Reading the Bible is unlike any other book for a multitude of reasons, but in one way that is so fascinating is how with each reading the Holy Spirit impresses a new emphasis.
Normally when I read Genesis 18 I focus on Sarah laughing or Abraham “bargaining” with God for Sodom–at least that is what the notes in my margins all tell me have been on my mind in the past.
But this time I thought about Abraham’s hospitality. This was an expectation of their culture, but there is a reason. The bedouin culture understood the value of hospitality and sharing a meal with another.
Recently we had a church meeting with some of our leaders and we decided to host it at our house. We provided food . . . my wife or I did not go and kill a calf . . . we catered Chipotle . . . but still, the meeting was different because before we got to business people took off their coats, some took off their shoes, and they sat together and ate.
It made me want to have a meal around every meeting . . .
I don’t know that we could afford that, but I do think we’ll do it more often than we have in the past.
Show hospitality, eat with people.
These aspects of human, and even in the case of Abraham, divine relationships seem to be very important in the Bible!
The focus of this chapter is the covenant of circumcision.
But what jumped out at me, were the names.
Abram to Abraham.
Sarai to Sarah.
The name of the unborn Isaac, to remind Abraham that he laughed at God’s promise.
And my favorite of all, El Shaddai. Our English Bibles translate this, “God almighty,” but it is the name God gives to Himself,
“I am El Shaddai”
El is the term for God and Shaddai is often viewed as a translation for all powerful —
but there is also “the suggestion that Shaddai is a composite term of
Van Groningen, G. (1988). God, Names Of. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 882). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.sha (“the one who”) and dai (“is sufficient”). The later Greek versions have adopted this meaning.”
Sarai and Abram who could not have
Sarah and Abraham because God is sufficient to make a great nation out of the infertile–where there is nothing, God is sufficient to make something.
Proverbs 30:21-23 states,
21 Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: 22 a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food; 23 an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Pr 30:21–23). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
We see Abram’s earth begin to tremble when the latter of the above becomes Hagar and Sarai’s reality.
Abram has shown moments of great faith and he will continue to, but he has also shown moments of great timidity and he will continue to do this also.
It is evidence that overcoming our character flaws is not the work of single moment, but the work of a lifetime . . .
As one with greater insight than I wrote,
Sanctification is not the work of a moment, an hour, a day, but of a lifetime.
White, E. G. (1911). The Acts of the Apostles. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 560.
Abram let’s Sarai rule the day in every part of this chapter. She recommends he sleep with her servant to get a child. He acquiesces–it might have been a little more intentional than acquiescing.
Sarai then gets mad at Hagar and when she asks Abram to do something about it, his response,
“Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ge 16:6). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
“Hey, I only slept with her and now she’s carrying my child, but what business is it of mine.”
Actually sounds like too many modern men that impregnate women.
It’s your body, I don’t want anything to do with it . . . it is not my problem.
Abram still a work in progress . . .
Praise God for grace!
If a person believes in the authority of scripture, they cannot read Genesis 11 and not recognize that sometimes God allows or even does things that will make us unhappy in order to protect us.
The first 9 verses of Genesis 11 tell the story of the tower of Babel and what jumps out at me is God was willing to upset a lot of folk and give them a level of unhappiness and frustration in order to save humanity.
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord
Genesis 11:5-9confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Lesson to me, to us? Don’t assume every situation in our lives that is frustrating is a.) from the devil. b.) something to be upset about. c.) something that is working against us.
The Lord confused the languages of humanity and saved us from ourselves.
Lord frustrate me I pray if it will save me!
What is the purpose and value of genealogies in the Bible (Because that is all Genesis 10 is)?
So let’s not look down on genealogies. Let us mine them and see what blessing there may be for us.
“The rainbow is a promise in the sky . . . ” is the opening line to a song written by Chuck Fulmore and performed by his trio.
I loved singing this song when I was a kid growing up, and have renewed the joy as I sing along now with my three sons.
We can read about the origin of the rainbow and it’s meaning in Genesis 9,
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbowappears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
Genesis 9:12-17
It is the only visual symbol of a promise that God Himself gave to humanity for all eternity. The cross is a modern-day symbol, but we created that symbol, The Lord never told us to look upon the cross and remember anything. But God did tell us that every time we see a rainbow it should remind us of ONE thing, His covenant with humanity after the flood.
It is not politically correct to say, but I will say it; I am saddened that the promise of God is not the only thing thought about when one looks upon the rainbow.
One day when one of my sons points out the pretty rainbow flag he sees flying, I’ll have to tell him it is not flying to symbolize what we’ve sung about all these years, God’s covenant with all life.
“The rainbow is a promise for you and me, there’ll never be another flood throughout eternity. ‘Till Jesus comes to take us home with Him to be, the rainbow is a promise for you and me.”