What Biblical Genealogies Do

Most of us read the Bible and come to the genealogies in Genesis, in the early chapters of Chronicles, or in Matthew, in the course of our reading plan, and wonder how to approach reading them. We ask: will I be able to remember any of these names? Do I need to remember them? Does it still "count" as reading a chapter if I skim the genealogical parts?

We ask further: of what value is the information I am gaining from these genealogies, as a modern reader, if I do in fact manage to "learn" some of the names and relationships found there? Should I attempt to memorize them? Or study them in depth as I would a line of argument in a Pauline epistle?

Surely such exercises would have some profit; they certainly would be of no detriment! All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. But are these the right questions to ask? Does every part of Scripture tend to profit us in the same way?

Words, spoken or written, often convey information between persons. However, that is not the only function of words. Arguably, it is not their most important function, perhaps even when they are also transferring information.

As examples of words performing functions other than conveying information, consider the speech-acts of greetings, commanding, or pronouncing a couple to be "husband and wife." Words facilitate relationships, create new ones, provoke others to action, and have dozens of other effects distinct from conveying information.

If this is so with human-to-human communication, how much more so with the Word of God to man, inspired, directed, illuminated, and applied by the omnipotent Holy Spirit? But what might we speculate are the other functions of geneaological portions of Scripture in their being read (whether silently and privately or out loud in family or public worship)? How do these passages affect us?

The following are some thoughts I have had in partial answer to these questions, and I'm sure many of them are not original to me, but unfortunately I cannot remember for sure where I have learned any of this material if some of it was secondary. Credit where credit is due, and I'm sure some is due to Peter Leithart, Vern Poythress, Graeme Goldsworthy, Geerhardus Vos, and others from whom I've learned a lot about the phenomenon of Scripture and language, biblical theology, etc.

1) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the historicity of our faith. We trace the lineage of the Messiah back to David and Abraham in Matthew's gospel, and all the way back to Adam in Luke's. We realize that real people had real families and real lands and real jobs as we read 1 Chronicles 1-9. Our God is a God--the God--of history.

2) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the (to most of us, in many ways) foreignness of the culture of the characters of the Bible, with their symbolic and religiously inspired names, and the fact itself that the genealogies were important enough in that culture to include in holy writ. Occasionally, modern missionaries report that remote peoples to whom they minister respond favorably to biblical geneaological material in surprising ways because the people value recorded heritage and family trees more than modern westerners tend to.

3) The genealogies, as we read them, give us a sense of the sovereignty of God over hundreds or thousands of individual lives and the way all of their stories fit into the grand drama of redemption leading up to the coming of Christ, often in surprising ways (like Rahab and Tamar showing up in Matthew's record of Christ's genealogy). This gives us hope for God's work in our own lives, and His ability to use us to build His kingdom, despite our sin.

4) The geneaologies, as we read them, give us a sense of the corporateness of the heritage of the faith. While not all individuals named in the genealogies were true believers, or necessarily even part of the covenant family that came from Jacob, overall we are impressed with the fact that we as modern Christians have spiritual brothers and sisters across generations and generations, from different times and places, who lived at different stages of God's self-revelation to His people and fulfillment of His plan of redemption. We have a rich and vast heritage, and a responsibility to continue passing down that deposit of faith to future generations. We should also be impressed with the fact that so many generations of hope and longing have now been met in the coming of Christ, and we have the privilege of the new covenant experience of the Spirit indwelling us, as we await further completion of redemption at Christ's return.

I am sure that there are many more analogous ways the genealogies give us a "sense" (a word I have used repeatedly), even subconsciously, of different aspects of God and His people and their history, that we would not consider or feel as strongly were it not for these parts of Scripture and our patient reading of them.

Even if we are not fully conscious of how our minds and hearts are being subtly shaped by engaging with these passages, and even if we do not regularly engage with them by deep name studies or timelining or memorization or intertextual studies or other highly discursive intellectual processes, we should rest assured that even reading them is indeed having deep effects upon us. We are being changed and re-wired to approach Scripture and the history of redemption it presents with a new posture, one of humility, appreciation, and confidence in the inscrutable wisdom and sovereignty of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So, don't always only quickly skim the genealogies in your personal devotional or Bible reading activities. It's ok if you can't pronounce each name. But read patiently. And read aloud in family worship or in church. Don't skip these sections in expositional preaching.