Reflection on: Family

I've been reading through the Bible chronologically since Christmas day 2010, and thus far I've read through all of Genesis and Job, and I'm currently at the beginning of Exodus. As you may be aware of, there are a great number of genealogies in the book of Genesis, which can be problematic to readers within a post-modern, western, individualistic society such as contemporary Britain or the USA. Reading through the lists of names can feel like trying to find God's word for you today by browsing through the phonebook.

However, I've found that by reading through these ancient books as if I were trying to understand someone's family history, it becomes much more real and, dare I say, exciting! Something I'm enjoying doing is using a free online family tree builder to chart and record all the names which appear as I read God's word. I'll publish said chart on this website when it's finished, sometime around October.

But, other than being interesting, is there anything of Spiritual benefit that can be drawn from these family lines? Well, they demonstrate that God is interested in family. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he instructed them to address the LORD God Almighty with the phrase, "Our Father". This phrase means we address God as Father, not judge, creator, king or God, but also that we do so corporately. It's not "my father" or "our king", even though both of those are true, but because we share a Father we are family. Through Jesus we're adopted into God's family (Romans 8:15) and grafted into the promises given to Israel (Romans 11:17).

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