Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt . . .

"I am God, the God of your father, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again."

When I read this communication from God to Israel I felt like I had never read it before. We focus on the story of Exodus so much--the "let my people go" part--that we forget that God actually sent his people TO Egypt--they were not carried off into captivity.

God's disfunctional family . . .

Jacob and Esau play out all the aspects of a disfunctional family. Dad loves one, Mom loves the other, jealousy reigns, revenge results. If we don't believe that humans are sinful--we are not reading the Bible very carefully. Yes, Lavon, many of these stories are really too "R-rated" for Sunday School children. I do think that, however, that as soon as our youth are able to watch more than "the disney channel" they should be taught the real story of the Bible.

Sarai figures out a way to make God's promises come true . . .

Everytime I read this part of Genesis I hope for a different outcome--I hope that Sarah and Abraham will not follow the world's ways and will allow God's promise of heirs to come true by God's actions not human means. But--they fail. It never ceases to amaze me how the patriarchs of the faith were so "human" in their actions--just like us.

Out of Ur . . .

I'm amazed at how many times God has made a covenant with people--just in the first 15 chapters. John Stott begins his book "Basic Christianity" with these two paragraphs:

In the beginning God--the first four words of the Bible are more than an introduction to the creation story or to the book of Genesis. They supply the key which opens our understanding to the Bible as a whole. They tell us that the religion of the Bible is a religion of the the initiative of God.

You can never take God by surprise. You can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always there 'in the beginning.' Before man existed, God acted. Before man stirs himself to seek God, God sought man. In the Bible we do not see man groping after God; we see God reaching after man.

January reading plan

in case you need it here's the reading plan for January

In the beginning . . .

Genesis--God's story begins.

the introduction to the version of the Bible I've chosen starts with these words:

"The First Testament (commonly referred to as the Old Testament) is a collection of books that constitutes the first three-quarters of the Bible. It begins a story that is completed in the last quarter of the Bible, in the books of the New Testament. It tells first how God created a world of beauty and harmony and made people--creative, relational beings like himself--to care for this world and develop its potential. Next, it tells how people disastrously turned away from God, and then describes how, ever since, God has been working to bring them back."

Is reading the Bible as God's story meaningful to you?
Do you like the term "First Testament" instead of "Old Testament"?

Seven Principles for Biblical Interpretation--No. 1

Recognize that Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, is the center of Scripture. The Bible is not about everything. It is about Jesus Christ. It tells us the story of salvation and the life of faith. The Bible is a book that tells one unified story: the saving grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ (sometimes referred to as "the gospel")

based on: Presbyterian Understanding and Use of the Holy Scripture--adopted by the PC(USA) 1983.