The lineage of the priests and Levites is listed for us here in chapter 6. This genealogy is extremely important as the standing of these men of God and their service were directly related to their ancestral record. It was by birthright that the office of the priest was filled.
In tracking these generations we can see the high, as well as the low points of the Israelite’s spiritual walk. Some of these men of God succeeded in honoring the Lord through their ministries, while others failed miserably. What is important to consider is even though these men had a specific calling on their lives, they were still just men. Made of the same corrupt flesh as you and I.
The success or failure of these men was dependent upon their individual surrender to the will of the Father. We must be careful to not place people on pedestals, expecting them to set our examples of Godly behavior. In doing so we take our eyes off of Christ as our model and shift them to man. This is dangerous because as humans, they are imperfect and will ultimately fail us.
The solution is to look at Christ as our example. Not only will He always be the best model, but He will never fail us. Don’t get me wrong, we should all have Godly people in our lives to admire and learn from, but our faith must not rest upon them. As the old hymn says “Our faith is built on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness…”
We can certainly admire and get advice from people who set great Godly examples in their lives. In fact this is part of God’s plan. It only becomes detrimental when we attach our faith in God to our faith in man. The Lord will never fail us, but people at some level always will.
Let’s keep our eyes on JESUS as our example!
1 Chronicles 6