Jesus’s Shady Family Tree
A few years ago, I did some research on my family tree, and some of my findings were interesting. My third great-grandfather was an officer in the Confederate Cavalry; immediately after the war, he moved to a small town in Kentucky to avoid capture as a war criminal. I found thieves and every other kind of rascal imaginable. I’m confident you could tell stories about your own family tree.
Jesus could have told some stories about his family tree that would have made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
- Judah conceived Perez when he slept with Tamar, his daughter-in-law, thinking she was a prostitute (Matt 1:3; Gen 38).
- Salmon married Rahab, a former prostitute (Matt 1:5; Josh 6).
- Boaz married Ruth, a Moabite; Moab was an enemy nation of the Israelites (Matt 1:5; Ruth 1:4; cf. Judg 3:12ff).
- David murdered Uriah in order to cover up a one-night stand with Bathsheba (Matt 1:6; 2 Sam 11).
According to the flesh, the perfect, sinless Messiah descended from some vile, imperfect, sinful folks. Think about that. God used an incestuous patriarch, a woman of the night, a foreign enemy of God’s people, and a murderous adulterer to accomplish his will. What a message of hope and power! God doesn’t need people with squeaky clean backgrounds. God doesn’t need people with the best heritage. God doesn’t need people who have never committed some big, public sin. God uses any willing soul for ministry in his kingdom.
Peter was such a man; when confronted by some that he was a disciple of Jesus, Peter seems to have used “every word in the book” to deny any knowledge of Jesus (Matt 26:69-75)—however, this is the one to whom Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom (Matt 16:19) and the one who proclaimed the Good News for the first time at Pentecost (Acts 2) and then shared Jesus’s message with Gentiles (Acts 10). Paul was such a man; he “was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man” (1 Tim 1:13), but God used him to carry the Good News to the Gentiles and to preserve part of Scripture for us.
If God can use prostitutes, murderers, enemies of his people, liars, and violent persecutors to accomplish his will, he can certainly use me. I’m not perfect. I sometimes forget to pray. I’m sometimes judgmental. I sometimes fail to check my words before I speak. I sin far more than I wish to admit, but God has been more than willing to “display his immense patience” with me (cf. 1 Tim 1:16).
God has a role for me in the kingdom. He has given me talents. He “considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service” (1 Tim 1:12). He has loved me, forgiven me, blessed me, and guided me.
You see, you and I serve a God who is bigger than the frailties of the flesh. We serve a God who can use us regardless of our past. He used some shady folks to bring the Messiah into the world. We may not have a past that mirrors the sins of Jesus’s ancestors, but we each have a sinful past. With God’s mercy and power, we have a future of service in the kingdom.
This article was written for the weekly newsletter for Church of Christ Deer Park in Deer Park, Texas.