Genealogy

The wife of a distant relative of my father on his mother's side of the family decided a decade or so ago to trace this part of her husband's family tree. She was able, with the help of people all over the country, to trace this part of my family back in America to a land grant in the mid 1600's. It is interesting to see how the original patriarchal family branched and the number of known descendants has grown so huge over 350+ years. We have spread far and wide from that original landholding in Virginia.

As I read about the descendants of Noah after the flood, I get that same since of wonder at how families grow and change. Genesis 10 lists four or five generations of Noah. A few of the names we easily recognize today from biblical or political history are Egypt, Canaan, Nimrod, Babel, Ninevah, Amorites, and Havilah. We usually associate those names with places rather than people but the places in ancient times were usually named for the person or family that first settled there.

When Noah and his sons came off the ark after the flood, the first thing Noah did was build an altar and offer sacrifices to God. (Genesis 8:20) But by the names above we know that a few generations and the people were no longer worshiping God. Later as God gave the Law to Moses, God commanded His people to teach their children about Him. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." Deuteronomy 6:4-7

We, who are followers of Jesus Christ, have our own genealogy, a spiritual genealogy. Because of that we have an obligation to the next generation to teach them the truth of Scripture. We need to tell them about God and His salvation through Jesus Christ but we also need to tell them the stories of Jesus in our own lives. How He changed us. How He provides for us. How He guides us. Jesus is not just history. Jesus is alive and active in our lives today and that needs to be told so the next generation can carry the gospel to the generations after them and keep building the family tree.