Genesis 31-35 In the Word
This week we have a particularly apt set of chapters to consider and hear God's voice loud and clear on a number of topics. Highlights and lowlights. As we read the Bible, and as we live life, it is essential to ask good questions. Good questions help reveal our needs, open up opportunities for next steps, create bridges for shared relationships, expose malicious evil, and provide a foundation for ongoing relationships. Jesus asked lots of questions. I trust as we are reading about the earthly human ancestors of Jesus in the book of Genesis, we are learning to ask good questions and in so doing, becoming more Christ-like.
As we ask each week about humanity, we learn that humans often ask questions during pivotal moments of pressure. Laben asked Jacob a series of questions after Jacob fled with his flocks and family (Genesis 31). After having his hip put out of socket, Jacob is given a new name; Israel. Jacob, freshly named Israel (which means one who strives with God) asked his formidable wrestling opponent “please, tell me your name” (Genesis 32:29). As Jacob and his family approached Esau with wave after wave of gifts offered, Esau embraced Jacob, kissed him and wept with his long-estranged brother. Looking up and seeing all the wives and children of Jacob Esau asked “who are all these with you?” (Genesis 33:5). Simeon and Levi, after murdering, kidnapping, and robbing the city of Shechem in revenge for the treatment of their sister Dinah ask their father Jacob as a defense of their actions “should [Hamor] have treated our sister like a prostitute?” (Genesis 34:31).
In reading these chapters I can’t help but wonder; if our own lives were recorded for the benefit of future generations, what questions have we asked, or been asked, that would showcase the pivotal moments of our lives? Would those moments, and questions, be defensive, inquisitive, motivated by fury, or motivated by faith? We all have moments that are highlights, and lowlights in life. I both laugh with joy and blush with horror to think back at the highlights, and lowlights of my own life. I don’t think I’m alone in that strange mixed sense of delight and despair when examining my own past.
The fact that the Bible speaks with such vivid and often gruesome accounts of family infighting, murderous vengeance, sexual abuse, and depravity gives us an authentic, unfiltered, true account of humanity’s spiritual bankruptcy. Thankfully, the Bible isn’t only concerned with the sin-stained stories of wicked humanity. The Bible is God’s Word to us, both to warn us of our spiritual doom, and to win us to new lives through faith in Jesus Christ.
Our readings this week end with God’s command to Jacob, almost by way of reminder, to return to Bethel, where Jacob had slept on a pillow of rock so many years before and seen the ladder into heaven (Genesis 28). In the return trip to Bethel, we’re told of God appearing again to Jacob, confirming his new name as Israel, and extending the promises God had made to Abraham and Isaac to Jacob and his future descendants. Apart from faith in God, humanity has been thoroughly showcased in these chapters as utterly doomed. Despite our abysmally sinful human condition, God is gracious, merciful, loving, and kind. What a mighty God is
our God!
