The God Who Uses the Less Obvious Ones

"the son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David"
Luke 3:31

Through Solomon (cf. Mt 1:6), came Joseph the husband of Mary (cf. Mt 1:16). The roundabout way of Luk 3:23 implies that this genealogy is actually through Mary, perhaps out of a desire to show forth Jesus as the seed of the woman. Luke also traces all the way back to Adam, indeed God.

So, in Luk 3:31, we learn that both genetically (Luk 3), and legally (Mat 1), Jesus is a son of David. This brings my thoughts to Nathan in Luk 3:31. Until this point, this Nathan is almost a footnote in 2Sam 5:14, 1Chr 3:5, 1Chr 14:4. He is the full brother of Solomon, born of Bathsheba. That's as much as we know.

It was a reminder to me of how significantly the Lord may use the less obvious child, or the less obvious saint. We ought to bless the wisdom of His inscrutable providence, as we pour ourselves into even those children and saints of whom, it seems to our nearly-blind eyes, little can be expected to come. Indeed, it is often His pleasure to use the weak and unlikely (cf. 1Co 1:26–29).