Posts that reference the book of Genesis

No More Wall

If you’re as old as I am, you can remember a time when Berlin was divided into East and West by a concrete wall. A few weeks ago, I read that not long after the wall went up, psychiatrists in East Berlin began to see a marked increase in depression, rage, and even addictions. They determined that the only cure for this “Wall Disease” was to bring the wall down. In 1989, jubilant crowds, some with sledgehammers in hand, broke down the wall amid wild celebrations that they were no longer cut off, no longer denied access.

If you’ve ever seen pictures or video from that event, it’s hard not to be touched by the people experiencing not only the rush of political freedom, but emotional freedom as well. I think one reason it connects so deeply with us is that we as believers can relate on an eternal scale.

A very long time ago, in a Garden, a wall of sorts went up. It wasn’t made of concrete, but it was far more formidable. Genesis 3:24 says because of man’s sin, he was driven from the Garden, and God placed an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance to Eden, denying man access to God’s presence. The whole human race has suffered since then.

Hundreds of years later, that separation was reiterated when God gave Moses the design for the tabernacle with its Holy of Holies. There was no wall exactly, but ordinary people had no access to God, and the High Priest was afforded such a privilege only under extremely limited circumstances. The Temple followed that model as well, and for hundreds of years, man was cut off from God’s presence. Separated.

But God would not allow that separation to be the last word.

In Matthew 27:51 is one of my favorite parts of the crucifixion story. “Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom…”

With Christ’s death, the wall that cut us off from God, from his glory, from His presence came down. Christ restored our access and He set us free. Eternally, spiritually free.

More Amazing than the Stars

By Paula

More Amazing that the Stars title graphic

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. Genesis 1:16

He made the stars also.

It reads almost like an afterthought.

The beauty and the wonder of the stars stretch out before us every evening.

We are awed by brilliant colors captured in the breathtaking telescope pictures.

We gaze up at the vast expanses and feel small, insignificant and unseen.

But the billions of stars hung across the incomprehensible distances of space are counted as a small detail in the creation account.

Not so with human beings.

We were made in God’s image. Lovingly fashioned by His very hands. Infused with the breath of God.

Amazing.

Into the Wilderness: Restoration

By Paula

For the LORD will restore the excellence of Jacob Nahum 2:2a

A wilderness is anywhere that’s uncultivated, uninhabited or undisturbed by human activity. Metaphorically it is a bewildering situation. As it turns out, Scripture has a lot to say about the wilderness and what happens there. For some a lot of wandering happens. For others, like Elijah, transition to the next thing begins in the wilderness. Sometimes, like with Jacob, a time alone and separated can bring restoration.

You can read the details of Jacob’s life beginning in Genesis 25. You’re probably familiar with the major events. Jacob gets the blessing and birthright from Esau in a couple of shady deals. He runs for his life to his uncle Laban’s place where he spends the next twenty years. While there, he marries two wives, takes on two concubines, has a big family, and amasses quite a fortune in livestock. He senses a shift in attitude with father-in-law/uncle the rest of the family, so he packs up and slips away.

Restoration with Laban

Laban finds out and takes out after them, catching up to Jacob and his party seven days later in the mountains of Gilead. A wilderness. The very name means raw or rugged.

In Genesis 31, Jacob and Laban had a very frank exchange. Jacob vented his anger at Laban’s taking advantage of him and his labor. But at last the two men make a covenant, the covenant of Mizpah. “May the LORD watch between you and me when we are absent one from another. Genesis 31:49. Along with that was a promise from each man never to harm the other. With the relationship restored, Laban got up the next morning, blessed his family and left.

But Jacob had more restoration ahead of him, particularly with his brother Esau. That would happen at a wilderness at Mahanaim near the Jabbok River.

Restoration with Esau

The last words Jacob had heard from his twin brother were a very angry death threat. Now as Jacob passed ever closer to Canaan, word would surely get back to Esau. Jacob made the first move and sent messengers (with lots of gifts) to Esau. Esau responds that he will come out to meet Jacob . . . With four hundred. Genesis 32:7 says Jacob was terrified and distressed by this news. Jacob makes preparations but then he prays, “Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him,” Genesis 32:11. This is the first recorded prayer for Jacob since he left home back in chapter 28. But then night falls . . .

Restoration with the covenant-keeping God

Yes, Jacob had prayed to God, but he wasn’t confident God would answer it, so he devised a plan of just how they would meet Esau and he rehearsed it with all his servants. He sent his wives on ahead with the servants and he was left alone. At night. In the wilderness.

In Genesis 32:24 he begins an all-night wrestling match with a man who was clearly more than mortal. (My son was a wrestler in high school. I can’t imagine the stamina and strength necessary to wrestle all night. And Jacob was an old guy by now.) Jacob had been wrestling, scheming, working his whole life to obtain something God, in grace, had already promised him.

The wrestling match proved that his way would never succeed. It was when Jacob let go that the blessing was pronounced. Later, in verse 30, he marvels “I have seen God’s face.” Perhaps literally, but to see His face is to have His favor. Jacob finally understood God’s covenant blessing irrevocably rested on him.

The next morning, Esau ran to meet Jacob, embraced him and the tears flowed (33:4). Jacob’s prayer was answered. The relationship was restored. The next time we see the brothers, they have come together to bury their father, Isaac in 35:29.

So after a lot of narrative, let’s look at some application. Time in the wilderness can underscore and provide the opportunity for restoration. Do we have relationships with others that need mending? What about our relationship with God? Have we paid Him lip service while wearing ourselves out trying to do everything? Are we trying to earn His blessing and His favor when He has already given it?

What needs to be restored in your wilderness time?

Jacob isn’t the only one who learned some lessons in the wilderness. Next week we’ll see more about how time in the wilderness can be a time of instruction.

Because God Sees

By Paula

Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” Genesis 16:13

I have hesitated to post the dozens of others who have suffered unjustly, not because I lack moral clarity on the issue but because first of all, I’m not sure the world needs my voice weighing in. I’m not an intellectual or a theologian. I’m not a social scientist or advocate. I’m pretty low-profile and introverted at that. Second, it is extremely easy to say things poorly and have those misunderstood. I would stop writing before I would wrongly offend or hurt someone with words.

Paul says in Colossians 4:6 “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” And in Ephesians 4:29, he says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Every post – but especially this one – is with those two admonitions firmly in mind.

You may remember the story of Hagar in Genesis 16. She was a slave who became pregnant with Abraham’s son as part of Sarah’s scheme to speed up the outworking of God’s plan. Then Hagar was mistreated and oppressed until it became unbearable and she fled into the desert. At a spring, she was met by the Angel of the Lord. As a result of the encounter, she recognized that God was the God Who Sees. El Roi.

Make no mistake, God sees oppression and mistreatment. He affirms this over and over.

Genesis 4:10 And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.
Exodus 3:9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Exodus 22:23 If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry;
Psalm 72:12 For He will deliver the needy when he cries, The poor also, and him who has no helper.

God has a heart for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the minorities. If we are the people of God, if we want a heart like God, we must have a tender heart that breaks for the mistreatment of others. We must see because God sees.

However, I think before our hearts can break, we have to shine a penetrating holy light into its dark corners. You see, the unsettling thing about the story of Hagar is that the oppressor, Sarah, and the passive enabler, Abraham … were the people of God.

So what do we do?

The pagan king in Nineveh actually said it well. He called for fasting, for mourning, and for repentance. “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. (Jonah 3:7-8)

This is not a time for pushback and self-justification. Both of those are arrogant and self-righteous. It is a time for humility and brokenness before God for the suffering of innocent people and for the overt and hidden prejudices we hold.

Then as the people of God, we have to take action toward reconciliation. Lasting reconciliation is not going to be achieved apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Racial tensions are not new. Our culture is not the first to struggle with them. In New Testament times, one marked tension was between Jews and Gentiles. Paul explains how the gospel transform those tensions.

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. (Ephesians 2:14-16)

The middle wall, the commandments and ordinances all prevented Gentiles from having full access to God’s presence, from being full participants in the system of worship. The gospel blows that apart. We are all sinners before God in need of redemption and when He saves us, we become part of the same body. That should destroy any enmity between us.

Every day, we need the transforming power of the gospel to enable us to treat everyone with dignity, with compassion and with self-sacrificing love. That is a tall order. And in our own strength, it is impossible. But as we do that difficult work, lives will be changed (including ours) cultures will be changed, God will be glorified and the kingdom will advance.

When it comes right down to it, this is not optional.

Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

May we be controlled by the love of Christ and live only for Him.

Righteousness

By Paula

And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6

Abram believed the promises of God and God accounted that belief to him as tsedaqah.

What is righteousness?
Never cheating on your taxes?
Never breaking the speed limit?
Flossing daily?

Well, those are a kind of righteousness.
We conform to the law, the legal standards, so we are “righteous” in a sense.

But God didn’t say, “Abram followed the rules and that was accounted to him as righteousness.”

The Hebrews thought of righteousness not so much as what GOD is, like we do
But more of what He DOES to fulfill His promises, His covenant with us.
This pronouncement of Abram’s righteousness comes in connection with the covenant God made with Him.

Job asked the question, “How then can man be righteous before God?” (Job 25:4)
We aren’t Hebrew. What covenant do we fall back on?
What about the covenant in John 3:16?

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

We believe Jesus died for our sins. We believe that means we will receive eternal life. We believe that promise God made.
So as a result.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21

And God accounts that to us as righteousness.
Not what we do, what we believe.

Just like Abram.

A Study in Contrasts: Noah

By Paula

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:8

Writing, editing, and teaching I work with words all the time. One of the smallest words we encounter regularly is the conjunction “but.” You may remember from beginning grammar that conjunctions are words that connect words or ideas. “But” is the conjunction that joins contrasting ideas. When “but” appears in Scripture, it highlights something God wants us to notice, to learn from. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at some of these contrasts.

First up is Noah.

You’ve, no doubt, heard the story many times. Man, although created perfect, by Noah’s time had descended into utter depravity. The culture was godless. In verse 5, the account says that everything people thought, their every imagination was “totally and consistently evil.” (NLT) For a people heaping judgment upon themselves, God decided it was time to cut things off, to destroy the people He had made. Everyone was facing judgment.

Everyone, but Noah.

In contrast:
Noah found grace. Some versions use the word favor. It is the same Hebrew word used when Esther petitions the king of Persia. “If I have found favor in your sight…” Esther 8:5.

Was it a random choice that God made? Not at all. Noah was different. What set him apart?

Noah was righteous. He was blameless, and he “walked in close fellowship with God.” (6:9 NLT)

Stop and think about the magnitude of the choice that Noah made. He was the only righteous man on earth in his day. The only one.

Now the lesson, the application, is plain. We have a choice to make similar to Noah. While our times and our society are growing more hostile to God and to His morals, we aren’t quite as far gone as in Noah’s day. People still rescue puppies and kittens, they give blood, they donate when there’s a disaster. But godliness is quickly losing ground. We may not be the last righteous person on earth, but we may be the only believer in the office where we work, or on our block, or in a college class, or on our team. We can choose to follow the culture, or we can choose to follow God.

We can choose righteousness. We can actively choose to act in a way that imitates God, that follows the standards He set out in His word. We can imitate Christ in every facet of our lives.

We can be blameless. This has to do with our relationships with others. We can interact with others with kindness and compassion. We can choose to be positive. We can see the good. We can be diligent and herd-working.

We can have close fellowship with God. We pray, study and worship daily, multiple times each day.

Paul may have had Noah in mind when he encouraged his friends in Philippi “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Philippians 2:14-15

Be a light. Be a Noah.

Next week: The Canaanites.

No More Wall

More Amazing than the Stars

Into the Wilderness: Restoration

Restoration with Laban

Restoration with Esau

Restoration with the covenant-keeping God

Because God Sees

Make no mistake, God sees oppression and mistreatment. He affirms this over and over.

So what do we do?

When it comes right down to it, this is not optional.

Righteousness

A Study in Contrasts: Noah

First up is Noah.

Everyone, but Noah.

Be a light. Be a Noah.

Encounters Series

Covenant of Trust Series

Foundations Series