Annual Bible Reading 2017: Genesis 5-8

2^nd January Morning

Genesis 5-6

Let me ask you, do you know your father or you are a bastard? Well if you know your father how many generations can you trace backward? Is this important in any way? Personally, I have come to grips with the truth that it is important as human beings to have family records in life. The Bible does not leave this issue unaddressed. The Bible is a book of families and family records and genealogies. These records are mentioned frequently in Genesis, Numbers, 1 and 2 Chronicles and Ezra. The issue of tracing one’s family through the generation becomes of paramount importance when Mathew and Luke emphasize that of Jesus Christ because he was a messiah (or claimed to be). While readers often skim or skip these parts of Scripture, the Bible’s genealogies offer many important insights.

Genesis chapter 5 begins by rectifying the issue of Adam. The first two verses say:  This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.

The word Adam can be translated to mean ‘ground’ or ‘humanity’. So Genesis 5 refers to Genesis 2 and 3 which tell us that man was created from the ground and the representative term for humanity is ADAM. In essence, then, Genesis 5 is a chapter about ANTHROPOLOGY. The writer then narrows down to a specific man known as Seth just as he had pointed out Abel and Cain when he wanted to teach us the lessons he did. When Genesis 5 kicks off with Seth, it is introducing an important theme in the anthropology of the Bible, which is GENEALOGIES.

What you will find recurrent and perhaps boring to some readers is: so and so begat so and so…and so and so begat so and so and so forth. The expression ‘A begat B’ does not always imply direct parentage.” Matthew 1:8 states that ‘Joram begat Uzziah,’ but from the Old Testament (II Kings 8:25; 11:2, 14:1,21) we learn that Joram was the father of Ahaziah, who fathered Joash, father of Amaziah father of Uzziah. Thus ‘begat’ can mean ‘begat the line culminating in.’

According to K. A. Kitchen, in his book Ancient Orient and Old Testament (Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1966 ), pp. 35-36) “Terms like ‘son’ and ‘father’ can mean not only ‘(grand)son’ and ‘(grand)father,’ but also ‘descendant’ and ‘ancestor’ respectively. The Bible is a story about God and his creatures, and this story is one of relationships. How God relates with people and how these people relate with him and fellow people as well. When God followed the entire human race that had fallen, he worked with a specific family and it is important to know who was who in that family that God chose. That is how Genealogies turn out to be important. I was reading the GIT Magazine and it pointed out why Genealogies are important to our families and here are some. Genealogies are important for the following reasons:

• Validate Family Stories – To determine if family stories about their ancestors are true.
• Famous People – To find out if they are related to someone famous.
• Historical Event – To gain a better understanding of an ancestor’s involvement in a famous historical event.
• Trace Medical Conditions –To assess the risk of getting certain medical conditions that tend to run in families.
• Trace a Family Inheritance –To determine genealogical proof of a family connection for potential heirs.
• Trace Land Ownership – To settle questions of land ownership by providing proof of descent.
• Trace a Family Portrait – To see why someone bears a strong resemblance to an ancestor in an old family portrait.
• Find Birth Parents – To determine the birth parents of an adopted child. Alternatively, to find children given up for adoption.
• Proof of Paternity – To determine the biological father of a child.
• Religious Tenet –To satisfy the tenets of the religion. The most notable example is the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
• Community History – To document a community history by understanding the families that founded and influenced the community.
• Historic Studies – To provide insight into history through the scholarly study of a famous family, such as a royal family. Heritage Societies –To provide proof of lineage to qualify for a heritage society.
• Preserve a Close Relative’s Legacy – To learn more about a parent, grandparent or sibling after their death.
• Preserving Family Traditions – To preserve knowledge of ancestors who contributed to family traditions, such as a family recipe book.
• Preserve Family Culture – To allow families that have migrated to another country the opportunity to preserve some of the cultures of their old country.

The Bible is a family book and it is interested in our family relationships. God wants you to pay attention to your family and he insists that you focus on your family. You are a social being just has he created you and pointed out: it is not good for man to be alone Genesis 2:18. God is concerned with your associates. And that is where Genesis 6 comes in. According to the first five verses in this chapter, evil multiplied due to unlikely associations; The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

⁵ The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 5:4-5. There is a great deal of confusion over the word Nephilim. No one today really knows what it means. However, if you understand the context of the Bible discourse, it will not be difficult for you to understand that this mixture of breed affected behavior too. What we must emphasize is that we are talking about humanity, not angels.So the view that sons of God does not appeal to me.

What we can confirm is that Nephilims were physiologically different and psychologically different and this is how evil piled up. Look at Genesis 6 in line with the later report of the Bible in Numbers 13:30-33: But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once, and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” So they brought to the people of Israel an evil report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim); and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

None of us can assume this is a coincidence. Our world today has what we call the GLOBAL VILLAGE. I personally have no issue with the village part except for the GLOBAL CULTURE. The evil of Genesis 6 is that the minority and inferior Sethites (sober culture) were subjugated by the majority and superior Nephilims and that is how good was compromised for justified evil. The very thing that is happening in our African societies in line with European induced moral-codes. I wish I could continue.

2^nd January Evening
Genesis 7-8

We saw how genealogies and family ties are important, and that is why it is not surprising to see God using Noah in the time of the crisis. Chapter 5 traces this Noah from Seth, then Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and then Noah. When Lamech begat Noah he prophesied the following words upon Noah in Genesis 5:28-29: When Lamech had lived a hundred and eighty-two years, he became the father of a son, and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground which the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.“. He couldn’t have come from the Nephilims, though this does not entail to mean that it is always so. There might be an anthropologically heathen Ruth who might be more Christian than a native Boaz.

So Genesis 7 is a chapter that is fundamentally about three things:

1. God is not a to whom it may concern person. He is instead the concerned person for his creation. When there is a problem in his creation, he does not sit-back and give a deaf ear but instead involves himself. All am saying to you is that God knows and he is concerned with what you are going through. Not you alone but even the beasts of the land.
2. You must not die until you fulfill your purpose, at that old age Noah still had a mission to accomplish and yes he did. Always remember success is not limited to time.
3. Floods were not a solution to SIN but to SINNING. The difference is in the fact that the former is the CAUSE and the later is the CONSEQUENCE. Through the floods, God was not dealing with SIN but with what sin had CONSTRUCTED. Therefore, the floods were not a means of salvation from sin but a cleansing of the dirt of sin. That is why Noah sins immediately after the floods Genesis 9.
4. The boat or the ark of Noah is in this text to tell us that, in every crisis and chaos, God has a provision for his people. The Problem with his provisions is that; they are not always scientifically appealing. People of his time had never known a boat, no rain, and fixed timber floating on waters was never heard of. So to them, it was not a provision since even the chaos he warned them against was unrealistic.

Jesus is not a solution to many today as far as salvation from death is concerned. Now Jesus has been reduced to a waiter who serves human appetite with food in the name of miracles but as for death, he is not the solution people seek. One wonders how big the Ark of Noah was, and if everyone in the world of then, had come in, would it have accommodated them? The Answer is yes: If all of them had accepted to come in the boat, then floods had nothing to clean but the Land. All that chapter 7-8 teaches is that God has not designed floods and floods to destroy human beings but sin and its containers. Whatever sin is and wherever it is, the destruction of the Lord is directed to it. Our role is to denounce sin and we can only do that by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. This

Our role is to denounce sin and we can only do that by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. This does not mean the absence sin-propensities and the possibility of failing (Noah himself was a sinner). It, however, means that you are now in Christ and cannot be consumed by the fires. The Boat is a Righteousness by Faith provision. The drunkards like Noah but in Jesus Christ will experience two things:

1. They will survive floods and
2. They will overcome their drunkenness or their drunkenness will lead them away from God to their destruction.

God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.

Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER

@Think and Become (Inspirational Link)
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