The many rises and falls of Joseph, the 11th and favored son of Jacob, is a compelling narrative of broken family systems, personal tragedy and the hopeless circumstances of slavery and prison. But the writer of Genesis records, The LORD was with Joseph. What difference does God’s “With”-ness make? For Joseph, as with for us, […]

The story of Jacob’s life is the longest of the patriarch’s of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet Jacob’s life is filled with downs and ups, but more downs. He is a deceiver and schemer, he lies and steals, and he deals with consequences. He wrestles with everyone for what he wants–with his brother for supremacy, […]

After stealing The Blessing & Birthright from his brother Esau, Jacob is forced to flee from his family to the land of Haran. On his way, he stops in a “certain place,” and with a stone for his pillow, he falls asleep and has a dream. He dreams of a wide stairway up to the […]

Jacob is the son of Isaac that God has chosen to carry on his plan of salvation in the line of Abraham until the one who would crush the serpents head once and for all. But neither Jacob, nor his plotting mother Rebekah, seem concerned with the Covenant Promises when they make a plan to […]

Trusting in God to provide, very late in his life, Abraham calls his servant to go to the land of his kinsman to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant goes, faithfully obeying Abraham and fully trusting the Lord to provide. And at a well, the scene of Ancient Near Eastern betrothal narratives, […]

Abraham had waited his whole life for a son. At 100 he has Isaac, the son of the promises.  But then God calls him to an unthinkable act of obedience – to offer his son as a sacrifice. Abraham obeys, he is willing to offer even his son to the Lord. But the Lord stays […]

Abram is 99 years old, without a son, and it has been years since the Lord spoke to him. But God Almighty shows up to reaffirm his Covenant–renaming Abraham: father of a multitude, i.e. the one through whom God’s plan of salvation would extend to the world. But in reaffirming his Covenant he also calls […]

Sarai and Abram are very old and have no children, but God promised Abram a son. So Sarai suggests Hagar, her servant, might be the one to give birth to son; after all, it was normal to do this in the Ancient Near eastern society. But this was not God’s plan nor his purposes for […]

God’s Covenant with Abram (Abraham) is central to God’s redemptive plans in the Bible and history. God chooses a person, whom he will bless and through whom God’s blessing of salvation will reach all peoples. God calls Abram to leave his father’s house and homeland. Abram leaves. But the promises of God seem unfulfilled. Yet […]

After the flood and God’s renewal of creation in his covenant with Noah, humanity again fell away, rejecting God and seeking to build their own name apart from God. In the building of the Tower of Babel, human hubris climaxes and God’s judgment is brought – the scattering of languages and humanity. But even in […]