A Little History and Some Genealogy

 

by way of FamilySearch.org

It was October 2009 I read the article on CNN that Yahoo! was shutting down GeoCities. I wrote about it 27 October 2009:

In 1997, GeoCities hosted my first website – a copy of the genealogy workbook I was creating. I found several excellent sources, filled in pedigree and family sheets in a well-designed program then posted photos from more than a century before to share with family members.

I moved then to a site called Multiply, which also shut down and I had to move to Yahoo!360, which - as you may guess – shut down. By then, I had started this Bible Study blog, so I added a tab at the top with some information and requests for more about my family’s history.

Mine isn’t newsworthy.However, this week I received an e-mail from a genealogy site with the information that I have several tenth cousins – some once removed, some more than that, others  were closer, others further away.

None are really important, because by the time we get ten generations back, tens of thousands of people can track the same relationship, and hundreds of thousands couldn’t care less. I find history interesting, but I admire my listed cousin Elizabeth II much more interesting for her lifetime history than for any distant relationship.

However, in some instances, such as Matthew 1:1-16, Joseph’s genealogy is very important. Jesus is shown to descend in a manner very important to Judaism – as the Pulpit Commentary explains:

As St. Matthew was writing only for Jews, and they, by reason of their Old Testament prophecies, looked for the Messiah to be born of a certain family, he begins his Gospel with a pedigree of Jesus. In this he mentions, by way of introduction, the two points to which his countrymen would have special regard—the descent of Jesus from David, the founder of the royal line, him in whose descendants the Ruler of Israel must necessarily (2 Samuel 7:13-16) be looked for; and also from Abraham, who was the head of the covenant nation, and to whom the promise had been given that in his seed all the nations of the earth should bless themselves (Genesis 22:18; Genesis 12:3).

But the genealogy given in Luke 3:23-38 gives the genealogy from a different perspective. Mary’s genealogy is different, yet similar to Joseph’s, and again the Pulpit Commentary gives an explanation of Luke’s written genealogy:

His work was evidently most carefully and skillfully arranged upon the lines of formal history. Up to this point the story was mainly concerned with other personages—with the parents of the great forerunner John, with Mary the Virgin and Joseph, with the angels, with the shepherds, with Simeon and with Anna, and especially with the work of John the Baptist. But from henceforth all the minor persons of the Divine story pass into the background. There is now one central figure upon whom the whole interest of the Divine drama centers—Jesus. This, the moment of his real introduction on the world's stage, was, as St. Luke rightly judged it, the time to give the formal table of his earthly ancestry.

Both gospel authors saw the importance of Jesus being created by God as all men have been, descended from Abraham as a Hebrew, descended from David  - perceptively through both parents, and lived among mankind as a slightly different kind of man.

The other two gospels are not interested at all in genealogy. Their fellow followers of Christ covered it well through God’s inspiration. With the question being of the lineage of David – important to prophesy – all four move on to what Jesus came to show, and tell, mankind about Himself, God’s relationship, and God’s love for His created.

There is no value for me in any relationship to any ruler of England. There is, however, an eternal relationship for me and you as the adopted children of God:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:14-17 KJV)

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:4-7 KJV)

How would you describe the spirit of adoption?