Family Lessons 168: Cousins & Brothers

A friend of mine has some passing interest in family history and began a rather desultory and spasmodic research into his family’s past. Remarkably, we found that my 3x great-grandfather (David Marsden of Sharples, who was born in 1841) is his 4x great grandfather. This makes us fourth cousins once removed. This is hardly a close familial relationship, though we knew that our ancestors, living in the same village in the early 1800s, were likely linked; it was surpisingingly satisfying to prove. If you are white and your family have lived in Lancashire for a couple of centuries, I am likely your distant cousin.

More importantly, Christians are called ‘brothers’. Sometimes, ‘brothers and sisters’, but often just ‘brothers’, to ensure that females have the same spiritual privileges. This relationship is by faith, not DNA, by Christ’s blood rather than ours. I was also pleased to have played a part in the Lord’s calling of my fourth cousin’s call to personal salvation. Cousins by blood, brothers by faith.

And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance. Judges 21:24

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