No 7

(Those boring genealogies)

In Genesis we read : “Joktan begat Alomdod ”. In Exodus we read : “And the sons of Korah : Assir and Elkanah”. In the book of Numbers, it’s even worse; whole chapters are dedicated to genealogies : “of the tribe of this , of the tribe of that”. The New Testament isn’t any better; Matthew and Luke have lists of :  “the son of this person, the son of that person”, anyway, you know what I’m taking about. When we first read the Bible and we see all these genealogies, two words came to mind : “Who cares??”. I can tell you of someone who cares : the Lord Himself; because why else would He have put them there in the first place? So then you say, “ok, what purpose do they serve?” Watch this : the Messiah was promised to Israel through Abraham (Gen 17 :5), further in the Bible, it says that the Messiah will be a descendant of Isaac (Gen 21 :3), then a descendant of Jacob (Israel – Gen 32 :28) , then a descendant of Judah (Gen 49 :10), of the family of David (1 Sam 16 :13) (both Mary and Joseph were of the family of David – see the gospels of Matthew & Luke). So you still say : OK, what does it all mean? Just this : the records of all the tribes and all the descendants of these tribes were kept judiciously in the temple by the Scribes and Pharisees. So when Jesus was born , they were able to verify the validity of this One born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem (city of David) being heralded to be the King of the Jews and the Messiah. Why else did Herod ask the Pharisees of what town the Messiah was to be born? (Matt 2 :6) With all these records, the Jews could verify these facts; mind you, it didn’t stop them from crucifying the Son of God but that was in God’s plan, anyway. Now……today, the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah, as we know, but the records were all destroyed by Titus in the year 70 AD when his army invaded Israel and dispersed the Jews. Here is a true story that helps us to understand just how blind the Jews are today. A Christian teacher took a course on Jewish history in a Jewish school in Philadelphia and he was the only student in the class. The teacher was a stern Jewish lady who was an expert in Jewish history and for six months, he would go to the class and she would give him reading assignments for the next class. At the end of the course, a question burned in him and he asked this expert who had read volumes and volumes of Jewish history the following question : “ When the Messiah comes, how will you recognize Him because all the records have been destroyed?” Do you know what her answer was? She answered : “I hope someone, somewhere has kept the records…….”. This prominent Jewish scholar’s hope was hanging on a dream, a false hope. Our job as children of God is to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Hope for today.