Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 33 - Jacob Meets Esau

Jacob gives us a good example of how to relate to unbelieving family members.

When he meets Esau, he is polite.  Deferential, even.  He is generous, seeking Esau's favor.  But he settles apart from Esau.

God's people need to remember that (baptism) water is thicker than blood.  Jesus came to separate sister from brother, father from daughter.  It is a hard providence, but when a family member doesn't follow Jesus with you, a significant bond is lost.  Christians are often tempted to compromise God's truth to regain an unbelieving family member's favor.  We see this often with prominent leaders whose children go same-sex or trans, and they support them, instead of standing for God's truth.

Note, though, that Jacob doesn't refuse to have ANYTHING to do with Esau.  He patches things up as best he can.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 32

Jacob does not wrestle with God as a morally pure man.

He deceived Esau, his older brother, decades ago, and still feels guilty about it.  He fears him (Gen 32:11), and leans into God's promise to bless him (Gen 32:12).  He has been in exile with Laban, tricking the trickster to stay afloat financially.

What I never noticed is that the blessing Jacob seeks as he wrestles with God is very specific.  He doesn't want some generic blessing from God (Gen 32:26) - he wants protection from Esau.  And he gets it.

Many of us have people who loom large in our life as a threat.  A harsh father.  A school bully.  A bad church experience.  A less than loving husband.  This was Esau, for Jacob.

Our calling is to wrestle with God, and seek His blessing to preserve us, even if we were guilty in the past.  To claim His promises for blessing, and not disengage from Him, dispirited from those threats He allowed in our lives.  We continue seeking His face (Psalm 27:4, 7-10).

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 31

Here, Jacob leaves Laban without telling him, with God's approval.

Laban has treated Jacob unfairly for 20 years.  Sometimes the best you can do when treated unfairly and they do not admit fault, is show them their fault (Matthew 18:15) and depart indefinitely and as amicably as possible.  Appealing to God as you do so.  Jacob does this, preserving his family and estate as best he can.

God gives us these times to test and grow our faith in Him (Hebrews 12:3-11).  We are tempted to grow bitter against God (Heb. 12:15), but should instead focus on God's promises to us, and remind our family of them (Gen 31:13).

Psalm 13 was an excellent supplemental reading this morning.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Acts 7

 The point of Stephen's long speech to the Sanhedrin is clear:

God's promise to save and take Israel as His people doesn't rest on them occupying the land of Israel.  He justified Abraham before he was ever there or possessed it.  Our salvation rests on trusting in God's deliverer.  This was Moses at the time of Passover.  Israel rejected him, but God saved His people anyway.  Likewise, Israel rejected Jesus, but God saved His people through Jesus, anyway.

Don't trust in land, military, political power, or other earthly things.  Trust God alone to deliver you from your sins and from all our cultural problems.  He may use the former things, but do not trust in them.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 27

Isaac was misled by his senses to seek to bless the wrong son.

God had said Jacob would be the child of promise (Gen 25:23), but Isaac loved Esau more.  

Why?

Because Esau brought him food "such as he loved."  Chapter 27 says this at least 3 times.

Hunting is a thrill, and eating what you killed is a primal satisfaction (Gen 25:27-28).  It isn't wrong in itself (Gen 9:3), but leads Isaac astray.

He smells Esau's clothes and is convinced Jacob is Esau (Gen 27:27).

Our senses can easily mislead us to live and act contrary to God's covenant promises and boundaries.  Taste, smell, touch (Gen 27:21).  These are great blessings in themselves, part of God's gift in our bodies.  But our inordinate pursuit of them causes much trouble.

The revival of a masculine Christianity is generally a good thing, but being stereotypically masculine does not itself make one godly.  Jacob was more "effeminate" than Esau, but remained the child of promise, while masculine Esau flouted God's ways and devalued His blessings.  My denomination deliberately seeks to cultivate godly masculinity - a good thing.  But I've had young men ask me if I'd be welcome in our church, since they're not big on hunting, beards, guns, and other "macho" things.  Manly men are put off by much of the effeminate church today.  It ain't easy to shape a godly family/church culture that incarnates the truth that men and women are different, while also making room for different expressions of what it means to be a man and a woman.

Meanwhile, Rebekah has to scheme to get Jacob the blessing, and to get him a non-Philistine wife.  Jacob has to leave home, exiled for a time, the deceiver deceived by Laban...

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 25-26

From the beginning, God has called His people to live among unbelievers, but to avoid becoming like them.  There are some places we should not settle in, like Egypt (vs 2).  But God specifically tells Isaac to settle among the Philistines.  Jesus later prays that His disciples remain in the world, but as they are not of the world, that they would remain and be sanctified (John 17:14-16).

Isaac makes the same mistake his father did, lying about his wife to protect her, and is found out.  God's covenant people are perpetually tempted to cross ethical lines to protect themselves from the ungodly.  Or to try to advance God's agenda in ways of which He disapproves.  We tend to become like the world we are living in, and need to fight against it constantly.

It is God's plan for His people in the world both to prosper, and to be treated unfairly by the Philistines, as Isaac is (Gen 26:17-21).  We can work against such injustice, as Isaac does, but should not rail against God's providence.

Chapter 26 ends with another warning how not to live in the world: do not marry unbelievers, as Esau did (vs 34-35).  This will bring great distress, however tempting it may be in the present moment.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 24

For a man to be fully flourishing and fruitful, he needs a wife.

So God gave Eve to Adam in the garden.
He gave Rebekah to Isaac in Genesis 24.
He gave the church to Jesus, Abraham's true Seed.

But it takes a lot of work to take and have a wife, as Genesis 24 shows.
It is the longest and central chapter in all of Genesis, showing its significance.

It takes clear boundaries on the process - where to find a good wife, and where to avoid (Gen 24:1-9).
It takes searching far and wide.  It takes God's providence, beyond a man's control (Gen 24:10-21).
It takes a great deal of expense, and willingness on both sides (and their families) to be generous with their time and treasure (Gen 24:22-33).
It takes a great deal of communication, repeated (Gen 24:34-49).
It takes a woman willing to venture forth into an unknown future, with an unknown man (Gen 24:50-61).
It takes a man of prayer (Gen 24:63) and a woman of modesty (Gen 24:65), each willing to give themselves fully to each other (vs 67).

She is beautiful, willing to serve, hospitable.  He is waiting on God's timing and plan to provide him a wife.  They are both willing to follow their parents' counsel, as it aligns with God's wisdom, even when it seems there may be ulterior motives at play (Gen 24:30).

This is a glorious story, and it summarizes redemptive history.  God plans for us to love and to be loved by another.  Acting in accord with this plan brings us great blessing and joy.

Some on the right today are advocating for getting married as a political tactic, to strengthen the culture.  I find this a bit off-putting, as the purpose of marriage is far more central than this.  It reflects God's grand plan to give His Son a bride for all eternity (Rev 21:2).  But it is a cultural benefit, the more good marriages are established.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 22

There's a ton of typology packed into this chapter.

Isaac is the sacrifice that's missing, going up the mountain.
Abraham does not withhold his only son, as God does not, later, at the cross.

God provides a substitute sacrifice to spare his boy.

What I never noticed is how this is often a pattern for our own lives.
God sometimes calls us to a path that looks to us like only sacrifice, denial, and the death of our hopes.  But He takes us there to show that resurrection and new life, the keeping of His promises, is part of His plan.

God often tests our faith through the difficult circumstances of our lives, but He means to strengthen, preserve, and redeem us in the end.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 19 - Sodom

Abraham had convinced God not to destroy Sodom if there were 10 righteous people in it.  So, to this day the Jews require 10 men to form a "minyan," a quorum to hold an official synagogue service.

The angels meet Lot at the gate, and he urges them to stay with him, not in the town square.  Lot knows his town is dangerous.  Yet he sits in the gate, the place of judgment and official business.  This is where many go wrong in reading Lot, forgetting to interpret Scripture with Scripture.  They assume he should not be there.  That he should have left long ago.  But the text doesn't say or imply that.

2 Peter 2:7-8 is very clear: "if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials."

Lot was righteous, and distressed at the city's wickedness.  Having two daughters of marriageable age, he still stayed.  Faithful Christians can live in New York City, Las Vegas, and other Sodom-like places today.  There is something right about our impulse to separate from wickedness, but sometimes we're called to stay.  Missionaries often have to make this choice.
The trick if we stay is to not get attached to the world's ways and comforts.  God is going to judge it all, and you'd better find yourself rooting for God more than the judged on that day.  

This is Jesus' point in Luke 17:28-33:
"Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it."

Lot and his family show clear signs of having gotten so attached to the comforts of city life, that he didn't want to go when angels were trying to rush him out!  Much of the church today is so compromised, that if God were to do this today, the response would be the same as Lot and worse.  "Oh, God shouldn't have done that.  He should have given them more time.  That was too harsh."  Literally judging God as in the wrong.  This is why they stay away from the Old Testament and the Psalms and become Marcionites, talking about needing to "unhitch" from the Old Testament.  Yikes.  Make sure your heart is with God in all He does and says, not just the parts that comfort and inspire you.

What I never noticed in this chapter before was in verse 3.  Lot feasts the angels with unleavened bread, a clear prequel to Passover.  And Passover is exactly what is happening here: God taking His people (Lot/Israel) out of a wicked place (Sodom/Egypt), on the favor and intercession of someone else (Abraham/Moses/lamb).

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 15-17

These 3 chapters are bookended with Gods covenant promises to Abram in 15 and 17, with an interlude of unfaithfulness on Abram's part in 16.

He will have descendants as numerous as the stars.  Abram believes God (15:6), and that faith God counts as righteousness.  Abram has to do a fair bit of work on his end to establish covenant with God, cutting up the animals and driving away the vultures to preserve them.  Just as we have to do a fair bit of work in getting to church to renew covenant with God.

But in chapter 16, Abram's faith falters.  We don't know how long after chapter 15 this was, but it doesn't seem it was very long.  (Abram was 75 when he left Haran and is 100 in chapter 17.)  He listens to his wife, to bring about God's promises themselves.  Sometimes a wife is a source of wisdom; other times she may mislead a family away from faithfulness if left unchecked.

God restates His promise in chapter 17, 13 YEARS after Ishmael is born.  He's given Abram and Sarah 13 years to realize they may have done the wrong thing, and now He confirms it.  The child of promise isn't Ishmael but Isaac to come.  We have to keep our faith in God's future action, not in whatever we can do in the present to make it happen.

The animal cutting ritual back in chapter 15 was culturally known.  Each party to the contract would walk through the pieces in the blood, showing that if they broke the contract, the other party could do that to them.  Cut them up and walk in their blood.  God goes through, but does NOT have Abram do so.  He promises to shed His own blood if God or Abram breaks the covenant.  He keeps this promise at the cross of Jesus, who shed the blood of God to atone for us covenant breakers.

When we falter in our trust in God's promises, He returns to us with more of the same promises.  He is greater than our hearts, and is intent to bless us in spite of our failure to trust Him fully.  Which we always fail to do.  Our trust is not in our faith, but in God's promises.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 14

Like Abraham, God's people get enmeshed in regional and global politics, and it costs them some of their family.  Lot is captured by the world.  Abraham takes initiative to recover him, but rejects the favors of the world (Sodom) offered to him.

There are plenty of times we must be on the initiative and fight to keep or take back our children or family from the world, and reject the bribes, comforts, and pleasure the world offers us.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 9

 Faithful-to-God people were vegetarians until after the Flood.  Then they could eat the meat of animals (Gen 9:3).  Vegetarians today, while they may be doing so for purely nutritional reasons, are unwittingly forbidding themselves what God has allowed.  

This was Eve's mistake in the garden, adding more prohibitions than God had.  This doesn't help, and often hurts our true godliness (Colossians 2:20-23).  To say that science/nutrition knows better than God what is best for us is the height of presumption.  We have a hard enough time obeying God's actual commands.  Adding to them is often a way for us to excuse our disobedience to them, while pointing to our following our own made-up rules to justify ourselves as righteous.  Many today think that if they are being healthy (according to their own standards), then God must favor them, regardless in what other wickedness they indulge.

God also institutes capital punishment, here (Gen 9:5-6).  Joe Biden's recent action to change the sentences of death row inmates to life in prison, along with all conviction that capital punishment is wrong, is also the height of presumption.  We receive a command from God to punish the murderer, but reject it because we know better than God what is right and wrong.

God restates the dominion mandate to be fruitful and multiply to Noah, and it seems He restates it to the animals as well (Gen 9:7).  He already said it to Noah in verse 1, so the "And you" in verse 7 is probably directed to the animals.  Confirmation of this comes in verses 8-10, when He makes a covenant with Noah AND all the animals.

The rainbow is God's sign of this covenant, to show us that He will remember the promise to preserve nature until the end.  Christians should not let LGBT co-opt this sign for themselves, but should cherish every rainbow in the sky as a renewal of God's promise.  The LGBT flag is a counterfeit of this.  But you don't stop valuing true currency because there are forgers out there.  Take back the rainbow as GOD'S sign of promise to preserve, rather than to pervert, nature.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 5-6

God named people "Man" (Gen 5:2).  Then He had Adam name the animals.  There is a hierarchy here.  Naming someone/thing is an act of authority over them (as parents do with their children).  Having people or creatures under us should not get us uppity, for we have a Creator over us.

Enoch (Gen 5:21-24) was the 7th generation from Adam, and special.  He did not die.  This is a type of Christ, the 7th -generation seven from Abraham (Matthew 1:17).

Genesis 6:22, where Noah does what God tells him to do, reminds me of the great Jewish rabbit joke about chutzpah.  God's people are meant to argue with Him.  When God told Abraham He was going to destroy Sodom, Abraham protested, but what if there are 50 righteous there?  Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?  When God told Moses He was going to wipe out Israel and start over with Moses, he protested: but then what will the Egyptians think?  But when God told Noah He was going to destroy the earth, Noah just said, "How big do you want the boat?"  This is a joke.  With a serious point: we should wrestle with God in His plan for the world, our nation and our own lives.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 3-4

"Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden" (Genesis 4:16).

All throughout Scripture this pattern continues.  The oldest, or natural-born son, is unfaithful and God provides another faithful son to continue the line.
 - Jacob counts on Reuben who fails him, and God appoints Judah instead.
 - Israel and Saul set their hopes on Saul as king, but he fails.  God has Samuel anoint David instead.
 - David loves Absalom, but he betrays him, and God provides Solomon instead.

 - Jesus is the God-appointed "younger brother" to the unfaithful Sanhedrin.

Painfully, the pattern continues for believers today.  I have seen it several times where faithful parents have a child who leaves the faith and the family, like Cain did.  The parents, like Adam and Eve I'm sure, are deeply grieved.  But somehow God provides another.  He gives Seth to Adam and Eve.  He may give other "adopted" children or grandchildren to parents who have for now lost their own children to the world.

However dark it seems when those you love the most go astray, God will provide a way and redeem His people.

Things I Never Noticed in the Bible - Genesis 1-2

 Ah, January 1.  The day many Christians read Genesis 1-2.

I just did, myself, actually, and decided to revive this series: things I never noticed in the Bible.

First, I do recommend a Bible reading plan to keep you in the Word, and get to ALL of the Bible over time.  Ligonier always has a good assortment of plans available - see here - and this year I'm trying the Navigators plan.

Now, what did I find anew in Genesis?  Start with a trivia question: to what created beings did God first speak directly?  The answer: those in the sea and sky, the fish and birds (Gen 1:22).  What does He say to them?  The same thing He says to Adam the next day: "be fruitful and multiply."

This is a partial dominion mandate, missing the part where we are to rule and subdue the very fish and birds He spoke to the day before!  It's reasonable to infer from this that as we are also fruitful and abound, we are also ruled and subdued by God, even as we seek to rule His creation in His stead.

There's a lot of dominion mandate talk these days, and I'm for it.  But one aspect less conspicuous in the rhetoric is that as we rule we are also ruled.  Dominion doesn't mean we get to do whatever we want with the world and our lives.  We certainly name and order things, but our activity must stay within the bounds of God's commands, which He has clearly given us.