Week 28, Day 5: Walking With God
Today’s Reading: Genesis 5:1-32
Some thoughts from the reading…
I think many people, when coming to a chapter like Genesis 5, skip over to the next chapter. Often, genealogy chapters are thought of as being difficult to read, and maybe even boring. But, often, these chapters serve a particular purpose, and have some very interesting gems of information. For example, Genesis chapter 5 serves the purpose of spanning two periods of time: the time of Adam and the time of Noah. There is not much information given in the period of time in between, but the time is covered by the genealogy so that we can know the general time frame that has been covered. We are given a couple of interesting notes from this period of time.
We are told about Enoch, who was a man who “walked with God.” We are told that he was one of only two men who did not have to die a physical death, because God took him (the other being Elijah). Enoch only has a couple of verses penned about him, but what is written is an amazing testimony. If you could have just one thing written about you in the Bible, this would be a good choice! Enoch has enough written in these four verses (Genesis 5:21-24) to tell us what kind of character he had. The testimony that God gives to his faithfulness is greater than what any man could have given! We can have the same testimony if we will just be faithful to God. It will be wonderful, when this life is over, to have the testimony that we have walked with God! John uses this imagery extensively in his epistles, as he writes about our need to “walk in the light”. And Paul uses a similar image in Ephesians 5:1-2, where he tells us to be imitators of God as dear children.
Another interesting man is Enoch’s son, Methuselah. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. He is the oldest recorded man in the Bible. Perhaps there were men who lived to be older, but we are not told about them. One interesting thing about Methuselah is that if you do the calculations, you will find that he most likely died in the same year as the flood. We are not told if he died in the flood, or just happened to die in the same year.
There are many other interesting characters in this chapter. Who stands out to you?
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