turned away from Him. We could be Noah, listening to God and taking on the impossible simply because we know God desires it. Naturally, there are also many negative examples in the Bible. Those poor choices and the ensuing consequences can serve as warnings if we encounter similar temptations.
We have chosen to read through the Bible. We have had those Bibles on our shelves or in our phones, tablets, and computers. We have had the lights, but we might not have turned them on when we needed them. Once we turn to the biblical records and find our spiritual roots, we will be more likely to make the right choices and avoid the wrong ones. We will gain what King Solomon called wisdom. The more we dig into God’s word and make it a light for our path, the more we will understand why Solomon called wisdom a treasure worth more than gold and precious gems.
jeffersonvann 