God appears to Abram for the first time in twenty-four years (I am not counting the vision appearance of the Word of the Lord in Gen 15), introduces Himself by a new mysterious name, promises a new covenant, and gives Abram a new command!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ifm-4Uo4whI

Sorry, parents--but in order to teach Genesis 17, we can’t avoid talking about circumcision—a subject that was absolutely normal and not at all embarrassing in the ancient world. It’s actually incredibly interesting! And not only that, but we have to talk about what holiness is and about the nine special signs in the Old Testament. I will also be posting an episode on my grown up show, Character in Context, helping adults to understand circumcision if you want to teach it yourself.

For Yom Kippur this year, the Day of Atonement when the Temple would be cleansed from the sins of the people of Israel, I want to talk about invisible sins and how they mess everything up.

Hagar is unique and important in the Bible for a lot of reasons. We’ve already talked about some of them but perhaps her most important contribution to our faith is when she gave God a name. No one else ever does. What does that name tell us about Hagar, about God, and about her son Ishmael? Plus, we’re going to explore another “what if” story to try and make sense of what happens later.

Transcript: https://contextforkids.com/2023/09/11/episode-114-what-hagar-did-for-god-that-no-one-else-ever-did/

Who is the first person to actually see AND talk to the Angel of the Lord? It’s Hagar! In this episode, we’re going to see how much God loves Hagar and even calls her by name when Abram and Sarai don’t. God has some amazing promises for Hagar that would eventually mean a completely different and better life for her. In fact, God makes Hagar a promise that He has only ever made to Abram at this point.

Genesis 16 isn’t a good chapter for Abram, Sarai, and especially for Sarai’s Egyptian slave Hagar. Sarai comes up with an idea to get a child for herself by following ancient Near Eastern custom, and Abram goes along with it. The result is one huge mess and a whole lot of pain for everyone.

Today we are going to learn about a very important young lady in the Bible. Her name is Hagar and even though the people in her life treated her badly, God treated her like a VIP, a Very Important Person. All of chapter sixteen is about Hagar, so she deserves her own story “before the story”. We will be learning about Egyptians, slavery, and about how important it is to treat others as though they are better than we are. We will also be learning how to do something that Hagar couldn’t ever do—speaking up when something isn’t okay.

This is an episode designed to address a serious issue for both adults and kids—what does it mean to honor mother and father, and how does one obey their parents “in the Lord” as per Eph 6:1? There isn’t anyone in Christian or Jewish leadership who hasn’t been asked these questions—generally by adults suffering under the weight of abusive and irresponsible parents. So, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to kids about what it does and doesn’t mean--we certainly don't want kids to be obeying every adult they come across, right? Warning: this could be triggering for your kids if you are a bank-robbing mom wanting them to drive the getaway car, as that was the over-the-top example I used. Any resemblance to any real person is completely accidental, obviously.

We talked about this a bit back in episode 107, but this episode is actually about a lot more than it looks like on the surface. When we know what to look for, this is the most powerful promise yet about the Messiah, Jesus. God made a promise to Eve, and now He makes an even greater promise to Abram! This will be the last lesson in Gen 15.

In Gen 15, God gets really specific about the scary future of Abram’s descendants, some good news for Abram, and the reason why he can’t have the Land of Canaan yet. We’re also going to talk about why Jesus’s disciples are just like fruit trees.