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Context No. 1890 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 2:9-17: in context

9The sons also of Hezron, who were born to him: Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai. 10Ram became the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, prince of the children of Judah; 11and Nahshon became the father of Salma, and Salma became the father of Boaz, 12and Boaz became the father of Obed, and Obed became the father of Jesse; 13and Jesse became the father of his firstborn Eliab, Abinadab the second, Shimea the third, 14Nethanel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15Ozem the sixth, and David the seventh; 16and their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. The sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel, three. 17Abigail bore Amasa; and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmaelite.

This genealogy traces a line through the generations: Ram fathered Amminadab, who fathered Nahshon, a prince of Judah; Nahshon fathered Salma, who fathered Boaz; Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered his sons, the seventh of whom was David. Name after name, generation after generation, the line runs from obscure ancestors down to the king God chose, and, beyond him, toward the Messiah who would come from David's house.

A list of names like this can seem lifeless, but it is in fact the thread of God's purpose running through history. Each name is a generation, a life, most of them obscure, unremarkable to history, known now only as a link in a chain; and yet through this long succession of ordinary people God was working out his redemptive purpose, carrying it forward from generation to generation toward David, and beyond David toward Christ, who would be born of this very line. The thread runs through the ordinary: farmers and fathers and unremarkable lives, most of whom never knew the part they played in a purpose larger than themselves. And notice who is in the line: Boaz, who married Ruth the foreigner, and Obed their son, grace grafting an outsider into the very lineage of the Messiah. God wove his purpose through ordinary people and unexpected turns, generation by generation, until it reached its goal. There is encouragement in this about the way God works, and about our own place in his purposes. God accomplishes his great designs not usually through spectacular interventions but through the ordinary succession of ordinary lives, each doing its small part, most never seeing the whole. The people in this genealogy were, for the most part, unremarkable; and God's redemptive purpose ran straight through them. So it may be with us. We are, most of us, ordinary links in chains we cannot see the ends of, playing parts in God's purposes larger than we know, our small faithfulness a thread in a design that reaches far beyond us. The genealogy that runs to David and to Christ is made of names history would otherwise forget; and it reminds us that God works his long purposes through ordinary people, and that our own ordinary lives may be links he is using in a purpose we cannot yet see.

Do I think God's purposes are worked out only through the spectacular, or can I see in this genealogy running through ordinary, obscure lives to David and to Christ that God accomplishes his great designs through the ordinary succession of ordinary people, and that my own unremarkable life may be a link he is using in a purpose larger than I can see?

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