Wait a minute—Isaac notices a red flag. They have the sacrificial knife, the coals for a new fire, and the wood, but there is no animal for the slaughter. As Han Solo would say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” and Isaac is finally alone with his father and able to ask the question his father doesn’t want to answer.

Last time we were with Abraham, he had a terrible decision to make. Was he going to sacrifice Isaac in the Land of Moriah or was he going to refuse, or at least argue with God about it? Abraham's response is even more confusing than God's request--absolutely nothing for three whole days. We are starting to see hints about Jesus in this story, and so we will talk about the "type" of Isaac and the "antitype" of Jesus both carrying wood on their backs.

So, this year, I want to talk about Advent, which is a season on a lot of liturgical calendars but is often misunderstood as being another name for Christmas--which it isn't. Advent is a word meaning "the arrival of an important person or event" and because Advent almost always (but not this year) overlaps with Hannukah and many scholars believe Jesus was conceived in the winter and born during the Fall Festivals, I would like to think that the Light of the World was indeed conceived during Hannukah, beginning a nine-month season of waiting with anticipation for His birth for Mary and ourselves looking even more forward to His second coming.  Let's tell a "what if" story based on the Gospel of Luke to see what the beginning of Mary's wait might have looked like.

This week we are looking at the difference between being sad and being ungrateful. I am also talking to the kids about why Jesus was all He had to be and how anything less wouldn’t have been enough to save us.

Transcript: https://contextforkids.com/2024/11/26/episode-160-thankfulness-and-the-dayenu-of-jesus/

This week, we are beginning the last chapter of Torah Portion Vayers, where God says something shocking to Abraham in order to test him.

Genesis 12 begins next week and we have two more things we need to learn before that. First of all, we are going to talk theology with typology, which is a fun and clever way to discover clues about Jesus all the way through the entire Bible. Then we get serious and talk about human sacrifice but don’t worry--I am not going to be gross about it.

To better understand the Akeida in Genesis 22, we need to have some background on the olah offering—also translated as the whole burnt offering or ascending offering. What was it? How was it different from other sacrifices? Why did they believe that God needed smoke in order to smell it? This lesson is going to give us a lot of ancient Near Eastern context!

Transcript: https://contextforkids.com/2024/10/31/episode-157-what-is-an-olah-offering/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ad-8iFZnUpI

Oh my gosh, we start Genesis 22 in two weeks and can you believe it? The Bible hasn’t mentioned love even once! Is that a problem? Not really. Love will be mentioned for the first time in chapter 22. And it isn’t even God’s love. This week we will talk about how God has been showing His love and faithfulness and loyalty in a lot of ways even though the word isn’t mentioned—and when we really want to see God’s love in action, there is no better lesson than the life of Jesus.

Wow, here we are at the end of Genesis chapter twenty-one at last! Before taking a break for the Fall Festivals, we’re going to look at the consequences of not being trusted as well as not being trustworthy—as both Abraham and Abimelech know very well. And we’ll be talking about sheep, wells, and planting trees in the middle of the desert!

Oh man, I hate this portion of the Bible. It’s so messy and sad and frustrating. Abraham is upset about Sarah wanting Ishmael gone forever—I mean, of course he is! God hasn’t chimed in but when He does, it’s shocking so we will need to get an explanation. God isn’t done with Hagar or Ishmael yet, and Hagar is going to get one more visit before she exits the Biblical account of her life.