The First Geneology Lesson

How to summarize thousands of years of rich history in a single BLOG posting?!?!?! For starters, there is a little bit of excitement for everyone in these four chapters... marriage to one or two (or maybe more?) wives, child birth, a cheerful offering and a not-so-cheerful one, jealousy, anger, murder, deceit, wickedness, loneliness, and flooding.

These chapters also are the beginning the "begets" and are very thorough references for any genealogist out there. We now know the first 10 ancestors in the family tree of any one of us who is living today.

Here are the stories of three of our more well known family members...

Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve. They were farmers (Abel raised animals and Cain worked the soil). They both made offerings to the Lord, but the Lord was pleased with Abel's offering. Cain became angry and jealous of Abel and therefore killed Abel. Cain then lied to God about it. How much better would things have been for family if Cain had followed God's instructions to do right? Instead of doing what God told him to do, Cain took matters into his own hands, which resulted in forever losing his brother, family, home, land, and future provisions from the soil. How much better would our lives be if we just did what God said was right? If I'm honest with myself and God, I am more like Cain than I care to admit.

After a couple thousand years of man reproducing, God saw the wickedness and corruption of man and was grieved. However, God found favor with Noah and his family because Noah walked with God. I can only imagine that Noah's stay on the ark was a very curious, tiresome (lots of animals to feed), and lonely time. However, God provided for, protected, and cared for Noah and his family while EVERYTHING else on the earth died. What a wonderful testimony of how much influence we can have in the lives of our families!