How does the covenant inheritance work for "Abraham's seed"?

"Israel" is a name given to Abraham's grandson before it becomes the name of a nation, and the transmission of blessings across generations is a fascinating theme in Genesis. It is not always a straightforward inheritance! We are left pondering what this means for us who claim to be in some spiritual sense the "descendants of Abraham". In particular, there's a challenge in these stories to celebrate the way God bestows blessings on those different from ourselves.

Why was Abraham blessed in the first place?

After looking at the Abrahamic covenants in Genesis 15 and 17 last week, we backtrack slightly in the story to explore what God had in mind when He called Abraham. The "call of Abraham" is in Genesis 12, and we end up discussing some intriguing details of Genesis 23. This episode is a slightly disjointed because Cameron's recording somehow vapourised, so you'll need to exercise your imagination about his comments in places. As always, comments are welcome at [email protected] - and bonus marks if you can deduce where Cameron would have quoted Adrian Plass or Lewis!

Abraham's story features covenants especially prominently.

This week's lesson is titled "An Everlasting Covenant", and although this wording is used in Genesis 17 we take a bit of convincing that it correctly describes the Abrahamic covenant. It seems that everlasting might not be the same thing as universal. The "Covenant" theme this season is really making our brains tick and we've ended up with yet another longer episode - sorry!

The flood story has one of the most universal covenants of the Old Testament.

It really should be known as "God and the Flood" rather than "Noah and the Flood" - poor old Noah doesn't even have a speaking role in the story until well after the rainbow. The story is in Genesis 6-9, and there are actually two covenants explicitly mentioned. In fact, there's a lot more to this story than most children's-book retellings would suggest!

We reluctantly wrap up our exploration of "the fall", and learn a bit about covenants.

The lesson this week is a "Covenant Primer" to get us ready to explore this theme through other parts of the Bible. We have some unfinished ideas about Genesis 3 and the story commonly known as "the Fall", but then Ken teaches us some key aspects of covenants. In particular, they are not the same as a contract or agreement - and this is going to be crucial for our ongoing examination of God's covenants.

This new quarter explores God's Everlasting Covenant, and we start by pondering what happened to require His promise.

Obviously "The Fall" doesn't happen until chapter 3 of Genesis, but we take too long to get there and run out of time in chapter 2. However, there's a bit more to this story than is often appreciated!

SabbathSchoolFromHome has been going for a full year, and the need to do everything "at home" is not as prominent as it was in 2020. We're shifting to a midweek (Wednesday) release schedule so that you have more opportunity to listen to episodes before Sabbath School - there's just a chance that some ideas we stumble across here might help seed actual conversations in your Sabbath School communities. As always, send us comments and feedback to [email protected] and we can make this podcast more participatory.

Jesus invoke this passage as a defining description of his earthly ministry, and it is a superb summary of our study of Isaiah.

We've slipped slightly behind the SDA lesson pamphlet, but Isaiah 61 is worth it! Jesus reads from this chapter at the start of his public ministry in Luke 4, and it pulls together many of the important themes that have emerged over the last 12 episodes. As always, contact us at [email protected] and share your thoughts or comments on this passage.

This chapter has a strong challenge - God can intervene to save the oppressed, but he's displeased to find his people not striving for justice!

The lesson "Desire of Nations" explores the subsequent chapters 60 and 61, but we hold off since Lachlan couldn't join this recording. The themes in Chapter 59 are plenty enough food for thought, and we discuss comparisons with the theme of Sin in Romans.

The theme of Sabbath comes to the fore as we consider the lesson on "Waging Love".

In Isaiah 58 (and the surrounding chapters in fact), the theme of Sabbath is directly connected with images of Salvation and Social Justice. This is a fruitful source of challenges for Sabbath-keeping followers of God in the way of Jesus.

We reach an unambiguously messianic portion of Isaiah, and discuss seeing and hearing from yet another angle.

This week's lesson "Doing the Unthinkable" focuses on Isaiah 52-53 and the remarkable foreshadowing of Jesus crucifixion.