1 Chronicles has maybe the most boring first chapters of any book, at least to me. They’re just list after list of genealogies. But this morning there was something there that I hadn’t thought of before.
In the middle of the first chapter, starting at verse 28, were the descendants of Hagar and Keturah. Hagar I knew of as the mother of Ishmael. Keturah didn’t ring a bell, but it says she was a concubine of Abraham.
These are two branches of the family tree that could easily be left out, or even intentionally pruned away. They had nothing to do with the 12 tribes who inherited the Promised Land, much less the line of David that would produce our Savior.
But God in his faithfulness didn’t forget Hagar, just as he promised her. And he didn’t forget Keturah either. Two women taken by Abraham for his own purposes, as a human solution to the problem of an heir. Two women that could easily be considered outside of God’s plan. But their children and grandchildren are there, named right along with Boaz and Jesse and David.
It’s comforting to me to think that God has no stepchildren. Each of us, not matter the circumstance of our birth or how we came to know him, is as loved as all the others.
How can it be, then, that we who follow this God seem so intolerant to the rest of the world? How did we acquire a reputation for small-mindedness and hate? It reminds me that because I identify with Christ, I have to be careful to love like Christ.
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