Having just returned from the four-day National Genealogical Society’s annual Family History Conference, I’ve had genealogy on the brain lately, so I thought now would be a good time to share why my love for genealogy in general and some of my favorite attributes of God find their intersection in the genealogies of Scripture.
From an early age, my interest in genealogy has been strong. My mother has always told the story of my writing “Wow!” in Matthew 1, the chapter that contains a genealogy of Jesus. My memories of doing this are very faint, so I decided to dig my childhood Bible out of my closet. Sure enough, at the end of Matthew 1:17 (NIV), which reads, “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah,” I had written with a green pen, “WOW!!”
Perhaps my enthrallment with tracing my own (and others’) family history can find its initial root in my fascination with this one chapter, which, in only sixteen verses, connects Jesus all the way back to Abraham (a span of around 2,000 years) using individual names. Whatever the case, I began researching my own family’s story sometime around 2003, and as discovery after discovery has been made, I’ve been amazed time and time again at the grace of God.
You see, the genealogies in the Bible might seem like dull lists of unpronounceable names, but in reality they contain so many clues to God’s character. So when I trace my family’s history or read the Bible’s genealogies, I am reminded of so many truths. Here are just a few:
1) God knows our names.
What we have in Matthew 1 is a microcosm of humanity. There are people named about whom we know a great deal (e.g. Isaac, Jacob, and Solomon), but there are also people who don’t show up anywhere else in Scripture, like Azor and his grandson Achim. There are those who were kings (e.g. David, Hezekiah), those who were nomads (e.g. Abraham), and those whose occupation is unknown (e.g. Matthan, Abiud). And each one of them is listed by name.
God could have had Matthew write only verse 17, summarizing the fact that there were fourteen generations each from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Jesus, but instead He listed each individual by name. Of course, it would be presumptuous at best for me to say why God decided to include this information, but what I can say is that these verses remind me that no matter who we are, how well known we are during our lives, or how quickly we are forgotten after our deaths, God knows our names—and not just our names, but every detail about us, inside and out.
2) God is sovereign.
Have you ever thought about all the singular moments that had to line up just right for you even to exist? Take my 3x-great-grandfather Vasa B. Jones, for instance. A husband and father by the 1860s, he enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War, was soon-after captured by the Confederates, and spent the rest of the war being transported from one prison camp to another. But he survived and returned home to father another child--my 2x great-grandfather, Martin Luther Jones. If Vasa had perished, I wouldn’t be here.
Then there’s the fact that my great-grandfather, Bert Smith, almost moved his family to Australia for a job. Key word: almost. Instead, he moved them to Madison, West Virginia, where his daughter (my grandmother) would go on to meet her future husband (my grandfather and the grandson of the above-mentioned M. L. Jones). Again, if the Smiths had moved to Australia, I wouldn’t be here.
Stories like this remind me that God is completely in control. We exist when we exist where we exist because of Him. The biblical genealogies remind us of this as well. David could have been killed by Saul. Isaac could have been a lifelong bachelor. Zerubbabel could have perished in his return journey from exile. But instead, God preserved each of their lives long enough for a new generation to be brought forth, and through them He carried out His plan to send His Son into the world, which brings me to another point--
3) God is faithful.
Closely related to God’s sovereignty is His faithfulness. He is a God of His word. The names of Abraham and David by themselves don’t tell us much, but when we learn the life stories of each of these men, we see how God made promises to each of them having to do with their descendants (and one Descendant in particular). The genealogy of Jesus shows us God’s faithfulness in keeping His promises.
4) God is gracious.
Many people embark upon genealogical endeavors in the hopes of finding some illustrious or royal ancestry, but, more often than not, unearthed instead are individuals of a more scandalous nature--not that royalty are immune from scandal by any means. In my case, the scandal comes into play again during the Civil War with my cousin’s discovery that one of our civilian, Confederate-sympathizing, West Virginia ancestors, Henry Kuhl, was made an example of by the Union military court and hanged for murdering a lad who was supposedly a Union soldier.
Judged an accomplice in the act was Henry’s son Conrad, but since witnesses testified that Conrad played a part in the crime only because he was afraid of his father, he was given a lighter sentence--hard labor for the duration of the war instead of hanging. Like Vasa, Conrad survived. But unlike Vasa, he was not yet married at the time of his imprisonment. The fact that he wasn’t hanged along with his father but rather lived to marry and have my great-great-grandmother is another reminder of God’s sovereignty, but the stain of murder in my line is also a reminder of God’s grace.
This grace is all the more evident in the genealogy of Jesus where we see people with all sorts of baggage--Jacob, Rahab, Solomon, just to name a few. Even the conceptions resulting from sinful acts of Tamar and David were redeemed by God’s grace not only in producing life but in including that life in the lineage of the God-man. In actuality, there is not one blameless person in Jesus’s line except for him. And yet God gave each of them the blessing of being part of the means by which God would save the world.
Our genealogical heritage might not involve something as significant as God becoming flesh, but nonetheless there are evidences of God’s grace in our lives every day. Our sin does not have to define us, and while it can and often does affect our descendants, it does not have to define them either. God’s mercies are new every morning, for every individual, through every generation. He is greater than we and greater than our sin. And thank God, He is gracious.
So the next time you come upon the genealogies while you’re reading through the Bible, take a moment to ponder what they reveal about God. And as you learn more and more about your own family’s story, look for the glimpses of God’s omniscience, sovereignty, faithfulness, and grace. You just might fall in love with family history, or even better, with God Himself.
Vasa B. Jones Bert Smith Henry Kuhl*
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