Skip to main content

Jacob to Israel

Genesis chapter 35 is interesting. God moves Jacob from Shechem to Bethel. He also changes his name from Jacob to Israel. God reiterates the Abrahamic covenant and protects Jacob as he makes his move. 

What I see as interesting is the amount of time that God spends with this weird man called Jacob. Just the chapter before this one two of Jacob's son murder all the men in a village. Then just after God tells him that he is going to be moving, Jacob cleans house of all of the foreign gods that his family has accumulated. What? How was that? 

This guy, one of the Patriarcal leaders, is a real piece of work. The phrase, How odd of God to choose the Jews, comes to mind. 

Yet we see God, time and again, working with the Jews. They are always doing the wrong thing and God gives them another opportunity to do right. This whole scenario kind of reminds me of me. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daughter and dog...

About six months ago we discovered that Ann was pregnant and were very excited for she and Jackson. We will have babies on this side and that of the Atlantic. We weren't prepared for that news and we we were even less prepared for the news that our little dog is pregnant. To date we have spent more on the dog than on Annie (don't tell her... Ann that is). Ann has yet to discover whether her baby is a boy or girl. Both ultrasound images were inconclusive. Though I did some further investigation of my own and was startled with what I found. to me it looks as if the baby is definitely a boy and has some resemblance from both sides of the family. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.
3 comments
Read more

Entertaining Angels

Hebrews 13:1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hospitality is a gift. It can also be a learned trait. Some people seem as if having strangers in their homes is normal and natural. Others have to fight against themselves in order to have friends over for a meal.  The author of Hebrews says that some have entertained angels when they thought that they were helping a stranger. That's weird. This statement brings questions to mind. Do angels eat? Of course, silly, they eat angel food cake!  Seriously, who in the Bible entertained angels by accident? Well, how about Abraham, Lot or Jacob? Granted, Jacob's treatment of the Angel of the Lord was questionable. But he did wrestle the night away, when in fact that angel could have dislocated Jacob's hip early in the match.  Abraham, read Sarah, prepared a big meal and Lot had to offer ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Twenty Buck Challenge

Well I went and done it! That's bad grammar I know. But I done it anyway. We've been having a Bible study with Esmano and Genesie and their two kids Jennifer and Jadson, for about seven weeks now. This week Jennifer threw out a challenge. "Let's memorize a verse!" I thought that was a great idea. I told them that if they did memorize the verse that I would give them each an American coin. Esmano, their dad usually sits in on the study but he hasn't really been a part of it. When I mentioned the coin idea his eyes lit up a little. I then reached into my wallet and said, "If YOU memorize that verse I'll give you $20 bucks! His eyes really lit up then! Was it a good idea? I doubt it. No one has ever offered me money for memorizing verses. However, this will be the first verse that this man has ever memorized. If he does it. It is not a conventional way of doing memory work and it could cost me a bill for nothing. But if God uses this simple chall...
3 comments
Read more