Legitimate Points About Illegitimacy

There is nothing new about children conceived outside of wedlock; it can be found in scripture, as far back as Genesis, even in the house of Judah, who unwittingly impregnated his daugher-in-law, believing her a harlot when he had intercourse with her.   Let's just say, of that situation, it was complicated.

Interestingly, the Lord Jesus is a direct descendant of one of the twin boys born of that physical union (see Matthew 1:3 and Luke 3:33).  Depending upon how one reads, Boaz, who married Ruth the Moabitess, and was the great-grandfather of King David, may himself been conceived out of wedlock.

Finally, the Lord Himself was not conceived in the usual way, and his mother was thought a fornicator (see John 8:41), and his earthly father Joseph was presumed a cuckold.

It would seem God regards illegitimacy differently than do we, and this is not a new phenomenon.  Upon seeing a 13-year-old Ishmael, Abraham's son by her handmaid Hagar) mocking the newborn Isaac, whom she bore to Abraham, Sarah declared that Ishmael would not be an heir alongside Isaac, and petitioned her husband to cast out Hagar and Ishmael.

Perhaps Sarah could not separate the child's conception from how she blieved his life should be, and what it should contain.  That thinking remains common even to this day...but it has never been God's thinking.

How we view people, if based upon anything they could not control, says much more about us than it says regarding the person at whom we are looking.  The same is true regarding our view of people that overlooks how they handled those things that are in their control.