“When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more.”
If you’ve ever tried reading the Bible cover to cover, or just the New Testament. You quickly come across the genealogy lists. By chapter 5 of Genesis, we read about 11 generations from Adam to Noah. These lists become very easy to skip over, and to dismiss as unimportant parts of the Bible.
However, to do so loses one the Bible’s most important statements. In the paragraph above, a small clause is added to describe Enoch that no other person receives in Genesis 5, “Enoch walked with God…” If we skip over these lists, we may miss these small but important points.
This Biblical story happened to real people, at real times in their lives. This is not a spiritualized metaphor or poetic story, this a story that personally involves people. Whether they were Enoch, Esther, Boaz, or any of these “characters.” However, the story found in the Bible is not just about them, but also about us. We should not read the Bible to find out what happened in the past, but we should read it with hope and anticipation about what can also happen for us.
Can God led us through the wilderness as well? Can He bring love into our loneliness? Can He transform the darkness we stumble through into a bright future?
As we read about how God has done that for others; as we read that God promises that he will do that for us; let us find joy, comfort, peace and hope because we know that we are not alone on this journey but surrounded by a long list of names who have walked with God for generations.
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