Translating Your PastSample

Whose fault is it?

Several places in Scripture describe the way in which the consequences of a parent’s choices are passed on to subsequent generations, including the passage from Exodus 20:4–6, which is the second of the Ten Commandments. There are no guarantees that one generation’s ethics will be replicated in the next, but as you reflect on the character and choices of your own grandparents and parents, you may see some patterns emerge.

The Bible describes familial patterns of sin that seem to be replicated in some form from one generation to the next, such as the deceptions and favoritisms repeated in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob recorded in the book of Genesis. But Scripture also reveals that every generation is not shackled to or responsible for the sinful decisions of the previous one. God works his purposes in every generation and in every new life.

This is illustrated powerfully in our reading today from John 9. When Jesus’ disciples asked him who was to blame for the blindness of a beggar they encountered, they imagined only two possible explanations: either the man’s blindness was a result of his parents, grandparents, or great-grandparent’s sin—or the man had done something really, really terrible and the blindness was his punishment. This was how generations of their people had learned to think about those who’d been born with disabilities or faced debilitating illnesses.

Jesus presented them with an alternative none of them had ever considered when he said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). Jesus then healed him. The blind man could see for the first time in his life!

Not everyone was happy about this. The religious elites in the community didn’t rejoice in the man’s healing, nor did they like Jesus’ explanation. In response to their interrogation, Jesus told them that being born blind wasn’t a sin. He told them their choice to willfully reject a miracle in the name of the set of religious traditions they’d inherited from their forebears had blinded them to what God was doing in real time right before their eyes.

Jesus reminds us that there is another way. We are not destined to repeat past family patterns. He has come to free us to see and follow him here and now.

Pray: Heavenly Father, the choices made by the generations who came before me have shaped my experience in this world, but I also recognize that through the power of your Holy Spirit, you can transform that past—for my good and for your glory.