thoughts after my Bible reading

*after a long absence---I'm trying to get back to blogging. We'll see how I succeed. :) *


This morning I was reading in the book of Genesis. Genesis, the book of beginnings, is full of genealogies; well, the whole Bible is really. God gives us detailed accounts of who His people were, their children, where they lived and travelled, and how old they were. The whole chapter of Genesis 10 tells about Noah’s children and their descendants.
And then in chapter 11, these same descendants decide to “make a name for themselves” (Gen 11:4) in order to keep from being scattered across the face of the world, and the Lord, because they didn’t acknowledge Him, confuses their tongue and scatters them anyway. Thinking about it, they already had a name- weren’t they part of the Sons of God? What name in the world could be better than that? And yet, they thought they needed something better. But God, in His providence, didn’t end it there. He showed His faithfulness throughout the generations – something we see in the story of Abraham. At the time, Abraham was a man without children but God promised to make him a great nation. His descendants would fill the earth; more in number than the stars in the heavens.

Just last night at dinner, our family was talking about our ancestors and heritage. Who they were, the kind of people they were, the circumstances they came out of, where they settled, etc. I suppose it’s easy to get wrapped up in where we came from. “I’m descended from so-and-so who was the Grand Duke of Wherever” or “My great-great-grand-uncle-twice-removed-on-my-mother’s-side was the Prince of Somewhereorother”. (I’m exaggerating for effect here, but you get my point) Thinking about our family history, I’m reminded, again, of two things: 1) I am really blessed to have a Christian heritage and 2) it’s by God’s grace I have that heritage and (I suppose this would make it three things) that the privilege of bearing the name of Jesus Christ is far better than any name I might have.