“Waste of Space?” (1 Chronicles 1-9, et al) | 1/5/20
1 Chronicles 1-9 | 1/5/20 | Will DuVal
Speaking of what’s NEW, this morning, in this NEW year, I am SO excited to embark with you not only in this NEW, second service, but in our new sermon series to kick-off 2020: Tough Texts. I got the idea for this series a LONG time ago, and I’m SO pumped it’s finally come to fruition. Because I’m a GLUTTON for punishment, apparently. ☺ This week as I was mapping out all 12 of the tough texts we have in store, I did begin to second guess myself a bit. Like, was this one of those ideas that sounded FUN in theory and GREAT on paper – cuz if you’re trying to build momentum starting the new year, launching a new service, it’s a great IDEA. Who ISN’T interested in a series like this?! But in my preliminary study, I started wondering what I’ve gotten myself into - Some of these texts are probably gonna require 20-30 hours of study time just in SERMON prep, they are so difficult. So if I’ve retired by the end of this in March, you’ll understand. ☺
But why even bother? And why ARE these passages so difficult anyway? Let’s address BOTH those questions before we dive in to our first tough text this morning:
First, why study the Tough Texts of the Bible. After all, aren’t these the passages that the Church is expected to just skip right over? That’s the common perception, amongst non-Christians and Christians ALIKE, isn’t it? We BOTH recognize that there’s some stuff in here that if we’re really honest, most of us, in AND out of the church, at times, kinda just wish wasn’t there. So we TREAT it, as if it WEREN’T. We choose to overlook it. But unfortunately for us, it’s not OUR word, it’s GOD’S. So try as we may, we can’t make these tough passages just disappear. They have to be reckoned with, and I’ll go BEYOND that and suggest that reason #1 we’re undertaking this series is that they DESERVE to be reckoned with. We believe at West Hills that 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work.” ALL Scripture. Not just the parts we like. Not just the verses we print on our bathroom hand towels. I guarantee you we’re not gonna be studying your “life verse” these next 12 weeks. You don’t have ANY of these passages tattooed anywhere, painted decoratively over your mantle-piece. These are the embarrassing passages we are usually guilty of trying to HIDE in the church. Well, not any more. If it’s really God’s word, we’re gonna trust that it’s there for a reason, that God INCLUDED it for us, for a reason. And we’re gonna put in the time and work and prayer required to uncover that reason, and appreciate it, and ask God to help us appreciate these tough TEXTS for what they are: His inspired word. So reason #1 for this series – we’re doing it for YOU; Christian, so that you can be taught, reproved, corrected, and trained, so that you can be COMPLETE. You won’t be complete until you’ve got every part of God’s word down into every part of your being.
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Reason #2 – NON-Christian, we’re doing this series for you too. We don’t wanna be a church that just preaches to the choir every week. We want to ENGAGE with those OUTSIDE the church in real, life-impacting ways. And I recognize, because it’s part of my OWN story, personally, part of the reason I walked away from the church years ago, was because I didn’t feel like I was getting real answers to my real questions and doubts and struggles. The kinds of churches that ignore difficult passages in the Bible also tend to ignore PEOPLE with difficult questions about the Bible. People who are really wrestling to understand and believe it. We don’t want to be one of those churches. And if you’re here, and you are newer to church, we’re SO glad you’re here. We’re doing this series for you too. So you can bring your honest questions and struggles – Heck, I’m the pastor and I struggle to accept and believe and celebrate some of these difficult truths we’re going to be examining over the next 12 weeks. This is a safe place for that. We’ve all got questions. Doubts. Let’s work thru them together.
Reason # 3 – Christian, we’re doing this series to better EQUIP you, not only personally for growing in your OWN faith and understanding and appreciation of God’s word, but out of that, in your ability to REACH OTHERS with the gospel as well. This is a VITALLY important series for those estranged from the church, so I will keep encouraging you to invite them, BRING them with you. We talked last week about New Year’s Resolutions worth keeping, and I challenged us to step up to God’s calling to evangelism and discipleship in 2020; one of the EASIEST ways you can BEGIN to do that is simply invite people with you to church! Grab a couple invite cards from the Info Bar on your way out and drop them in your neighbor’s mailboxes... SHARE the digital version that Thad posted to Facebook this week with your friends online. But recognize ALSO that some people in your life, you can invite a thousand times, and you should, but they STILL may never come. And as the old saying goes – “You may be the only Bible they ever read.” And yet, they know just enough of the actual Bible to know that perhaps you are conveniently leaving out some of the more difficult sections. So this series is intended to help equip you for the work of Apologetics, “offering a defense for the hope of Jesus that is within you”, 1 Peter 3:15.
So those are the 3 Reasons we’re doing this series; quickly, FOUR reasons that Texts ARE tough. What MAKES a passage of Scripture DIFFICULT? In order of increasing difficulty...
We sometimes question its RELEVANCY. “What’s the point?” Maybe it’s just tough to understand why of ALL things God could have spent valuable pages of Scripture covering, why He bothered including this seemingly trivial passage.
There are issues of CONSISTENCY. “How does this passage FIT with what we know from science, from history, from other passages of the Bible?” Jesus himself said, John 10:35 “The Scriptures cannot be broken”. So the primary interpretative principle we use in exegeting the Bible is called the analogy of faith, what the Reformers called Sola Scriptura, scripture alone, not the pope or anyone else, but the Bible itself, is the final authoritative interpreter of itself. If the Bible is really God’s inerrant word, that means “without error”, it makes NO mistakes, because it’s God’s word, and GOD doesn’t make mistakes, then the best way to ensure we’re understanding it rightly is to make sure whatever we’re reading doesn’t contradict something we find ELSEWHERE in Scripture. But with some of these passages, there are MAJOR, valid, questions of consistency.
We may have issues with a passage PERSONALLY. “I got problems with this passage because it personally challenge ME.” If I’m honest, I want a comfortable faith, and this passage is frankly, unsettling.
And finally, and most troubling, are the passages that challenge us THEOLOGICALLY. “If this is really God’s word, what does this passage say about GOD?” Do I even LIKE the God it depicts? Is He the kind of God I can get behind WORSHIPPING?
Those are the 4 reasons a text can be tough, and this MORNING’S text, or GROUPING of texts, I should say, we’re gonna consider a whole CATEGORY of texts, namely, category #1 above – the seemingly IRRELEVANT. “What’s the POINT?” So without further ado,
Would you stand with me as you are able, out of respect for the reading of God’s word, from the book of 1 Chronicles, ch.1, beginning in verse 1...
“Adam, Seth, Enosh; 2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared; 3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; 4 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
5 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 6 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath,[b] and Togarmah. 7 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.
8 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 9 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 10 Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man.[c]
11 Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 12 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.
13 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, 14 and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 15 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 16 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites.
17 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. And the sons of Aram:[d] Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech. 18 Arpachshad fathered Shelah, and Shelah fathered Eber. 19 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg[e] (for in his days the earth was divided), and his brother's name was Joktan. 20 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 21 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 22 Obal,[f] Abimael, Sheba, 23 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.
24 Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah; 25 Eber, Peleg, Reu; 26 Serug, Nahor, Terah; 27 Abram, that is, Abraham.
28 The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael. 29 These are their genealogies...” This is the word...
Now, before you get upset that I asked you stand for just HALF of 1 Chronicles ch.1, let me just remind you that in Nehemiah ch.8, at the dedication of the city wall of Jerusalem in the 5th c. BC, Ezra assembled the whole city and read the entire Book of Moses, the TORAH, the first 5 books of the Bible, in one standing. And I promise you there were a WHOLE LOT more “begats”, and boring lists that they had to stand through! Genesis 5 records the first genealogy in Scripture, from Adam down to Noah. Then ch.10 lists the generations from Noah down to Babel. Then we get another list in ch.11, down to father Abraham. And THAT’s not even all the lists in Genesis, and Genesis probably has the FEWEST such lists in all the Torah. In fact, we studied the longest chapter of the Bible last week, Psalm 119, but does anyone know the SECOND longest? Bible trivia: It’s Numbers ch.7, 89 verses. 89 verses... outlining the offerings God instructs Moses to dedicate upon consecrating the Tabernacle, the portable temple the Israelites carried with them through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. Speaking of which, you may remember that famous Exodus, and the book named after it, the epic story of God’s deliverance of his chosen people through his servant Moses, the burning bush, the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, all culminating in perhaps the most important chapter in the Old Testament, Exodus 20, where God gives them the 10 commandments. What you may NOT remember is that the book of Exodus goes on for another 20 chapters, and the second half is almost entirely comprised of the kind of seemingly IRRELEVANT, outdated lists we’re questioning this morning: laws about altars, laws about slaves, laws about the Sabbath and Festivals we no longer celebrate, blueprints for how to build the tabernacle, and all the stuff it contained: the ark of the covenant, the Table of Bread, the Golden Lampstand, the bronze basin, the bronze altar, the altar of incense, the courtyard, the oil for the lamp, the oil for anointing, the priests’ garments, details for how to anoint the priests, even a list for how they were supposed to PAY for all of it. And then, because those lists from Exodus 25-30 weren’t enough, they basically get repeated word-for-word in chapters 35-40 with the simple addition that “Now Moses and the people actually BUILT the tabernacle, with ten curtains, made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns. The length of each curtain was 28 cubits, and the breadth was four cubits... etc. etc.” repeated AGAIN for another 6 chapters.
And we only read the genealogical list from chapter ONE of 1 Chronicles, but if you have your Bible with you, flip there and notice the author goes on for another 8 chapters after that: From Adam to Abraham, Abraham to Jacob, A Genealogy of David, the Descendants of David, the descendants of Judah, descendants of Simeon, of Reuben, of Gad, of Manasseh, of Levi, of Isaachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Ephraim, Asher, of SAUL, culminating in ch.9, v1 where we hear “So ALL Israel was recorded in genealogies”! Not too much of an exaggeration!
But why? That’s our big question for this morning: if you’re God, and you’ve only got 1,974 pages to communicate everything that people are going to need to know in regard to faith and practice for the rest of human history, and let’s go beyond that - because Isaiah 40:8 says “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever” – so you’re writing with ETERNITY in mind, why in the WORLD do you spend, I want to be conservative with my estimate here, but AT LEAST 15-20% of your holy, inspired, God-breathed word on genealogies filled with obscure people no one remembers today, measurements for furniture that has long since decayed and disappeared, and instructions for laws and sacrifices that no one still OBSERVES today?
Friends, at the risk of oversimplifying this morning, let me offer you a very straightforward answer:
Because GOD CARES.
Our God cares. He really cares, about the little stuff. Jesus says in Luke 12:7 that God goes so far as to number the hairs on each of your heads. THAT’S how much he cares. And every single hard-to-pronounce, otherwise utterly forgotten name that we just read in 1 Chronicles 1 is there because it’s not just a NAME to God, it represents a historical PERSON, and God has not and WILL not forget them, because people MATTER to God.
That’s reason #1. I’m going to give you SEVEN specific reasons why God spends so much time and space on things like boring LISTS in the Bible, seven specific things they PROVE that God cares about. But #1 is PEOPLE. God cares about PEOPLE. Every name’s a person, and people matter to God. That’s why we track attendance, here at West Hills. That’s why we care about numbers. Why we’re excited about 30+% growth since this time last year. Because behind every number is a person, it’s YOU. How many of you WEREN’T here, this time last year? [That’s so exciting!] Not because it makes me feel good about myself when we outgrow our 1 service, but because every one of you here matters to God, so you matter to US, at West Hills. It’s GOOD that you’re here; worshipping, fellowshipping, serving, growing.
#2 – God cares about his PLAN. He cares about you individually, personally, but he ALSO cares at a MACRO level about his broader plan of redemption for ALL of creation, Romans 8. And genealogies help us connect the dots. Yes, God cared individually for Arpachshad, but He didn’t JUST care for Arpachshad, God cared for him because he knew that THROUGH him, and the other DOZENS of individuals listed in Arpachshad’s lineage, God was knitting together a plan to rescue ultimately the entire world from sin, through the prophesied Messiah, Jesus. And indeed, it is BECAUSE of the genealogies of 1 Chronicles and Matthew ch.1, that we know Arpachshad was the great, great, great, great, great, GREAT (6 greats-) grandfather of Abraham, who was the great x11 –grandfather of king David, who was the great x25 –grandfather of JESUS.
Every name in the list represents a thread in God’s great tapestry of grace and promised redemption.
#3 – God cares about the PAST. Genealogies don’t just point to where history is headed, his plan for the future; they ALSO point us back, and let us know where we CAME from. This was especially important to the ancient Israelites. Michael Houdmann explains, “Family history was important to Israel in that it proved one’s identity as a Jew, a partaker of the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people chosen by God. If a person was not a Jew, he or she could not truly be a Jewish citizen and participate in all of the aspects of Jewish life and culture. Family history was also important due to where one lived. Each of the Jewish tribes had received a land inheritance in Israel. For a person to inherit land in a particular tribal area required evidence that he was descended from that particular tribe... A family’s history could also show an affiliation with people of significance. ... [A] Jew descended from someone like Moses or Gideon was considered to possess a significant blessing.” [“"What is the relevance of the genealogies in the Bible?””, www.gotquestions.org]
So at a MACRO level, your genealogy is kind of similar to your TESTIMONY; why do we have people share their life stories when they get baptized here? Because none of us exists in a VACUUM. Yes, we are MORE than the set of events that have shaped our lives, but we’re certainly not LESS than that. We are products of our environments. And those environments MATTER. Family of origin matters. Your spiritual genealogy MATTERS. Every single one of us who is a born again believer in Jesus could theoretically trace our spiritual lineage back through the person who helped bring you to faith, to the person who evangelized and discipled that person, your spiritual grand-parent, and great-grandparent, and so on and so on back to Jesus’ original disciples. And that past matters not ONLY because it reminds us of the debt of gratitude we owe our spiritual forefathers, this thing called Christianity didn’t originate with you or me, but the past ALSO ought to motivate our present. Looking back and realizing what God has accomplished for me through others inspires me to PRAYER, that God might see fit to use ME in the same way in someone ELSE’S story, to be another link in the chain, for the building of HIS people and HIS Kingdom into history future.
#4 – Because lists like genealogies and city names are rooted in past history, that means they also serve the purpose of boosting our confidence in the reliability of God’s word. God cares about plausibility. Christianity is pretty RARE as far as religions go, in that ours is a HISTORICAL faith. It’s not just some “pie in the sky”, abstract, unprovable principles or philosophies. A LOT of this book is made up of NAMES of REAL people. Dates of historical events that actually happened. Our faith isn’t just BLIND faith. Sure, we believe without full sight, but we don’t believe without any EVIDENCE. And so much of the EVIDENCE for the reliability of the Christian faith is bound up in the reliability of God’s word; you can fact-check this thing, and it PROVES itself to be 100% reliable. And if you doubt that, I invite you back next week, when we’ll focus in on the alleged contradictions in the Bible – with science, with history, with itself. We’ll hash all that out next week. But suffice it to say, those seemingly meaningless lists are VERY meaningful insofar as they bolster our confidence in the Bible’s credibility.
#5 – Genealogies and Lists of measurements show us that God cares about the PARTICULARITIES. The DETAILS. Most Americans today who would still self-identify as “Christians” in a survey, don’t actually believe in the God of the Bible; they just don’t have the language to differentiate between Christianity and their actual brand of belief, which is better described by sociologist Christian Smith as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. In other words, most people believe in the idea of God, because God serves a functional purpose – to make us moralistic, try and be a good person, OR ELSE! God provides moral accountability, as a cosmic policeman; God serves a therapeutic purpose – it’s comforting to believe there is some vaguely benevolent force out there, that there is life after death, a deeper reason for suffering in this life; but that’s about ALL God cares about. Try and be a good person, and maybe it’ll work out for you in the end. It’s the God of DEISM. He cared enough to create everything we see; I don’t have enough FAITH to be an atheist, but that’s about ALL God cared enough to do. He made the Big Bang... bang!... and then he took a vacation for a few million years, and is generally pretty disinterested in my day-to-day life. Friends, that is NOT the God of the Bible. You may have some PROBLEMS, some issues to take up, with the God of the Bible, that we’ll discuss in the coming weeks, theological issues with some of these texts, but say what you want about Yahweh, but you can’t call him DISINTERESTED. He is the kind of God that gives you 89 verses of DETAIL about what kind of sacrifices would be most pleasing to him, when you dedicate the tabernacle that you built according to his 6 chapters worth of description. Our God CARES about the details. The hairs on your head. Matthew 10:29 – God knows every sparrow that dies. This God really CARES.
#6 – God cares about the PROSAIC. The mundane. The BORING! Listen, let’s get real for a minute: most of us live MOSTLY boring lives. I ask MOST of y’all what you do for a living, then I gotta go take a nap. Even those of us who do INTERESTING things like pastoring, how much of our days are CONSUMED with the MUNDANE. With FLOSSING. With SHAVING. With WAITING. For coffee. For traffic. For the wi-fi. For my dog to finish pooping, so I can pick it up. This is the REAL stuff of life. I’d estimate, conservatively, that most of us spend at least 15-20% of our LIVES, being utterly boring. And yet, we find hope in the genealogies. In lists of measurements. Because if God cares enough about the mundane to include it in his eternal WORD, then he cares about MY mundane too. Thad just got me a book for Christmas – Every Moment Holy, by Douglas Kaine: liturgies for the ordinary events of daily life. I haven’t checked it out yet but I’m excited. Go get yourself a copy. And watch God fill the mundane parts of your day with new meaning and joy, that the almighty God big enough to create the universe is personal enough to care about your flossing routine.
Lastly, #7 – Lest we think too quickly that just because it’s in LIST form it’s necessarily boring, I’d remind you while God cares about the prosaic, He also cares about what is PARAMOUNT. Things that MATTER GREATLY. After all, it’s not in the Bible by ACCIDENT. He included it for a REASON. And I’ll leave you this morning with this: MUCH of what you and I simply breeze over in Scripture, the seemingly mindless, repetitious lists that will DERAIL many of yall’s new year’s resolutions as you attempt to read through the Bible cover to cover this year, MUCH of it is NOT insignificant; it is of PARAMOUNT importance. The chapters and chapters in 2 Chronicles describing exactly how the Temple was to be built, the 9 chapters of Ezekiel prophesying the detailed construction of the NEW Temple upon Christ’s second coming, the 27 chapters of Leviticus outlining the entire sacrificial system, these are not SMALL matters. They matter to God because the TEMPLE matters – it was the seat of God’s very PRESENCE among his PEOPLE. The sacrificial system matters – it was God’s appointed means for people to atone for their sins and repair ruptured relationship with God. Eschatology matters – God goes to great lengths, and detail to assure us of the glorious hope awaiting those who belong to Him, in the end times. These things MATTER... to God, so they ought to matter to US.
Friends – God CARES. He cares about PEOPLE. He cares about his PLAN. He cares about the PAST. He cares about PLAUSIBILITY. He cares about the PARTICULARITIES. He cares about the PROSAIC, and he DEFINITELY cares about the things in life that are most PARAMOUNT. He really cares. So when you come to these so-called “boring” parts of God’s word in your own personal study of Scripture in the weeks to come, I encourage you to think just a little more before hastily skipping over them. They’re there for a reason. “All Scripture is God-breathed... USEFUL... That you may be COMPLETE.” Amen. Let’s pray.