okieinexile
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These are the Generations
By Bobby Neal Winters
My Sunday school class is doing a study of the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke during the season of Advent. There are four Sunday’s in Advent and four chapters of the Gospels devoted to the birth of Jesus, so it just sort of worked out. We divided up the responsibilities for leading the study among four different people, and I got to start off. This meant doing the lesson on the first chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew.
I don’t know how familiar with the Bible you are, but this is one of the portions that is mainly just a list of names, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, / Isaac the father of Jacob, / Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,” and so on for a total of forty-two generations. While there is clearly a lot of “begetting” going on here, the style in which it is delivered does not make for the best reading. The challenge in teaching this is unpacking it in a way that makes a list of names interesting.
Here Matthew does give a little help. Everyone once in a while, among the names of all of the men being the fathers of other men, he does throw in a woman. We were vaguely aware that women are at least tangentially involved in the “begetting” process, and it is nice to have Matthew confirm that for us.
These women specifically are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “Uriah’s wife” aka Bathsheba, and Mary. Each of these five women is a familiar figure to those who are acquainted with scripture because all of them are associated with interesting stories. It would take too long to tell each of them, but, taken as a whole, they paint a broad spectrum of womanhood.
As you may know, I am an old-fashioned sort of person who is from a part of the world some might consider backward. The point-of-view I received of how the “begetting” process was to happen was that you get married and then you have kids. The theory behind this is since raising kids is hard, and it difficult even with two people doing it, much less just one, it is just prudent that there be a chain, such as marriage, that connects the two parents of the children together.
In ancient times, life was a bit simpler, so there was no need of a paper contract or witnesses, and a couple was considered married once they had engaged in sexual relations because it was recognized this was how children came about. Even in those simpler times there was considered to be a right way and a wrong way of going about it.
There are women listed in the genealogy who engaged in behaviors caring parents would not recommend to their daughters (the story of Tamar being of particular interest), but there they are in the Bible in black and white, in the family tree of Jesus no less. A Christian theologian might argue from this that it is possible for people to deviate somewhat from the time-tested rules for living an abundant life and still have it to work out to be a part of God’s plan in the end.
I’ve got no problem with that.
People often have trouble following the rules even when they know them, and learning the rules often takes a few hard knocks. This is when the notion of “grace” becomes useful.
On the other hand, I do see some things in the world that catch my attention. There was an Associated Press article the other day on the decline of marriage. People are getting married later, living together before marriage, and so forth. That doesn’t bother me so much. Up against what some of the folks in the genealogy of Jesus did, those things are child’s play, and they are by no means new. There was a mention in the article, however, of folks who are campaigning against “discrimination against the unmarried.”
It seems that the structures still in place to give a little help to the family are an affront to these folks. By this logic, a person safe on a ship is being discriminated against when a life-preserver is tossed to the person overboard who is busy drowning. Technically, that is discrimination, as “to discriminate” just means to make a difference, but in this case, there is a reason for the difference.
As we see in Jesus’ genealogy, there are all sorts of variations on the way we get from one generation to the next, and you or I, for the most part, don’t have the perspective to judge individuals. However, there is a way going back thousands of years that has worked a lot of the time. It shouldn’t be thrown away.
(Bobby Winters is a professor of mathematics, writer, and speaker. You may reach him at bobby@okieinexile.com or visit his webpage www.okieinexile.com.)
By Bobby Neal Winters
My Sunday school class is doing a study of the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke during the season of Advent. There are four Sunday’s in Advent and four chapters of the Gospels devoted to the birth of Jesus, so it just sort of worked out. We divided up the responsibilities for leading the study among four different people, and I got to start off. This meant doing the lesson on the first chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew.
I don’t know how familiar with the Bible you are, but this is one of the portions that is mainly just a list of names, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, / Isaac the father of Jacob, / Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,” and so on for a total of forty-two generations. While there is clearly a lot of “begetting” going on here, the style in which it is delivered does not make for the best reading. The challenge in teaching this is unpacking it in a way that makes a list of names interesting.
Here Matthew does give a little help. Everyone once in a while, among the names of all of the men being the fathers of other men, he does throw in a woman. We were vaguely aware that women are at least tangentially involved in the “begetting” process, and it is nice to have Matthew confirm that for us.
These women specifically are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, “Uriah’s wife” aka Bathsheba, and Mary. Each of these five women is a familiar figure to those who are acquainted with scripture because all of them are associated with interesting stories. It would take too long to tell each of them, but, taken as a whole, they paint a broad spectrum of womanhood.
As you may know, I am an old-fashioned sort of person who is from a part of the world some might consider backward. The point-of-view I received of how the “begetting” process was to happen was that you get married and then you have kids. The theory behind this is since raising kids is hard, and it difficult even with two people doing it, much less just one, it is just prudent that there be a chain, such as marriage, that connects the two parents of the children together.
In ancient times, life was a bit simpler, so there was no need of a paper contract or witnesses, and a couple was considered married once they had engaged in sexual relations because it was recognized this was how children came about. Even in those simpler times there was considered to be a right way and a wrong way of going about it.
There are women listed in the genealogy who engaged in behaviors caring parents would not recommend to their daughters (the story of Tamar being of particular interest), but there they are in the Bible in black and white, in the family tree of Jesus no less. A Christian theologian might argue from this that it is possible for people to deviate somewhat from the time-tested rules for living an abundant life and still have it to work out to be a part of God’s plan in the end.
I’ve got no problem with that.
People often have trouble following the rules even when they know them, and learning the rules often takes a few hard knocks. This is when the notion of “grace” becomes useful.
On the other hand, I do see some things in the world that catch my attention. There was an Associated Press article the other day on the decline of marriage. People are getting married later, living together before marriage, and so forth. That doesn’t bother me so much. Up against what some of the folks in the genealogy of Jesus did, those things are child’s play, and they are by no means new. There was a mention in the article, however, of folks who are campaigning against “discrimination against the unmarried.”
It seems that the structures still in place to give a little help to the family are an affront to these folks. By this logic, a person safe on a ship is being discriminated against when a life-preserver is tossed to the person overboard who is busy drowning. Technically, that is discrimination, as “to discriminate” just means to make a difference, but in this case, there is a reason for the difference.
As we see in Jesus’ genealogy, there are all sorts of variations on the way we get from one generation to the next, and you or I, for the most part, don’t have the perspective to judge individuals. However, there is a way going back thousands of years that has worked a lot of the time. It shouldn’t be thrown away.
(Bobby Winters is a professor of mathematics, writer, and speaker. You may reach him at bobby@okieinexile.com or visit his webpage www.okieinexile.com.)
