Just the other day in my daily Bible reading plan I was reading in 1 Chronicles Chapter 2 in all those boring genealogies. I know I’m guilty of it and I’m sure you are too, you just want to skip over that stuff – “the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,” and so on and on.

In Chapter 2 of 1^st Chronicles something caught my eye, and after the reading I went back and looked at it very carefully, and did a little research to satisfy my curiosity. In verse 4 it says, “His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez…” Now, I knew already that Perez was in the line of Boaz the kinsman redeemer of Naomi and Ruth from the book of Ruth. So, Boaz’ great-great-great-great-grandmother was Tamar the wife of two of Judah’s sons whom God put to death because of they were evil, and she dressed up as a prostitute and tricked Judah into having sex with her because he refused to give his youngest son Shelah to her as Jewish custom called for. He later took her as his wife and she bore him two sons Perez and Zerah. Perez fathered Hezron, and he fathered Ram and he fathered Nashon, and he fathered Salmon and Salmon fathered Boaz, are you bored yet?

So, wait a minute, who is Salmon and who is Boaz’s mother? In reading through these genealogies, I noticed ever once in while they mention who the mother is, and I started wondering who was Salmon married to? It doesn’t tell you who she was is 1st Chronicles, but it does in the New Testament in Matthew 1:5. It was Rahab the prostitute from Jericho that hide the spies. And, I thought wow, look at that, but it doesn’t end there. Boaz married Ruth the Moabitess and they had a son named Obed and he fathered Jesse, and Jesse had seven sons the youngest was David, who became the greatest king of Israel. We all know that down the line of David, through his son Solomon whose mother was Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife that David committed his greatest sin with, is Jesus of Nazareth.

What amazes me about this story is all the different people that God used, and bear in mind God can use anyone at anytime to accomplish His purposes. He could have used the finest of bloodlines, but He didn’t, He used a deceitful daughter-in-law, a prostitute, and a foreigner, and that is only in one chapter of one book. So, don’t think He can’t use you, or He won’t use you, because He can and He will. This also, provides a very strong hint that God’s plan of redemption is for all not just Israel.