Have you done Ancestry DNA or 23 and Me? I confess I did a DNA test nearly twenty years ago now. Melanie laughed at me at the time. Back then they only looked at 12 DNA markers. Now they are up to Big-Y 700. The markers tell us something about our father’s father’s father’s father back many generations. I am not recommending you do this. Melanie has not, for no particular reason.
It is interesting, though, to think about who our ancestors were. Sitting in a library in Waco, Texas, working on a History of Religion paper, I discovered that my three-great-grandfather was a church-planting Baptist preacher in Tennessee. As a young pastor in 1982, this news came as a delightful surprise to me. Years later I sat on the porch of a church he planted and watched the sunset over the trees and mountains. There I worshiped the same God my ancestor Levi did. Like him, I want to plant churches.
After the flood, Noah’s sons and their wives left the boat and repopulated the earth. The genealogy of Shem, Ham, and Japeth was used a few centuries ago to marginalize whole groups of people. Safe to say, God did not intend for people to misuse the scripture this way. A few years ago, I met a young man from East Texas who still believed that parts of our population are inferior, based on these verses. I find this deeply troubling.
As a bow-hunter, I took some delight in reading about Nimrod. People associated him with hunting. But he also built the great city of Nineveh. He was an accomplished leader and builder as well as a hunter. His descendants would later give the Israelites, who descended from Shem, a lot of grief.
In my study of my own family, I have not only found preachers but also a few scoundrels. Our grandchildren carry DNA from all kinds of ancestors. Some were addicted to alcohol. Others were devoted to God. Who will they become? Will they be more like Noah or Nimrod? All the people listed in this chapter descended from Noah. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. This changed his life and changed the world. We are not bound to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. Nor are we guaranteed to replicate their achievements. Our only hope is grace. Thankfully, as I read in an old novel, “Grace is everywhere.”
