Why genealogies?

The Book Of First Chronicles begins with a family history, a family tree, which is simply a really long list of nine chapters of genealogies. This is one reason why these two books aren’t often read and aren’t very popular. Many a new believer’s first voyage to read through the whole bible ends instead in a shipwreck on the rocks of First Chronicles. They come to all these names and they quickly turn a few pages until they get past them all. It is a mistake to think that these books are just a repetition of everything already recorded in Kings and Samuel. What we do have  is a very important book because it is here that  God wants to give the people of Israel a sense of their history. It is a careful record of their history down to the Messiah as well as a testimony of many past believer’s faith. God gives them and us encouragement for the present and hope for the future by emphasizing all that He has done for them in the past. In that sense this has been true for every believer who has taken up this book down through the last three thousand years. When we read of God’s faithfulness in the past, His characteristics of mercy, grace and forgiveness then it gives us hope for our own struggle to serve Him well today. Keep pushing on through the Bible fellow stranger … our reward comes as we study… and will eventually come to all who wait on Him.
In Him, Pastor Ed