I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 29-30.

Laban did his daughter Leah no favors by tricking Jacob into marrying her.  Perhaps things would have gone better if he had negotiated with Jacob from the beginning for Jacob to marry both of his daughters, but I get the impression that Laban was one of those people who always try to get one over on others.  We see the same sort of behavior on Laban’s part when he negotiated for Jacob to get the speckled, spotted sheep and goats, and black goats as his own.  As soon as they had struck this deal, Laban had all of the sheep that met the criteria removed from the flocks managed by Jacob.  However, Jacob knew a trick to increase the likelihood of sheep and goats being born which met the criteria to be his.  We know that the trick described would not have the results described, at least not for the original herd which had no speckled or spotted sheep.  But the people who passed this story down were shepherds, so they would have know that as well.  Perhaps there was a little more to Jacob’s trick then described here.  Or perhaps, in the course of time as the normal distribution resulted in a limited number of speckled and spotted animals it increased the likelihood of other animals breeding with them.  In any case, Laban cheated Jacob in both of the deals they made.  I like to think that Jacob’s experience with Laban  caused him to be less of a cheater going forward.  Jacob’s trick with the animals, assuming it was not just the hand of God which enlarged his flock, was underhanded, but did not go against that to which he had agreed.  In both the case of giving Leah to Jacob to be his wife and in removing certain animals from the flocks Jacob tended, Laban broke the agreement he had made.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 26-28.

It struck me today as I compared what happened when Isaac said that Rebekah was his sister rather than his wife to when Abram did the same with Sarai that what happened in Egypt differed from what happened in Philistia.  In Egypt, God sent plagues upon the Pharaoh and his household.  In Philistia, God merely appeared to the first Abimelech when he took Sarai to be his wife.  The second Abimelech realized that Rebekah was Isaac’s wife before anyone did anything.  The thing of interest being that the Philistines recognized the sin of taking another man’s wife to bed, while the Egyptians only responded to the consequences.  The second Abimelech saw value in allying with Isaac.  Initially, he thought that Isaac would assimilate into the population and increase his own wealth.  When Abimelech realized that Isaac would not assimilate and had become powerful enough to be competition, he asked Isaac to move on.  Nevertheless, once Isaac had moved far enough to not be competition to his own power, Abimelech made a treaty with Isaac, just as the previous Abimelech had done with Abraham.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 24-25.

I find it interesting that Abraham wanted his son Isaac to marry a woman from his homeland, just as later Isaac sent Jacob there to find a wife.  However, I want to highlight today that Abraham insisted that under no circumstances should Isaac return to Abraham’s homeland in order to get a wife there.  Abraham insisted that the woman to be Isaac’s wife must come to the land of Canaan.  Then when Abraham’s servant found Rebekah, not only was she willing to travel to the land of Canaan to marry Isaac, she was eager to be on her way.  While I am sure that the story that Abraham’s servant told about how God answered his prayer played a role in Rebekah’s willingness to pick up and leave her home to marry a man she had never met, it seems to me that she also had a strong desire to leave her family behind.  I could speculate on her reasons, but what I really want to point out is that God had prepared her to go.  Something about her circumstances with her family made her eager to move on when God asked her to do so.  In the same way, God will prepare us to move on when that is His plan for us.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 21-23.

We often read the story of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away by Abraham as if Ishmael was a little boy.  In fact, Ishmael was a young man by this point.  He was 14 when Isaac was born and it was several years later when he was sent away by his father.  In fact, it seems likely that Hagar ran out of water because she was unwilling to take directions from her son.  As I read this story, Hagar wandered in the wilderness, refusing to listen to her son about where to go, until they ran out of water.  At which point, God opened her eyes to the good advice Ishmael had been giving her and she was willing to allow him to begin providing for the two of them.  As long as Hagar viewed Ishmael as a little boy who she needed to take care of she would not allow him to care for himself, and her, as he was capable of doing.  Many parents make this same mistake.

I have previously spent time looking closely at the story of Abraham taking Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice to God.  This story serves a very important purpose.  It communicates that while those who devote themselves to God are willing to sacrifice their children to serve Him, He rejects such sacrifices.  The people around Abraham, and later around his descendants, considered child sacrifice an integral part of their worship.  God made it clear that such sacrifice was not something of which He approved.  Further, this story is not just about the sacrifice of children by killing them.  It also means that we should not sacrifice the time we should spend with our children in order to “serve” God.  Children need their parents and their needs should come before the needs of our jobs, or even the needs of the Church. 

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 19-20.

When God’s angels arrived in Sodom, Lot immediately invited them to stay at his house.  When they demurred by saying that they would just stay in the town square for the night and be on their way in the morning, Lot refused to take “No” for an answer.  That exchange suggests to me that Lot know that the men of Sodom would abuse strangers who spent the night in the town square.  Then when the men of Sodom came to Lot’s door demanding that Lot turn his guests over to them so that they could rape them, Lot tried to convince them to leave the angels alone because they were his guests.  The response of the men of Sodom was to threaten Lot and to complain that he was judging them.  I find that interesting because Lot did not tell them not to abuse the strangers because it was wrong, but because they were under his protection.  That suggests to me that Lot had previously spoken out against abusing visitors who spent the night in the town square and been told they were fair game.  The fact that he extended his protection to strangers who would have otherwise been vulnerable meant that he was judging those who wished to take advantage of those strangers. 

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 16-18.

There are several lessons to be learned from the story of Ishmael’s birth.  One of them concerns faith.  Abram and Sarai are held up for us as examples of people of great faith.  Yet, in this story, Sarai chose to give her maid servant to Abram so that he could have a son by her in order to fulfill God’s promise to Abram…and Abram agreed with her offer.  This in itself teaches us two lessons.  One, we do not need to figure our how to make God’s plan work, He already knows what is needed.  Two, even people of great faith sometimes have moments of doubt.

Ordinarily I try to avoid going over a lesson from a passage which I know I went over previously on this particular passage, but I think the lesson from the Lord’s discussion with Abraham about Sodom is worth reminding ourselves of every chance we get.  In a way, this story is a precursor to what Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven being like yeast.  Both this story and Jesus’ parable about yeast tell us that we as Christians have failed in Western Civilization.  If there had been as few as 10 righteous people in Sodom the city would not have been so wicked that God found it necessary to destroy it.  There will always be wickedness around us as long as we are in this world.  But, if we truly express God’s love in our lives, others will feel that love and show it to others around them, even if they continue to reject God.  If we remember that evil is the absence of good and that good drives out evil in the same way that light drives out darkness, we will see how this works.   As we do good there is that much less space around us for evil.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 12-15.

Last year when I read this passage I commented about the fact that Abraham’s father left Ur on his way to Canaan, but never got further than Haran.  When I did so I began exploring the idea of looking at the Genesis accounts as  true from a secular perspective.  One might wonder what led Terah to leave Ur, and Abraham some years later to leave Haran.  As I noted then, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which contains an account very similar to the account of Noah and the Flood, appeared in Ur about the time that Terah and Abraham left that city.  If those ruling Ur had begun using a retelling of the Flood story to consolidate their power (which appears to have been at least one of the purposes of the Epic of Gilgamesh), they would have made life very uncomfortable for anyone believing the original story.

I find several aspects of today’s passage interesting.  Today I want to look at the major changes in Abram’s fortune over the course of today’s passage.  Early on, when Abraham went to Egypt he was worried that the rulers there would have him killed so that they could take his wife.  Later, when the king of Elam, who was powerful enough to demand tribute from most of the cities in the area, sacked Sodom and took Lot captive, Abraham put together an alliance, tracked down the forces of the King of Elam, freed the captives and captured the loot which Elam’s forces had acquired.  At this point, Abram was wealthy enough and powerful enough to be a player in world affairs.  Certainly part of Abram’s ability to accomplish this came from the fact that he was a nomad and did not have to protect a specific location from attack.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 8-11.

After the Flood, God made a promise to Noah that He would never again curse the ground because of mankind, that for as long as the earth continued to exist planting and harvesting would happen.  This means that I do not panic about environmental “crisis” when the press reports on the latest thing which will destroy our environment unless we take immediate action.  However, this does not mean that we can pollute at will and expect God to clean up after us.  It does mean that we have time to gather facts and do tests so as to find the best and most appropriate way to deal with environmental problems as they arise.  God’s promise means that there will be no global emergencies.  There are from time to time local emergencies.  As a practical matter, this means that if someone tells me that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase, at some point there will be problems, I believe them and think we should study ways to keep the amount of CO2 from reaching the problem level.  However, if someone tells me that if people don’t immediately reduce the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere we are all going to die, I dismiss them as crackpots who are trying to con people,  My faith means that while it is sometimes necessary to swerve to avoid the sudden appearance of an obstacle, major course corrections should be taken deliberately and only after careful thought.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 4-7.

Before I continue with what my thought experiment means for understanding this passage there is something important I want to point out, actually two things.  At harvest time, Cain presented some of what he had harvested as an offering to God, while Abel presented the best portions of the firstborn lambs.  Cain then got upset because God was more pleased with Abel’s offering.  Why was God more pleased with Abel’s offering?  The passage does not make it clear, but I believe the difference was that Cain just offered some of his harvest, while Abel offered the best of his increase.  Then, when Cain was angry, God gave Cain a piece of advice we should follow ourselves.  If we do what is right we will be accepted by God.  As importantly, if we do not do what is right it will leave time for us to do what is wrong.  Let us fill our time doing what is right so that we do not have time to sin.

Now continuing my thought experiment, although now I will extend it to the idea that for the most part the Bible is true.  So, if the Bible is true, the flood story is true.  Which would mean that everything we know about what happened before that comes through Noah and his family.  It would also mean that the our oldest common male ancestor can be no further back than Noah, while our oldest common female ancestor could be Eve.   Interestingly enough, modern genetic science posits that the common male ancestor of all living humans was significantly more recent than the common female ancestor of all living humans.  I also find this interesting.  God had already established a list of animals which were the only ones approved for human consumption.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 1-3.

And a new year begins.  I want to begin with a thought experiment I have referred to parts of from time to time.  Let us assume that God as described in the Old Testament exists (I may talk about if and how the New Testament changes our understanding of God later).  So, this God created the Universe and everything in it and takes a personal interest in humans.  And that interest is not just in humans in general, or just a few humans, but each and every human.  I will expand on this as we go along (unless God directs my thoughts in another direction).

Which brings us to my understanding of today’s passage and what I think it means for us.  Part of the above assumption means that God could communicate to humans what happened that they had not witnessed.  However, nothing in my understanding of God suggests that He had any reason for humans to know in detail what happened before He created them.  So, there is no reason to expect that the description of what happened before the creation of human beings is correct in the details.  But there are a couple of things to take from it.  Entropy and death happen because of mankind’s sin.  And what was that sin?  The desire to know the difference between good and evil so as to be like God.  Ultimately all sins come down to attempts to substitute ourselves, or our desires. for God.