Understanding Family History by Rev. Benjamin Glaser

 

Over the past several months I’ve been somewhat slowly going through the Book of Deuteronomy in my private devotions. In many ways it is my favorite book in the whole Bible. From beginning to end it is a testimony to the love of God for His covenant people as well as a display of His wisdom. What is basically happening in that portion of Holy Scripture is you have Moses preaching to the Israelites on the plains of Moab to prepare them to go into the promised land. They need to know why they are at the shores of the Jordan and how they are to order their society after the conquest. This generation didn’t grow up in Egypt. They’ve been born since the Red Sea and have experienced so much about the ways of the LORD, but they need to understand more deeply about why God has done things in the manner that He has and also what He expects of them in the future.

Remedial training is helpful for all kinds of folks, but most especially for those who have not been through it before.

Most of the feasts and festivals of the Old Testament were built on the presupposition that each age group needed to be reminded about what God had done for His people. Whether it be the Passover or the building of the Booths on Sukkot each of them help describe in an outward way something real that Jehovah had done for their forefathers, and through them for those living in that day. It only takes one generation to forget what a previous generation knew. The old saying about wealth, that one generation makes it, the next enjoys it, and the last loses it is true of the teachings of the Bible. It was vital that the truth of the LORD be promoted and taught in full measure so that not any of it is lost. However, what happens after Joshua leads the destruction of Canaan is that all those who made the covenant at Shechem soon did that forgetting. They sadly overlooked what Moses had said, what God had promised, and most certainly the warnings God gave if they didn’t keep their pledge to Him.

There is a reason why the Book of Judges is as chaotic as it is.

Those who grow up in the Church can sometimes be like the Israelites of this age. They didn’t necessarily see all the work that went in to founding a local congregation and they weren’t a part of the battles of previous generations. Some call this a “silver spoon” mentality. You are born on Third Base and think you hit a triple. However, a central element of raising children is involving them in the stories of the past, helping our little ones to see that they are part of a larger story. Going back to the Passover for a second think about the scenes as the father and head of the household sat there with his sandals on, his staff in his hand, all ready to go forward to the land His God had provided for him all his life…yet he was already in the land, re-enacting what his grandfather, and his grandfather before him, had done. All as a part of helping the young ones among the family understand how serious all this pageantry was, for part of the purpose of the Lord in establishing the Passover was to ready His covenant people for something even better…the coming of Christ Jesus. The one who would bring them to a land flowing with the living waters of eternal life. All this stuff mattered not just because God told them to do it, but because it was central to preparing the next generation to pass that good news on to their children, for it was vital that every person was ready for Messiah to come. No one knew when the music would stop and they’d better have a chair ready to sit in when it did.

For while Christians no longer celebrate the old covenant feast and festivals God has not left us without a similar way to make sure we pass along the same ethos our forefathers in the faith did through things like the Passover. We actually have something better. Our sacraments are superior to the ones found in the Old Testament because we have in our possession the very thing that those symbols sought to point to. Baptism especially is a massively important sign that is about exactly we’ve been talking about. It is an initiatory act where you go from being outside the covenant family, to being a charter member. You are no longer an alien, but a brother or a sister. You get to learn all the secret handshakes and get to have access to grandma’s famous recipes. They belong to you, because you are one of us. A fellow heir to the promises. There is a reason why our Confession of Faith calls it a great sin to neglect the covenant sign.

However, that also means that we have even less excuse than the Israelites in not doing what is necessary to encourage our kids to see the covenantal blessing their baptism makes them a part of. They are being brought into something much bigger than themselves. One of the themes of the Bible that has been lost over the last one hundred or so years thanks to the influence of revivalistic baptists is the whole idea of an inheritance. Billy Graham taught that God didn’t have any grandchildren, and while I understand what he meant by that it is very wrongheaded. An inheritance is something that you didn’t work for and that someone you may have never met entrusted with you to ensure was there for those who come after you. For those of us at Bethany that means that those original elders who met with Rev. William Dickson in 1797 to organize our congregation had you personally in mind when they signed the covenant agreement with the presbytery to be an ARP church. You have a lot on your shoulders, and should live and act in light of this truth.

To neglect so great a gift is to not only steal from the past, but from the future.

Those of us who are members of the family need to help every new member, whether they are born into it, or converted, understand that there is a whole lot they are now a part of, and if they are going to represent the family name well, then they better learn all the family history, because when Papa comes back they are going to need to be ready to be blessed in His grace, and not found without proper credentials and understanding.