At the end of 2 Kings, the people of Israel no doubt endured an identity crisis. Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and killed or exiled most of the citizens. Those left to the land were put under a regional governor, Gedaliah, appointed by the King of Babylon. Gedaliah, a Jew, sought to lead the Israelites into a time of rebuilding, but it was not to be. Seven months into his term of office a group of zealots assassinated him and the Babylonian officials with the governor, then the zealots fled the country.
By the end of 2 Kings, the best and brightest Israelites are either dead or gone, having been exiled or having fled to Egypt for fear of Babylonian reprisal. It's little wonder that many would look up at the sky at night and wonder, "Who are we now?".
While the book of 1 Chronicles is simply a page turn in most Bibles today, it was separated by several hundred years. In fact, in the Hebrew Bible 1 & 2 Chronicles is located at the end of the Old Testament. What sounds like a boring retelling of history is to them a needed word at the end of a long road (or the beginning of the next...).
The Chronicler has one purpose: to root a rootless people. They have been living in exile first under the Babylonians and now under Persian rule. Next will be the Greeks and finally the Romans. Who are the people of God when there's no Jerusalem? Where is God when all that made life real and vibrant seems stripped away as if by a flood? Imagine you were tasked with helping an unmoored people find their feet and feel rooted again. How would you begin?
The Chronicler begins with one name, and then another, and another. Name after name fall on the ears of those who have felt forgotten by God: "Adam, Set, Enosh; Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared; Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth," (1 Chronicles 1:1-4). In the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles, it reads like a tedious phonebook (or like scrolling through someone's contact list). But each name rings like a bell until there's a chorus with a theme, "We are not rootless. We are not forgotten. We are the people of God, part of God's chosen group or tree to redeem the world." As commentator Michael Wilcock put it, "They feel rootless; and he [the Chronicler] wants them to be aware of, and to learn to draw up nourishment through, the roots which do in fact exist."
What does it say that the Chronicler begins with one name after another? It says that he views history as God's story of choosing a people for His own glory. Remember Adam? Adam sinned and experienced God's curse, but God did not stop blessing Adam. God promised a seed from Adam's wife who would overturn the curse. Remember Noah? Noah lived in a perverse generation that made God's heart bleed, but Noah and his family experienced God's grace and salvation. On and on the list goes (or the tree builds and branches).
"Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man," (1 Chronicles 1:10). How would you, men, like to be remembered for raising the world's first hero? Makes me want to take my son for a hike and teach him to swing a machete!
"The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael," (1 Chronicles 1:28). Do you remember how Ishmael and Isaac came about? Ishmael was the son of pragmatism. Isaac was the son of promise. If God can give a 100-year-old man, and his 90-year-old wife a son, can He not still provide for a people scattered?
What about the kings of the other people who reigned and who opposed Israel? Listen to this refrain of the kings of Edom: "Bela died...Jobab died...Husham died...Hadad died...Samlah died...Shaul died...Baalhanan died...Hadad died," (1 Chronicles 1:44-51). The point? There have been wicked kings who ruled over or against God's people for hundreds of years. What happened to them? They died, and God's people endured. And on and on this God-centered history lesson goes.
I want to briefly highlight two points for us today:
1. Just Because a Bible Passage Feels Boring Does Not Mean It's Irrelevant. Try to read 1 Chronicles 1-3 in a sitting. Really, try it. Did you yawn? Did you have to reread a paragraph once or twice? Did you skip down past some of the names? I did all three, sadly. I even thought, "God why is such a boring passage like this in the Bible?". Asking such a question revealed something, not about the Bible but about me. I am far too obsessed with my own wants and needs. Here there is rich cause to pause, to consider, to immerse myself in a story bigger than myself. Yet I almost missed it because it felt boring? The problem is not with the Bible, it's with our modern impatience and inability to invest work to glean what is truly worthwhile and beautiful. Read the Bible - all of it. Ask God to help you feel the treasure of His words.
2. Like Israel, We are Not Rootless. We need this message today, when the church is trying to figure out who we are amidst a pandemic and party politics and racial tensions, and zoom meetings. Who are we? What does it mean to be a church today? It would be easy to feel rootless and detached by the events of 2020. But, Christians take heart in God. He is our rock and our salvation. He is still at work today as He was from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus. You are part of a bigger story than you realize. Lead your heart to keep trusting, keep obeying, and one day we will see that He was all the while bringing about something beautiful.
Let me close by encouraging you to talk with a trusted Christian friend through the following questions. God Bless!
- What do you do when you are bored by the Bible? How can you overcome the temptation to see the Bible as irrelevant?
- Who is someone in your own family's history that inspires you or encourages you? Why?
- Who is someone in the Bible's history that you relate to? Why?
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