Genesis 28:1-29:35, Matthew 9:18-38, Psalms 11:1-7, Proverbs 3:11-12
Today is the 13th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian. It is fantastic to be here with you today as we gather yet again, each and every day around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together. And we have been navigating our way through the first books that we are encountering this year, which is the book of Genesis in the Old Testament and the book of Matthew in the new. Of course, Psalms and Proverbs every day as well. So, we’re still working our way through Genesis, and we have spent a lot of our time this week moving through the life of Abraham and then we met Isaac and now we’ve met Jacob. And, so, we’re in these emerging generations. We are reaching the latter parts of Isaac’s life and that’s where we find ourselves today. Genesis chapters 28 and 29.
Commentary:
Okay. So, let’s keep up with what’s going on in the book of Genesis. As we have pointed out like this is the origin story of the people that shape the entire Bible. And, so, Abraham…and Abraham has passed away now and is buried in the Cave of Machpelah. And then Isaac, the son of promise and then Jacob and Esau. And it’s like the promise is going to continue through Jacob, but Esau’s not happy with all that and so we’re seeing in all this, the early origin story all kinds of family drama, all kinds of humanity. And that’s important for us just kind of have. Like these are human beings. They made mistakes, they made missteps. And they also as we will see soon enough enter into direct rebellion, like they’re human beings trying to sort this out. And we get to watch this story unfold and watch where the choices that they make lead them. So, today we saw like Esau discovering that his mom and dad didn't…that were not fond of Canaanite women, didn’t want intermarriage. And, so, what does Esau do? Right after all that’s happened to him, he just goes and marries another Canaanite woman. So, like, we see all of this kind of drama happening and we see the animosity between Jacob and Esau at this point, so…so severe that Jacob has had to flee and go live somewhere else. He had to go live with his mom’s family. Esau is where he is and he’s got several wives and he is going to grow into a people. Esau’s people will later be known as the Edomites. And the Edomites, although they are brothers with the Israelites are enemies with one another. And we’ll get to experience that when everybody grows up. But right now, we are also traveling along with Jacob, who has gone back to his mother’s family. He has ended up with his uncle and his mother’s brother, whose name is Laban, and he has fallen in love with Rebekah who would be his cousin. We remember that there was a bit of shrewd trickery going on with Jacob, right? Getting the birth right from his brother, Esau, and then sort of conniving with his mom and getting the blessing from his father, Isaac. Well, we saw that the tables turned a bit. Jacob is living with his mother’s origin family, and he agrees that he will work for Laban his uncle for seven years in order to marry Rebekah. And he works for seven years, and seven years passes in about a sentence, because the Bible tells us it went by really fast. He didn’t even hardly notice how fast time went by, because he was so in love with Rebekah. And but seven years past. The wedding took place. The wedding night took place. The following morning took place and here’s Jacob to his surprise finding that it’s not his wife Rebekah that is in the bed next to him. It is her sister Leah that is in bed next to him, and he has consummated a marriage with Rebekah’s sister Leah which is an awful trick. So, Jacob confronts the issue and Laban’s like yeah, yeah, yeah. Well we, you know, first daughters get married first and then second daughters. So, you had to marry the first daughter first to get the second one. We’ll give her to you, and you just need to agree for seven more years and then you will have both of them as your wives. You can imagine the tension that that’s going to cause in this household. Two sisters married to the same man. I mean sisters living in the same house, right, forever, there’s going to be conflict. So, two sisters sharing the same man, this is the recipe for a bunch of problems. And..and…and to compound the issue Jacob does marry Rebekah. So, he’s married to Rebekah and Leah and Rebekah can’t get pregnant. And, so, she is the beloved wife. Rebekah is loved by Jacob, but Leah can carry on the family line. So, she’s actually having children in hopes of the affection and love of her husband. And she has several children today - Ruben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. And if you’ve ever been around the Old Testament, been around the Bible that much, those are familiar names. We don’t always know them as babies who are firstborn. We know them as tribes. These are names of the tribes of Israel, because Jacob’s name is going to be changed to Israel and these are his kids. The children of Israel. That’s important to know because the children of Israel are the rest of the story. And we’ve met the first four of them and we’ve discovered that the first four of them come from a wife of Israel, of Jacob, that he doesn’t really love. He loves Rebekah. And, so, we’re seeing this family form that will be the tribes of Israel in a very human very drama filled way. But this is the story of God’s people.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus moving about the countryside revealing the news of the kingdom of God and performing miraculous signs. And we get a glimpse of some of the repercussions. Some of these stores that we’re going through, these are stories that we get to revisit. And, so, we get to take…we get to talk about them from different angles as we go through, but we’re just watching now the repercussions of Jesus showing up on the scene. We’re seeing the people’s hearts come alive with hope everywhere Jesus goes, and people are beginning to flock to Jesus for…for healing and restoration. And then we see in today’s reading that what Jesus is doing is causing disruption among the clergy, among these spiritual leaders, among the scribes and Pharisees and teachers of religious law. Because we saw this kind of venom laced quotation from the Pharisees today in response to Jesus restoring people. The Pharisees said it is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons. So, like, in other words, Jesus is using the dark forces of evil to perform these signs of casting away evil. It’s just all black magic. So, in a very real way, they are labeling what God is doing as evil. The people who are leading the people in the worship of God and the traditions of the faith, the people that are there to reveal God are missing the fact that God is standing in front of them. And not just missing it but labeling it evil. They don’t understand what’s going on here. They see that it is drawing a crowd. There is likely envy involved. But also like, what happens if this is left unchecked? Like, the reality is, God was doing a new thing and not just a new thing but had come in person to do this new thing. And the people who…who should have seen it first, should’ve understood it first mislabeled it, of the devil, the prince of demons. And we can easily go, well they are just stupid Pharisees. But these people were not stupid. They are highly highly trained people. It doesn’t really all start to connect. We can just easily go, well…the religious people were jealous of Jesus, and they just continue to plot against Him until they could finally assassinate Him. But it really becomes immediate when we start to consider the…to…to consider the ways that we extend our judgment against things that we don’t understand. That we can super easily talk about something being of the devil when it may or may not be. More than likely, we don’t understand. It’s working against something in us that makes us uncomfortable. We’re…we’re watching right now the people of God miss the fact that God is among them. Do we miss that still? And we need to look inside at how were labeling things.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into that. We think that we know more than we do. And often when we get disrupted, we think we’ve gotta defend You as if You are not the Almighty God. Somehow our words and our theological framework is gonna save the day and keep You on the throne somehow, when really we’re just wrestling with our own insecurities. And, so, we invite You Holy Spirit into the depths of our soul speaking truth to who we are and who You are. And may we rest in that. And may we be openhanded in seeing what You are doing in the world whether we understand it or not. May we recognize the advancement and the revealing of Your kingdom and Your love for the people of the earth in the way that You have loved us. And may we be sensitive and careful in listening to Your Holy Spirit before we…before we attach labels to things so that we can just dismiss them and not have to deal with it. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today on Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Coming soon… It’s a travel day to Nicaragua today. Please keep the team in your thoughts and prayers. Jesus thank You for safe travel as the team flies in and thank You Jesus for Your hand on every detail of the mission. We love and praise You Father. You are the great I AM and we worship and praise You. The breath we breathe is Yours Lord. You are great! You know each of us…all of us. You created us to love and serve others for Your name’s sake Lord and that’s our prayer Father, that we glorify You on all we do…in our thoughts, words and deeds. Thank You Father for Your love, mercy, and grace. We love You. Lead us into all truth Father. Amen!