Day 29: 1 Chronicles 1:1-9:44

Here is the reading for Day 29. 1 Chronicles 1:1-9:44 This may be the toughest read you've had since the book of Numbers. There are a lot of names here. Bear with it. Tomorrow you'll be back into a record of the events of David's life. From an interest standpoint, it picks back up a bit.

For you geneaology buffs, these listings are very important. And for all of us really, these are historical records that back up the validity of Scripture. I once met a man who went through the entire Bible, researching every name and placing it on a family tree. It had taken him years to do. He was naturally very proud of his work. I wasn't as enthused as he was, but I got to thinking that what this man had done was incredible. He had taken a part of Scripture that we often overlook, and he had researched it thoroughly and it had built his faith. He no longer rests on the possibility that these geneaologies are correct. He has lived their evidence. He brought me a copy of the document he had compiled. When I saw it, I was in awe. I realized, perhaps for the first time, that there was an incredible amount of real painstaking work that went into keeping these records without flaw. And any group of people that goes to this much trouble to keep a record of their ancestry isn't going to embellish the record of events it has regarding its encounters with God. Sometimes we look at a passage like today's reading and we think, "Now, why does that have to be in there?" Trust God. We can rely on Scripture more because of its presence than if it were not included. He did it for the Israelites and his Covenant with them, and he did it for us.