GENEALOGY IS NOT BORING
Sadly, Old Testament scriptures about genealogy and warfare are tedious and boring for most religious people. And it will remain tedious and boring as long as they interpret scripture literally. They don’t realize it, but this attitude is the equivalent of saying that God is tedious and boring.

The spiritual learning value comes into view only when we take the time to read carefully and connect scriptures that seem to be disconnected so that we can make sense out of all of them. This is how disciples (i.e. learners) in the kingdom of God learn.

For people in the kingdoms of religion, genealogy and warfare are totally irrelevant topics. Lacking understanding of the symbolic meaning of these scriptures, religious leaders treat them superficially — if they teach on them at all. It is only when we put genealogy and warfare in the context of religious conflict between siblings and two kingdoms that we begin to make sense of it.

With serious study, we see that Abraham’s successes and favor with Egypt and various kings of Canaan fulfills the scripture about Canaan’s offspring being the slaves of Shem’s offspring. We also find justification for God’s orders to utterly destroy the many nations (i.e. religions) that are descended from Canaan that occupy the promised land.

Only when we interpret these scriptures symbolically will we see that they all prophetically anticipate the destruction of Old/First Covenant religion and the establishment of God’s kingdom. Or, if we describe conflict between brothers in terms of kingdoms competing for land and wealth (i.e. power and authority over people), we can say that all Old Testament stories about warfare are essentially about God’s strategy to displace religious kingdoms currently ruled by religious leaders and replace them with with his own kingdom under his sole authority. This is the major theme of the Bible that Jesus, Daniel and John the Baptist prophesied about so clearly.

With this understanding of competing religious kingdoms that argue and quarrel with words (i.e. swords) that kill, we begin to understand the symbolism of warfare and bloodshed. We can also begin to appreciate why God considers religions to be his enemies. If religious nations were not God’s enemies, he would not have commanded Israel to utterly destroy them and would not have commanded that Israel not imitate their religious customs. In these modern times we must understand these commands well so that we also can be obedient to God’s commands to utterly destroy religion in our personal lives and in the religious communities (i.e. Israel) in which we live.