2Timothy 3:16-17 says: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Do you really believe this? ALL Scripture? I’ve been reading in Chronicles lately. It is tedious, to say the least. List after list of unpronounceable names, some in the form of genealogy, some in lists of positions held. So I found myself asking: is this part God-breathed, too? If so, what in the world can I learn from it, besides what not to name my children?
As I meditated on this, as I asked the Lord to teach me something, anything, from these endless lists, a bit of understanding dawned on me. While earlier books of the Bible cover some of the same time periods and events of Chronicles, those books are mainly concerned with the big picture stories. But in Chronicles, God has a point to make: everyone matters.
Name after name, with even some mothers and daughters thrown in, of people we don’t know much, if anything, about. And yet God knew them. He knew them by name. He knows what they did or didn’t do. He knows how they lived their lives. He knows the positions they held, from king and high priest to the overseers of troops and supplies to simply the heads of families. Each had a place. Each had a part to fulfill. I think Chronicles is an admonition to those of us who don’t have the “out front” roles in the body of Christ or in the hierarchy of His kingdom to remain faithful. To do what we are called to do. And to know that He sees.
This is exactly what I find so beautiful about all the lists and names of the Old Testament.
God knows, and God loves.
He’s unlike the other gods of the time, fickle and called upon only for favor. He’s unlike the Eastern philosophies popular today that call for a disappearance of personality or the capricious, manipulative Islamic Allah.
God knows, and God loves. He’s personal, and he interacts with his creation.