All in the genes

(new article tomorrow for certain. In meantime, here's an old post giving more details on Bible genealogy:

“Since we’re talking about genealogies, we’ll go to the book of genealogies: I Chronicles. There’s a fascinating thing in the Bible with regard to genealogies. If you take all the genealogies in Luke and Matthew and mesh them together, you’ll discover all the genealogies will tend to leave people out--one of them taken out of one and put in another--for doctrinal reasons.

“But it’s fascinating that when you list the genealogy of Christ, if you get the whole list from Scripture, there are 60 men in them. There are six groups of ten. Now, ten is a complete number. Six is the number of man. If you want to get to the seventh you got to go through those 60 and when you come to Christ, who’s the replacement? He’s the last Adam," explains Richard Jordan.

“But when you start counting with Adam, every tenth man in that group of 60 has a significant history and significant identity. For example, I Chronicles 1: 1-4. Adam, Seth, Enos--you count down to ten who’s the tenth one? Noah. So when you start at the beginning of the genealogy of Christ and you count the first ten guys, you come to Noah.

“Now Noah was the guy where there was an attempt by the Adversary to destroy the seed line (the messianic line) by corrupting all of mankind and in Genesis 6:9 we learn that there was only one man in the earth, one family, who’s genealogy was clean and perfect and that was Noah. Noah is a man with regard to the Flood and so forth where the attempt to destroy the messianic seed line reached an apex and was almost successful.

“Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth. Which one of those did Christ come through? Shem. Verse 24. Now, who’s the tenth one in Shem’s line? Abraham. Well, it’s easy to know who Abraham is. He’s the one through whom God is going to establish the seed line. The seed of the woman becomes the seed of Abraham. And he’s the one out of all the nations of the earth after God scattered them at the Tower of Babel. He picked Abraham to father the chosen people and the promised seed line comes from the seed of the woman in general to the seed of Abraham in particular.

“Come over to Matthew 1:1 because that’s where you can pick back up Abraham. Count down and tell me who the tenth one is there. Isaac, Jacob, Judah--count them down. Salmon begat who? Booz? Who’s that? That’s Boaz. So the Boaz we’re going to read about in the Book of Ruth is the third tenth man. Who is Boaz?

As Ruth 4: 15 says, ‘And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.’

"Boaz is the one who’s going to bring the restoration of life to Israel! Boaz is not an inconsequential figure. By the way, you can go on through there and find those other tenth men and find their significance. It’s fascinating. But I want you to understand the Book of Ruth isn’t just a little ditty that happened to be passed down from campfire to campfire—‘Let’s put it in the Bible because we just happen to have it lying around.’

*****

Naomi’s name means pleasant but when she comes back, she says, “Don’t call me Naomi anymore; call me Mara.” Well in Exodus 15, Israel went to the waters of Mara. It means bitterness. The one who had been blessed to live in the house of bread, praising god because of it, married to my God as king, went away full and is come back in bitterness.

“Jeremiah 30 talks about the time of Jacob’s trouble, out of which he’ll be saved. There’s Naomi. She’s off in that self-imposed exile; a widow desolate but then she hears there’s provision in Israel in the land and she sets her heart on going back. And when she does, Ruth clave to her.

“Ruth 1:14 says, ‘And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.’ Naomi’s told them they need to go home; ‘Stay, don’t go with her.’ I guess it’s because of that word clave, cleaving to her—in Genesis 2 is the same word with regard to a husband and wife.

"That’s the reason that what Ruth says to Naomi is used in weddings. Ruth says in verse 16, ‘Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’

“Those lines are used in a song that traditionally has been sung at weddings and it’s the bride talking to her groom. And I’ve often thought, ‘Now, how silly could you be?! How devoid of Bible understanding could you be to use that at a wedding when that’s a daughter-in-law talking to her mother-in-law?! Not a bride talking to her husband!’

“Here’s a gentile who’s cleaving to the God of Israel and to the Israel of God and Ruth’s a picture of the gentiles who cleave to Israel and go back into the land and wind up redeemed in the Kingdom. And the focus all through here is going to be Naomi pointing Ruth to the redeemer because the whole point of the kinsman redeemer is God tells Abraham, ‘I’ll bless you and make you a blessing and then in thee all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ ”