[apologies for no post yesterday, and for lateness of this post. I'll try to get posts done a day ahead of time from now on, so they can be posted early each morning.]
“History is more or less bunk” said Henry Ford. On this view, what’s past is gone, and so unimportant. As he continued: “We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we made today.”
The writer of 1 Chronicles wouldn’t share that view. 9 chapters devoted to genealogies. NINE CHAPTERS! And this was written when some good history books were already available: 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. The writer of Chronicles thinks that history is important, and important enough to write a second history of God’s people, told with different aims and emphases.
Whilst 9 chapters of genealogies seem offputting at best and irrelevant at worst, they nevertheless teach us an important lesson. Even we have heard of only a few of these people, we realise that knowing who they are is important. When we see that the genealogies end with the people of the Chroniclers generation, we see the importance of this people understanding their links to the past.
Chronicles would have been written for the people of God recently returned from exile. They had been delivered from captivity to Babylon, but the temple needed rebuilding, Jerusalem’s wall was broken down, and the great days of the mighty acts of redemption, the Kings of Israel and Judah, and God’s promises to the patriarchs were all in the past. The people needed to be reminded of their continuity with what went before – so that they would trust the same promises of God and serve him in the same ways.
For us Christians today, we need to remember history – in particular our links with the past. For so many Christians who are not Jewish, we are not directly descended from Abraham. But we are Abraham’s spiritual descendants if we share his faith: “he is the father of those who believe” (Rom 4:11)
God’s dealings with Abraham, David and other lesser known figures, are important for us – they are family history – that teach us of how God deals with his people.
John Piper reminds us that our faith in God is based on his faithfulness to us in the past. This is true of his faithfulness to us in our own lives. We can look back at our lives and how God has never let us down, and so remind ourselves that God is trustworthy. But it is also true as we look to our family history recorded in the Bible, and see that God has never failed any of his people. As we continue to read 1 and 2 Chronicles we will see the particular lessons the Chronicler wants us to learn: the promises to keep trusting, the mistakes to avoid, and the qualities to emulate. Most of all though we’ll learn of a faithful God who doesn’t change: “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever!” (Heb 13:8) History isn’t bunk – at least not the history in 1 and 2 Chronicles. It is a family album, a theological textbook, and a devotional guide.
In those wonderful words of Stuart Townend and Keith Getty’s hymn:
As saints of old still line the way
Retelling triumphs of his grace
We hear their calls and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in glory!
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