Rooted in Faith and Family – Part 1

If you’ve followed me for long at all, you know that I, along with my late sister Bobbie, are our family genealogists. She and I tracked down relatives we had no idea existed a couple of decades ago. We both proved our entry patriot for the DAR (Jeremiah DuPree), and I did for the DAC (John Lanier). This took many trips to south Alabama with our Daddy and my youngest son tagging along. Sis and I had a blast. Daddy and Daniel, not so much. Traipsing through hot, dusty, overgrown graveyards isn’t the idea of fun for a boy of about ten or eleven or a man in his early eighties.

GENEALOGIES OF JESUS

Genealogies have their place. The Bible is a prime example of the most important book in the world having the genealogy of Jesus twice. The book of Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through David back to Abraham, proving He was of royal lineage. Luke emphasizes His humanity by going all the way back to Adam, and then to God.

Matthew begins his gospel thusly, The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1 ESV). If you recall from reading your Bible, in the New Testament, some people referred to Jesus as “son of David” (He ends this section with …and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ (Matthew 1:16 ESV).

Luke doesn’t get into Jesus’ genealogy until what is now the third chapter. He takes His lineage all the way back to Adam, through Shem, son of Noah, from there he gives all the names back to Adam and ends with the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38 ESV).

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512 PEOPLE – 10 GENERATIONS

So, clearly, in order to tell the entire picture as clearly as possible, genealogies are important. Now, ours certainly do not carry the weight that Jesus’ genealogy carries. I’m not saying that at all. But our humanity carries within it a certain desire or need to know who am I? Thus, many of us seek our foundational roots. We all begin with ourself then, our 2 parents. This number doubles with each generation. From you to your 7^th great-grandparents is 10 generations which is 512 people. Now double this a few more times and you see how difficult finding all those names will be.

Because some people have famous or people of note in their backgrounds (most of us at some point?), you may have your grands’ names from many generations ago. My Daddy’s side where his DuPree line branches and goes into his grandmother Josephine Dell (she’s the Josie in my first novel, Grave Consequences) to her mother, a Lanier who married a Jones, back to my 10 times great grands, Nicholas Lanier who married Lucrece Bassano. Nicholas and Lucrece were born in the 1500s. Unless you are from one of these families, this is absolutely meaningless to you. I know.

WITHOUT A GENEALOGY – WHO?

But there is one other person in the Bible whom you may or may not remember. We meet Melchizadek in Genesis 14 when he suddenly appears before Abram (later Abraham). Verse 18 (ESV) tells us that Melchizadek was the priest of God Most High. Abram gives Melchizadek tithes (a tenth of everything). Melchizadek blesses Abram, then Melchizadek disappears from the narrative here. Many believe that the priest here is a Christophany, or a pre-incarnate Jesus appearing as Melchizadek.

We read in Hebrews 7:3 [Melchizadek] He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever (ESV).

There is so much here that it isn’t possible to include all of it in this one short blog post. Let me urge you to get out your Bible and read the Scriptures I’ve included here. Read beyond it. I will put more in part two for next week.

The Bible is the most interesting, enlightening, life-changing, eternity-changing book I have ever read.

Blessings, y’all!

The meme above is a logo created for me with my tagline by the multi-talented Patricia Tiffany Morris.

One of my all-time favorite songs. This arrangement is amazing. May it bring abundant blessings to your heart.