Living Outloud: A New Family Tree

We revisit First Chronicles and talk about legacy, identity, and why genealogies matter. We share stories of inherited faith and cycle breaking, and root hope in Christ who makes us new and calls us children of God through faith.

• honoring all scripture as God-breathed 
• praying before reading to invite correction 
• why genealogies reveal identity and belonging 
• gratitude for legacies of faith without pride 
• the courage and cost of being a cycle breaker 
• new creation in Christ redefining identity 
• children of God through faith, not lineage 
• practical steps to continue or reset a legacy 
• encouragement for messy and God-centered family lines alike

Send us a message through the episode description or at loudbible.com and tell us how this lands for you—are you carrying a legacy or breaking a cycle?

Chapters

• 0:00 Why First Chronicles Still Matters
• 1:56 Honoring All Of Scripture
• 3:31 Pray Before You Read
• 5:31 Facing The Genealogies
• 7:51 Family Legacy And Gratitude
• 11:21 Choosing To Continue The Legacy
• 13:56 Cycle Breakers And First Faith
• 16:51 New Creation And True Identity

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike, and I'm with Kelsey. Hello. And it's time for another Living Out Loud. We're gonna take a look at what we read earlier this week on the podcast and get real practical with it. It's kind of like the thinking out loud thought for the day, a whole episode devoted to that. Well, you know what? We're going through the whole Bible, and First Chronicles is in it. But it's here for a reason. Like if it wasn't useful, then it wouldn't be here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

So anyway, we are uh we're revisiting the Old Testament here for a little bit. I'm excited about this season, though.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

It is it is worth restating what you just said that if it wasn't important, it wouldn't be here. So let's honor the whole of scripture, not just the parts that feel good or make sense or are interesting stories, but let's honor the whole of it and dig in and ask the Lord like, what is it that I need to obey from this? Like, what is there for me? Obviously, these weren't written to you and me, Michael. We are not of Jewish origin. These are not our ancestors that are talked about in First Chronicles. It wasn't written to us, but there is something for us that the Lord has preserved, if that's what we believe about scripture, that He has preserved these words for all of these generations.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

Like Paul told Timothy. So all scripture is God-brieved, that's inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it's useful for teaching and correcting and rebuking. Like all scripture, not training in righteousness. Training in righteousness, not just the New Testament, not just the gospels.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46

In fact, when Paul wrote that, he was thinking of these. Yeah. He was thinking of the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

The New Testament.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52

Yeah. He wasn't like, oh yeah, you should read John and Matthew.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

John hadn't been written yet.

SPEAKER_01: 1:57

Yeah. He wasn't thinking of New Testament writings. He was thinking of this. And so there is still something true in these harder to read genealogical passages. Um, there's still something there that is useful for teaching and reboot and reproof and correcting and training and righteousness.

SPEAKER_00: 2:15

To Paul and Timothy, the scriptures, the Old Testament, as we'd call it, were older to them than the New Testament is to us. And like these are more ancient texts than the New Testament is to us. And still, he's saying this is this is useful. This all all of it's inspired by God, all of it is useful. And uh obviously can't claim to say that we're gonna cover all of the useful, inspired, corrective texts today. You gotta get into it yourself. And hey, I don't know. If the Holy Spirit speaks to you through something that we read on one of our episodes or we discuss in Living Out Loud today, that's awesome. I'm thankful for that. Um but hey, get into it yourself. Yeah. And just I I think it's good practice to pray before you read the Bible, whether to yourself or next time you you turn on this podcast, before getting into it, just pray. Hey, God, would you please speak to me today? Would you teach me something? Um just uh something new, maybe, or show me some somewhere that my heart doesn't line up with yours. Like I don't want that, so please show me where that might be the case. In Jesus' name, amen. I mean it's a simple prayer like that. That's a prayer that he's always gonna answer. Like, you'll always get a yes if you're praying, hey, would you teach me something from scripture today? Would you uh would you correct me where I'm wrong? Like, let's get into the habit of praying that every time we get into scripture, whether we're listening to it here or or reading it for ourselves. I hope we do both. Um great. Okay, well, I think that's a that's some good general notes for everyone. Uh but here in First Chronicles, uh it's there's so many names. There's the most names. So many names.

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

Um but I think it's Can I just say that I'm glad David is named David? And it's like an easy to read, easy to say, easy to remember name as one of the most prominent names.

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

Yes. There's a reason that it has now become still remained popular as a name because it's like, okay, he's a good dude, and we can pronounce it.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:21

That's good. Um But this this section of First Chronicles has gotten me thinking about my own genealogy, my own ancestors. Um, every family has a genealogy nut.

SPEAKER_01: 4:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:38

It is not me. Um my aunt is that person. And I remember when you married me, like it was not a week gone by before she's calling you, being like, all right, so tell me all about your family.

SPEAKER_01: 4:51

And you're like, I think she wanted to fill in the new family tree. A new branch of the tree.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

Let's just let's track it down. Um I think with the nation of Israel, I think they're all that way. Like they love their genealogies, uh, very important to them because it it is God's family, right? Like he started this family tree and they want to honor that. That's awesome. Um today, you may have various degrees of how much of your family tree you're aware of. I know with the help of my aunt, I also um like, oh man, it must have been like eighth grade, somewhere in middle school, we had some sort of project, a genealogy project. Like, go find someone a few branches up in the tree and um down in the tree? What is it? I don't know. I don't know which way the tree goes. And uh and do a like a report about them basically and how they affect your life. And I I went and I found a uh on my hillbilly side of the family. That's that's my my mom's dad's parents were hillbillies from West Virginia. And um, I've got a a great, great grandfather who was a a circuit preacher. Like he rode around Appalachia on a horse, and he like just went around to different lit tiny little country churches up in the mountains of West Virginia and and that area, and he was a preacher, which was which was cool, and um and really got to see that legacy, and not just that vein of my family tree, but even on my dad's side going up several generations. I just find um Jesus follower after Jesus follower, and I'm super thankful for that because I I see a legacy of faith, even just in the the tears of the family tree that I can see um of I know my my great-grandmother I knew for over 30 years, yeah, I think. Um she was in my life until I was in my 30s, and and that's my great-grandmother. What a blessing that was. And she followed the Lord, she prayed every day, she prayed for us. I still have letters of her prayers. She wrote letters to our daughter, who she was able to meet for a couple years. Um letters like I don't think our daughter even knows it, but like she has a letter for her when she graduates eighth grade and graduates twelfth grade when she gets married. Like, she's gonna get letters from her great-great-grandmother. Um, and seeing that really fuels me to want to continue this legacy of faith. Like, and I cannot take credit for anything that they did. Yeah, I can't take credit for where I was born or who I was born to. That just gives me something to thank God for that, like, hey, you place me in this family, and I want to continue this legacy of faith, yeah, and pass that on to my daughter, and I've experienced the blessings. The more I get older and the more people I know and talk to, I see that that's not common and that this is not this is not a pedigree to feel proud about. It's but it's just a recognition that like like this is not a given. And and we can take a look at our family tree, a legacy of faith, and use that as a as a thanksgiving point for God and fuel for well, let's keep this going.

SPEAKER_01: 8:08

And you have to make the decision to keep that going. The the fact that you have this legacy of generations of faith before you does not guarantee that you will just keep it going because you will.

SPEAKER_00: 8:19

Like you see, you don't get to float into heaven just because your great-grandmother prayed for you.

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

Right. And so I I was thinking, even listening to the way you read through First Chronicles, these first 12 chapters, like, yeah, there's some good examples, there's some negative examples of what their ancestors were and what their ancestors accomplished, but the generation reading it now, or we reading it now, have to recognize that that just because they did or didn't do what they were supposed to or not supposed to do, like regardless of what our ancestors did and left us with, we have to make a decision now moving forward for how we will live, how we will worship God, how we will give our lives in service to Him. So you have a beautiful example of a legacy of faith being passed down to you that that then you get to carry it on and live in the example of those who have gone before you and keep it going. On my side of the family, uh, my mom didn't have that. We don't have like generations going back of circuit preachers. We like my mom was a first generation Christian. Like she was she was the cycle breaker. And I am extremely grateful for that. In the same way you can't take credit for where you were born. I can't take credit for the fact that I was raised in a Christian home. But I look at my mom and think she she was a cycle breaker. She was a she was a moment in our family's history that changed the trajectory for me in my life and the life of um people coming after me. And so someone listening to this might say, Well, I'm the first generation in my family. Like they weren't living for God. They didn't know the Lord, but I found him as a teenager or as an adult, or and and I'm just trying to live my life now. Like who our family was before has made us who we are, but it is not how we are defined. And I think that that's something that we can learn here from First Chronicles. What your family, the decisions your family before you has made, the decisions of your ancestors really do make you a product of them. Like you've come out of something. You have you are a product of the people who have gone before you, but you are not defined by the people who go before you. You are defined by the faithfulness of God. You are defined by being a child of the living God. And I think that we can't really, while First Chronicles was written to that century of people coming home out of exile. We really can't sit here in the year 2025 as this is recorded and ignore the fact that we also have a New Testament. Like we have a new covenant that we live under. As I said before, you and I are not Jewish. We are not from the Israelite lineage, but we are children of God. And so we kind of have to, I think, read First Chronicles in light of what the New Testament does teach us about who we are in the family of God.

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Right. And and I think there's some really good truths that look, we're gonna take a look at some of these because, like you said, there are some people who you you look at your family line and you're like, it is a mess. It is just a dumpster fire of a family line. And what am I supposed to do about that? Well, good news, uh 1 Corinthians 5 17 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away, and now the new has come. Like that is a wonderful promise to those who do not draw any strength and encouragement from their family line and from their past.

SPEAKER_01: 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:52

Right? This this is whatever has been true of your family up to this point, whatever's been true in your life up to this point, if you're in Christ, he makes you new. He he's like, All right, and now we're starting fresh. Your past is forgiven, it's forgotten, you're new. The old is dead. We're moving on. Like that's huge.

SPEAKER_01: 12:13

Which means your identity is not in who you were before Christ. Your identity is not in who your family was without Christ. Your identity, Mike, is not in who your family was in Christ. Your identity as an individual is in Christ in Christ alone, as a new creation.

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

God assigned this identity of his child to anyone today who submits to the Lordship of Jesus and to repent from the past and and follow him, like John 1.12, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. And children, like if you want to do a a study, just search up child of God or children of God and see what the Bible has to say about that. It comes up more times than we have time to unpack this episode. Um Galatians 3.26.

SPEAKER_01: 13:02

We were even talking this morning before you get to Galatians. You were we were just talking this morning how it's crazy that God doesn't have grandkids. Yes. Like the family tree of God is just God and then one line of everybody who has ever believed in him.

SPEAKER_00: 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:15

Just one. Just it's just God and then all his children.

SPEAKER_00: 13:18

Even our daughter is our child, but also God's child just as much as we are. Like she's our sister in Christ, even more so than she is our daughter.

SPEAKER_01: 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:31

It's weird.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

She's just like a younger sister that we raise to know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

It's it's weird, but yeah, like everyone is God's child. So he gives that title to everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 13:44

He gives the right to become children of God to everyone. I remember growing up, my grandmother, um she she would say, Everyone's a child of God. We're all child, we're all children of God. I would argue that John 1.12 says we have the right to become children of God, but there is a step to take. There is a step of belief in the world. It is conditional.

SPEAKER_00: 14:04

Like I'll go back to Galatians 3.26. So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. There's kind of two conditions there. Like you're not just children of God just because you exist. In one sense, yes, he created you whether you believe him or not. But unconditional love, unconditional through him. But in Christ Jesus, you're all children of God through faith. Like it requires being in Christ, which is only for people who put their faith in him. So that then puts you into his family. It's it and in other places he talks about being adopted into his family. Um, even his own people, Israel, like he's like they've left him and he wants them back into his into his family, right? There's unconditional love, but not unconditional family status. Um, but once you are in Christ through faith, then yes, you are firmly planted in his family and are a child of God. See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God. First John 3:1. I hope this is an encouragement. Whether you have a family line of faith, that you see faith in all of your ancestors and you carry that on today, or whether, frankly, you know, you look at your family line and it is not one you're proud of and one you want to distance yourself from.

SPEAKER_01: 15:32

Whether it looks more like Gad, who's like, Yeah, good job, Gad. Or whether it looks more like Ruben, where it's like, oh, he screwed up real royal, like so bad he'd lost the inheritance, and that that's my family. Like, we've screwed up real bad. Like, which whichever one you look like, or some other iteration of something else.

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

You're not that that's not your identity. You're not stuck there.

SPEAKER_01: 15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

It's important, it's important to know where you come from. But Jesus sees you and your family and your your lineage, your legacy, your identity different from the way that you and your family see it or the world sees it. He wants to give you a new family, he wants to give you a new identity, he wants to give you a new family line, and it's through Jesus. And uh, hey, I would love to hear from you. Send us a message. Uh, you could send it through the episode description of this episode, or send us a message through through the website at loudbible.com. Um, I would love to hear a little bit about your family line. How does this discussion land? Uh, what what thoughts does this kind of generate thinking about your family, your family line? Are you a cycle breaker? Was your mother a cycle breaker? Uh, what does the legacy of faith look like in your family and what is God doing for you through through the power of the Holy Spirit, through your faith, to give you a new identity and a new family line? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this discussion. Send us a message. And uh I hope you're encouraged by this as much as we are. And uh, we're gonna keep going through the book of First Chronicles. It's gonna be a really interesting take a look at history and what we can learn from Israel's history and through the rise and the fall of many kings through this line and uh more discussions ahead. Thanks for joining us in this conversation. Get to share a little bit about where we come from, and we'd love to hear a little bit more about where you come from, and uh, and we'll see you next time.