"What are you Begat-ing?"

BIBLE READING: Genesis 4-7
            In your Bible readings for the day, did you just skim over those verses in Genesis 5?  You know the one I am talking about…the “begats”.  It is very easy for us to just skim, run through or even completely bypass the redundant verses.  We all know that there is value in them. We know they teach us about the lineage of Jesus and God’s plan to save mankind, but how do they relate specifically to me today January 2, 2018?  Just for a moment look at the word “begat”. On the surface we know it to mean that they had given birth to a child.  For instance, “And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan” (Genesis 5:9); that means that Enos had a child that was named Cainan.  However, the word can be used to offer so much more than that; it simply means to “to bear, or to bring forth”.  What if instead of using the word to denote who fathered what children, we used it to show what each person contributes?  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say something like, “Matt begat happiness!” or “Eddie begat enthusiasm!”  Instead of just leaving our mark on this world with our offspring, we left it in many other ways as well. If there was a passage written about you, what would you be begat-ing?”

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