You Matter

“The sons of Jerahmeel, the firstborn of Hezron: Ram, his firstborn, Bunah, Oren, Ozem, and Ahijah.” ( I Chronicles 2:25)

These are the pages of your Bible that are stuck together. If they were missing, you wouldn’t notice. Go on, admit it! When was the last time you read the first nine chapters of I Chronicles? 407 verses of “This guy had six sons and these are their names,” “This guys had ten sons and these are their names,” “This guy had four sons and these are their names”….. you get the picture.

Why are these passages even in the Bible? There are genealogies in several books. Besides being a great resource for baby names, there is no possible reason these verses are important! Is there? On one hand, we can say that we know these passages matter because God included them in Scripture. He wouldn’t have included them if they weren’t important, but that doesn’t explain their purpose.

Without knowing the mind of God, I can think of two solid reasons why these verses matter. First of all, the Bible is about real people. The stories in Scripture are true, they are historical, they really happened. As we see these long lists of names, we are seeing the people who lived when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, the people who served King David and those who were alive when Samson destroyed the Philistine temple. This is not fiction. Secondly, I believe the genealogies are a great reminder that God cares about the individual. He always has and always will. There are 7.3 billion people on this planet, but God knows you, understands you and loves you. He gave you this life and He wants you to live it for His glory. You matter.

-Pastor Mike