Why did you want to move?: Genesis 38

Just when you think you've seen it all, along comes Genesis 38 (link) to show you just how bad it can get out there. This supports why we read through the whole Bible, though: you need to see that these are the lives of people just like people today. Lives full of shattered hopes and broken promises, but redeemed by the grace of God.

What happens this time around? Judah, the brother who had the idea to sell Joseph and not kill him, moves away from his brothers. We have one brother, Joseph, on his way to Egypt. We have another brother, Judah, separating from the family.

The text does not give us a reason for Judah to move away from his brothers. Perhaps he feels guilt over Joseph; perhaps they pressured him to move away lest he slip up and confess his part of the crime; perhaps they want him away so that if the Midianites who bought Joseph come back, he'll be gone. We just don't know.

What we do know is this: the twelve sons of Jacob are now down to ten in the household. Judah's absence here is not a temporary one—we see him marry and raise his three sons. Two of which are not good. The text gives us that Er was evil so Yahweh took his life: Genesis 38:6. I think there's some importance to using God's covenant, personal name here rather just a reference to "God:" whatever was wrong in the heart and behavior of Er was not about a generic complaint. It had to do with dishonoring the covenant that Yahweh had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

If that was not enough, Onan, Er's younger brother, is also struck down. By the same One, for the same reason. Onan was expected to marry Er's wife, Tamar, and protect and provide for her. Alongside that, their first child would have been counted as Er's offspring rather than Onan's offspring. That child would have received the firstborn's estate from Judah's inheritance—as it stands, Onan will get that estate along with his own.

So, Onan does not want Er to have a son in his name. Some assume that Onan's explicit sin of practicing a primitive birth control is why he was struck dead. I think it was more about the attitude and his unfaithfulness to the covenant and character of God. In no place does Scripture condemn preventative birth control, though we are to see God as the opener and closer of the womb, but that's another discussion.

Judah now sees a pattern: two sons married to Tamar. Two sons dead. He doesn't want to lose the third son, so he refrains from allowing Shelah, his third son, to marry her.

The blame is in the wrong place here. The fault in this case rests on three people, possibly four, and Tamar is not one of them. Er and Onan chose their own unfaithfulness, but does Judah not bear some responsibility? It seems that he has chosen to raise a family separate from the covenant people of God and now finds himself hammered by the consequences of that choice.

Not that being raised in the covenant family is a guarantee: Jacob and Esau have already shown us that fact. However, there's a gap between a guaranteed fail and a guaranteed win and in the gap are decisions that help or hurt your opportunities.

Those who do not even try to start off right are going to fight an uphill battle for years; those who do try are not guaranteed success but it is more likely.

There have been those raised to hate God who He finds and draws to Himself anyway. There have been those raised to love God who run from Him and hate Him.

What choice are you making? To move away from the people of God? True, sometimes God's people are hard to deal with, but are you really better off without them?

I'd say we're not. We need each other, even with our shortcomings and failures. Together, we can raise each other up to follow the Lord God better than each of us individually.

Sermon Wrap-up March 4: Nehemiah 8 and 9

Here are the sermon outlines and audio links for March 4:

Morning Audio Link (and alternate) for Nehemiah 8

Evening Audio Link (and alternate) for Nehemiah 9

Morning outline:

Nehemiah 8

The Reading of the Law

Who comes?

1. Men

2. Women

3. All who could understand (most children)

In short, no one is excluded from the Word of God

Explanation by those who knew it...

When?

From "The light until midday:" 6 hours? Really? Very likely: from sunrise until around noon

Where?

In the middle of town

What happened next?

Repentance

Weeping

Rejoicing

The restoration of the Feast of Booths from Leviticus 23

HOW?!

1. Unity of the people

2. Study of the Word

3. Obey what is obvious

4. Repent

5. Rejoice that God has allowed time for repentance!

 

Evening Outline:

Nehemiah 9

Repentance

Remembrance

Results

Dreaming and losing: Genesis 37

Ever think your family doesn't like you?

Try being Joseph. Genesis 37 (link) recounts the first portions of his story, and those portions are just not pretty. You've got parental favoritism, sibling rivalry, snitches, attempted murder, and selling your brother into slavery.

Given the plethora of material in this chapter, it's been the source of many sermons. What should we focus on to make one blog post?

Let's consider this: the beginning of the chapter has Joseph recounting his dreams to his family. He has dreamed that his brothers will bow down to him, that his whole family will bow down to him. Perhaps not exactly: the first dream was that his brothers' sheaves of wheat bowed down and the second that the Sun, Moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. It's a good guess, though, that these dreams meant what his family took them to stand for.

So, what do his brothers do? Throw him in a well and sell him into slavery. That will bring his dreams to nothing, right?

Wrong.

Yet the path to the fulfillment of those dreams takes a long time and a hard road. Dreams do not always come true easily. There's a good deal about that here, but it develops over the years and chapters. We'll get through more of that.

There is another point here that I think is worth noting, especially in these days.

Take a look at Genesis 37:22 and consider Reuben. Reuben has the best of intentions: he wants to save his brother from death. What he did not consider was Judah in Genesis 37:26 and the greed of his brothers. Reuben's efforts were stymied because he wanted to keep peace, save his brother, and not be noticed in his effort.

And he failed.

Do not underestimate the impact and power that greed holds for people. Waiting to do what is right until a more convenient time for you will put you at risk of failing to get anything done.

When we consider how we live our lives, how we pick our political candidates, and what we do within our churches, we need to remember this. The delays we take in the name of convenience or expediency will be the undoing of our good intentions.

Quit waiting for it to be an easy moment to do what's right and get to it.

Also not to be forgotten is the biblical mention of Alabama: Genesis 37:17. But that's another discussion.

Book Review: The Coming Revolution

Today's Book Review comes from Booksneeze, the blog-reviewer program from Thomas Nelson Publishers. Free book in exchange for a free opinion.

Reading Dr. Richard Lee's book The Coming Revolution was something of an exercise in repetition for me. That's not to say it was bad, but neither was it distinctively good. It fits along the line of being a clearly articulated vision of America as a Christian nation. Lee puts forth his case that America began as nation with a predominantly Christian identity and has lost that identity. He further stands with the idea that the liberty and uniqueness of America will be lost if we do not regain that identity.

His points are well-crafted. I felt he covered the history well regarding the founding era of the United States. Lee does not whitewash that some of the Founders were not strong Christians, though his focus remains on the Christian influence on even those who were Deists and agnostics.

His arguments regarding the history and intention of the nation are good, but they are not quite conclusive. I find myself agreeing with his views of history, but the arguments are likely not strong enough to persuade a strong opponent.

Instead, his arguments should serve the purpose I see him intending, and this is to push a few people off the fence. There are a good number of people who fill the pews of churches Sunday after Sunday that will vote their wallets and not their consciences and this book will hopefully spur them to consider other factors.

The second portion of this work is a collection of suggested action points for concerned readers to take. The actions suggested are good, ethical suggestions that involve working through the established legal processes in this country. For now, that's a good thing: while I agree with Lee's concerns regarding the threat of the recent decades of excessive government, we are not truly at a point in history calling for bloodshed.

To that end, Lee's use of "Revolution" needs a better explanation, and he gives it when he expresses that the true American Revolution came before the War of Revolution. It was a revolution of thoughts and ideas, a revolution of people who refused to be ignored any longer.

With all that said, I found this book worth reading. If you're inclined that America was and always will be better off as a purely secular country, all this will do is make you angry. You'll find the holes to nitpick and find fault with everything.

Yet if you are of the opinion that America can be more than we have become, this book will still make you angry. Angry at our unfulfilled potential. Angry at the growing menace found in the bought and paid-for politicians of all stripes that trade liberty for their power and wealth. Angry that we've sat still while it has happened.

And if we'll all go ahead and follow some of Lee's suggestions, then perhaps we can find a better way forward.

Book provided by publisher in exchange for review.

The Coming Revolution: Signs from America's Past That Signal Our Nation's Future

Esau's Line: Genesis 36

You know what we haven't had for a little while in through the whole Bible? A genealogy! Fortunately, we can remedy that problem today with Genesis 36 (link). I hope that you're as happy about that as I am :)

I think I've mentioned before (yep)  that these sections of Scripture can be a challenge to get through. It's tempting to skip them outright, and it's tempting to add in all sorts of ideas about who the people were. You have to hit the middle ground. Scripture does not leave us with all the details of all these lives. Any fill-in information is brought to us without the benefit of being perfectly inspired. Plus, since I don't have a lot of resources on the shelf that deal with Esau's line, it's harder for me to get that information.

What can be done with what we've got, then?

1. As seems to constantly bear repeating: one husband, one wife just works better for marriage. That's the template from Eden, when things were "very good." All manner of issues today cloud that concept, but if we believe Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 then we see intentionality in this. Esau's life and the lives of his descendants drew additional complications from his polygamy.

2. Sometimes, you have to part ways: Genesis 36:7 shows Esau moving on when he and Jacob could not share the land. This is likely about more than just material—Canaan's a big space for sheep at the time. However, Esau had traded away his birthright to the space and so he moves on.

3. Did you notice the name Reuel? Does that ring a bell for anyone? It should. Reuel shows up as a name some four centuries later in Exodus 2:18.

Let's take that thought and jump to a conclusion or two. First of all, here's an assumption that I think you can count on: cultures and families re-use names. Seriously. I've encountered a few criticisms of Scripture that point out that the authors just reuse the same names and the claim was that it showed a lack of creativity in making up the stories.

Hogwash. It just shows that those critics aren't from the South. Around here, we use and reuse names from one generation to the fourth generation. We borrow from that family and this family and the other family. Proof? My son's name is my father's middle name, my mother-in-law's maiden name, and my last name (well, all of us in this house have that in common). My name matches several of the nuts going back up the family tree as well as being given me specifically to honor non-family members.

It should be no surprise for us, then, to find Reuel show up again in the time of Moses. We're not talking about the same guy, we're talking about someone named after the same guy.

There's a connection that traces here from Esau, out into the wilderness, and down into the land of Midian. This is how Moses finds a family that worships the One True God when he flees Egypt. This is how God provides for those 40 years in the desert as a shepherd for Moses before he spends 40 years in the desert shepherding people.

Esau leaves a mixed legacy behind him. Even the Midianites as a whole are a mixed legacy behind him!

Yet along the way, the worship of the One True God was continued in parts of his family.

What are the impacts of a life? The actions echo forward into time and are hard to stop. In time, some of Esau's descendants did what was right, but others did not. Mixing his obedience with disobedience leaves him with a mixed legacy.

Therefore, let us focus our lives on being as fixed as possible in our obedience!

Reference Post: Bible Books and Bible Order

There's not much commentary here, this post is being created to sit in the background and be a reference link for certain other posts when necessary:

English books of the Bible with their somewhat traditional divisions:

Old Testament:

Pentateuch/Law/Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

History: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

Poetry/Wisdom: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (or of Solomon)

Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (can go in Poetry), Ezekiel, Daniel

Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

Note: The difference in Major Prophets and Minor Prophets is primarily one of length. It is not really one of importance.

New Testament:

Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

History: Acts

Pauline Epistles: Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon

General Epistles: Hebrews (some consider this one Pauline, I do not), James, 1&2 Peter, 1,2,3 John, Jude

Prophecy: Revelation

The Christian Old Testament bears much similarity of content with the Jewish Scriptures. However, the order used is different. At the time of writing the New Testament, the books of the Jewish Scriptures were divided in this manner (this is also the order they would have been known to the people of the New Testament and early church):

Torah (or Law): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

Nevi'im (or Prophets): Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve (consisting of: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi)

Ketuvim (or Writings): Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah (together), 1&2 Chronicles.

The New Testament codified in the order that we have. Not much else to discuss there.

Critical points:

The Book of the Twelve: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. We separate these, but this was one big batch of prophetic writings originally.

Law and the Prophets: that's the whole of the Torah and Nevi'im sections, which is most of the Old Testament.

Order: Traditional order is semi-chronological. Genesis is first, Malachi  last. Traditional Hebrew order is Genesis-Chronicles.

Through the Whole Bible: Genesis 35

In Genesis 35 (link) we have the final results of the catastrophe that was Genesis 34 (yesterday's post). Jacob was afraid that the inhabitants of the land would seek him out and take revenge for the slaughter of the men of Hamor's city (Genesis 34:30) and that he lacked the capacity to defend the rest of the family. One wonders about his commitment to protect the family from earlier in the chapter, but that was yesterday.

Today, God speaks to Jacob and tells him to move to Bethel. Bethel being the place where Jacob had vowed to establish as his place of worship if God brought him back to the land—but apparently Jacob hadn't gotten around to getting back there yet. Point one: do not hesitate to honor your word. Had he gone straight to Bethel, just made sure to turn left, then life would have been better. He didn't.

God reinforces the command to go where he was committed to go. The move puts distance between him and some of the Hivite relatives of Shechem and Hamor which is a good thing at this time.

Before they move, Jacob gives this instruction to his household:

1. Pack up.

No, wait, that's not it. First he tells them to do this: "put away the foreign gods…purify yourselves…change your garments." (Genesis 35:2)

Let's visit these three things in order:

1. Foreign gods? Wait a minute…what are they doing with foreign gods in the first place? That's not supposed to happen. Yet, apparently, it did happen. Jacob does not highlight a specific household member for having foreign gods, but consider Genesis 31:19 when you think about who may have them.

The point, though, is that the idols have got to go. Jacob recognizes that the only hope he and his family have is unified worship of the One True God. He calls on the family to unify and dispose of the idols. I do wonder, given that some of those were Laban's idols, if they sent them back or trashed them.

We cannot hope as God's people to work together when we allow foreign gods to exercise influence over us. Even if we think it's just minor, that influence will destroy us.

2. Purify yourselves. This reflects taking a definite religious decision to focus on the right things. Purification would also have entailed a physical, symbolic rite. We don't know exactly what it was, but it was something.

These first two statements are a critical pair: it is not enough to dispose of the bad. One must also add in the good. We need to be careful of this in our lives. I'm going to stop doing this bad thing! Great! What good thing will take its place? We want to have faith but faith must have an object or it's empty.

3. Change your garments. Excuse me? New clothes?

For Jacob, the change of heart needed an exterior picture. This was the change of clothes—a shift to a different physical appearance. I do not see here that there was anything particularly objectionable about the old garments, what matters is the picture of the new life.

It was time to put aside the old and take on the new. For Jacob, he was putting aside the recent for something that was both old and new for him in the commitment to the One True God, but for the rest of the family this is really their first hard and fast commitment.

What are our outer markers of commitment?

If it's impossible to see that a follower of God is living out that commitment, then is it really much of a commitment?