Wrestlemania and the Baby Off

Genesis 29-33: Let’s just finish the Jacob story in one post, even if it will be the longest one in a while. It’s just bumming me out that I’m not Tim Keller. Seriously. His Jacob sermon series. Listen to the whole thing if you haven’t already. I’m going to rush the rest of this because my lack of Tim Kellerness is making me not want to blog at all. I want to get to Joseph, if only for the musical theater references.

Jacob arrives at his destination and sees Rachel, Laban’s daughter, before any of his other kin. Interestingly, she’s a shepherd. You mostly see male shepherds in the Bible. It’s love at first sight. Jacob shows off how strong he is to Rachel by rolling the stone from the well’s mouth, right after he sends all the shepherd boys on an errand to get her alone. Jacob kisses her and starts crying. Jacob stays with Laban for a month before Laban offers Jacob a job as a hired laborer. Jacob says he will work for seven years for Rachel. Seven years was more than the usual dowry offer, so Laban saw that Jacob was desperate and could be taken advantage of. 

Jacob didn’t want her older sister, Leah, because there was something unattractive about Leah’s eyes. Maybe they stuck out too far or she was cross-eyed. Leah seems to be in love with Jacob in this whole story. Laban gives a non-committal answer and Jacob hears a “yes.” The seven years Jacob served seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for Rachel. Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.” Tim Keller points out that this is a crude way to put it for the time. Jacob’s patience is at an end.

After his wedding, Jacob awoke the next morning to find out that Laban tricked him and he had married Leah. Let that be a lesson to you guys: always take a flashlight/candle to bed when you sleep with someone, and raise that veil during the wedding ceremony. This is karma because Jacob similarly tricked Isaac. God is correcting Jacob. Don’t worry. Laban reaps what he sows as well. Jacob has to work another seven years to get both women, and once he did, “his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah.” God saw that Leah was not loved, so he closed Rachel’s womb, but made Leah pregnant.

Leah gave birth to three sons, named them, and spoke words of yearning for Jacob after the birth of each boy, naming them according to her wish that her husband would love her too. When the fourth, Judah, was born, she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Judah is the child from which Jesus’s line came. Jacob can still have sex with Leah, though his heart remains far from her. This is not a foreign experience for lots of modern women. One of Leah’s sons was also the root of the line of Jewish priests. Those came from Levi.

The grass is always greener on the other side. Even though Rachel is loved and beautiful, unless she can achieve the success as measured by her culture, she feels she will die. Rachel has Jacob sleep with her servant, Bilhah, to bear a child so that Rachel could build a family through the servant. Bilhah bore two sons. Rachel says, “Bilhah will bear a child on my knees.” This means that Jacob will impregnate Bilhah while Bilhah lies on Rachel’s lap, making the offspring Rachel’s legal child.

Once again, I reflect on how interesting it would be to practice law if these kinds of laws were still the norm. Ancient law seems to be done with actions, rituals, cutting animals in half, and other things that make contracts. They didn’t just write stuff down or shake hands. To emphasize the legal aspect of this situation, when Dan (meaning “judgment”) is born, Rachel says, “God has judged my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son.”

Rachel’s next baby is named “wrestle.” Guys, we have a Baby Off. It’s a baby competition between the sisters, and it’s not even a semi-secret one. Rachel said, “I have had a great struggle with my sister and I have won.” Nice sibling relationship there. They have no sibling code. The competition brings Leah from the place of worshipping God right back to the place of envy and discontent.  Leah did the same thing with her servant, Zilpah, and Zilpah had two boys as well.

Later, Rachel wants some mandrakes (mandrakes were supposed to increase fertility), so she trades a night with Jacob in exchange for them, and Leah gets pregnant. What, was he on some full booty embargo (no sex unless both wives agree)? Did their sibling code forbid him from having sex with his wives? Rachel thinks Leah stole Jacob from her. Was Rachel not fully in on the plan to swap? Did she run to stop Jacob from marrying Leah? Did she tell him about the trick? Did she try to? Did they guard Rachel in the tent? Leah had yet another son after that and a daughter named Dinah. God then remembered Rachel and gave her Joseph. Joseph means “may he add.” Rachel has had her first biological son, but she wants to keep the contest going.

Rachel said, “God has taken away from me my disgrace.” Lots of Christians worship traditional values, but you can see that when they are elevated beyond their purpose, they distort lives and become people’s reason to be proud of their lives. Ugh. We don’t see in excruciating detail the hurt, bitterness, jealousy, anger, and competition of this family, but we get more than we usually get from Biblical accounts. Just imagine living in that family. You think you have a rivalry? You think your family treats you unfairly? Get a load of this one. Remember that children are growing up in this house. The boys’ futures reflect this strife-filled past. Thank God Leviticus banned the polygamous marriage of two sisters in the future.

Jacob thinks it might be time to go home. Laban practiced non-Jewish divination and found out by this process that God has been blessing Laban for Jacob’s sake. Laban wants Jacob, so Jacob agrees to stay in exchange for all the spotted and speckled goats. The methods Jacob used with his flock, along with God’s blessing, netted Jacob more animals. Laban’s sons start to see Jacob as a thief because they feel like they deserve to be the wealthy ones, not Jacob. Laban starts to believe he got the short end of the stick too, even though the original deal favored Laban. Jacob’s wives, to their credit, see their father for who he is and have cleaved to Jacob.

God tells Jacob to go home. The sisters unite and support the move. They don’t warn Laban that they are taking off. They all just leave, even though God promised Jacob that he would be with him and his safety was divinely guaranteed. This showed fear. Rachel got some back-up gods by stealing her father’s household idols. Her motives are unclear. Maybe she believed in them or maybe she wanted to keep Laban from using them (as a last parting gift of concern for her father). Maybe she did it out of fear that her father would succeed in catching them if he had the strength of his gods.

Laban came after them and caught them in seven days. But God came to Laban in a dream and said, “Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.” God doesn’t’ want Laban affecting Jacob in any way. He’s protecting Jacob. At the end of their wordy confrontation, they make a deal to stay on their own sides of the country. Their relationship has broken down in such a way that they realize it’s best to just stay away from each other. Sometimes you have to just kiss the in-laws goodbye.

Angels had been with Jacob on his journey, and God lets him see them on his way to meet Esau. This is nice, but it doesn’t do that much to diminish Jacob’s fear. This confrontation will be different. With Laban, Jacob was in the right. With Esau, Jacob is the new Laban. Would God let Jacob win a battle with Esau? Jacob takes measures to mitigate Esau’s anger, and fortunately those include a prayer to God.  God waits until Jacob is alone and then attacks him…literally and physically. God likes wrestling with us. He doesn’t like robots.

God has to beat the crap out of Jacob in order to conquer him and send the message, “No, I’m God, not you. I love you and I’ve got this. You’re fighting to know me and have the blessing I made you for. I’m going to give it to you, but you can’t walk away from an encounter with me unscathed.” It reminds me of the final battle in Warrior where the older brother in the movie has to beat some sense into his younger brother. Sometimes fights are conversations.

A Man attacks Jacob and wrestles with him until daybreak. Jacob is winning, so the man touches the socket of Jacob’s hip, dislocating it. The man said, “Let me go,” but Jacob refused to do so until the man blessed him. The man renamed Jacob “Israel” because he “struggled with God and with humans and overcame.” Jacob’s old name meant “trickster,” but God decided that part of his life should be over. Israel is two words put together. They are Sarah and El. Sarah means “struggle” or “rule” and El means “God.” Jacob asked the man’s name. The man replied, “Why do you ask my name.” Maybe the Man didn’t tell Jacob his name because Jacob already knew who it was. Then he blessed him there. The words of the blessing are, unfortunately, unrecorded.

Tim Keller has this to say about this story: “Jacob recognized who he was wrestling with—God himself. When he realized this, and saw the sun coming up, Jacob did the most astonishing thing he had ever done. He did not do the rational thing, which would have been to cry out, “Let me go! Let me go! I don’t want to die!” Instead he did the very opposite. He held on tight, and said, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” Jacob was saying something like this. What an idiot I’ve been! Here is what I’ve been looking for all my life. The blessing of God! I looked for it in the approval of my father. I looked for it in the beauty of Rachel. But it was in you. Now I won’t let you go until you bless me. Nothing else matters. I don’t care if I die in the process, because if I don’t have God’s blessing, I’ve got nothing. Nothing else will do. Jacob called the place Peniel because he “saw God face to face, and yet [his] life was spared.” Peniel means “face of God.”

Esau met Jacob with 400 men. After facing God, Jacob leads the procession to Esau. Facing a really scary, big fish makes the lesser (yet still big) fish easier to face. That’s one of the scariest things to learn through experience, but it’s one of the most useful hard lessons in life. Jacob puts the maidservants and their children in front with him. Leah and her sons get the medium amount of protection. Rachel is placed in the position of the most protection. 

Instead of trying to kill him, Esau ran to Jacob, hugged him, and kissed him. Jacob gave Esau gifts, called himself Esau’s servant, and his people bowed to Esau. Esau only accepted the gifts because Jacob insisted. I love this happy ending. I love when siblings love each other.  Jacob doesn’t go all the way to Bethel, where God wanted him. He stops short of that area, still a little afraid of Esau and not wanting to encroach on his territory. Jacob bought a plot of land, pitched his tent, set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel, meaning "God of Israel."

Ladders and mirrors

Genesis 28. This is the ladder to heaven story. It’s popular because it’s cool. So much has been said about Jacob’s first encounter with God that I didn’t even want to touch it, and that’s why I just skipped blogging last week. (This kind of behavior doesn’t bode well for when I finally get to the crucifixion does it?) Isaac doesn’t hold a grudge against Jacob. He decides to bless him knowingly before Jacob leaves. This is great because this is the last time Jacob will see his parents. He told him to be sure to marry his uncle Laban’s daughters. Esau heard about all this and it really hit home that his wives upset his parents. So he went to Ishmael and married his daughter, Mahalath. Eventually, we see Esau coming to his brother with love and turning into a better man. Despising his blessing and learning a hard lesson is already prompting Esau to make better decisions in the future.

On Jacob’s way to his uncle’s land, he stopped for the night at sunset and used a stone for a pillow. Why is that detail in the story? Did the stone have a hand in causing the strange dream? Are the hippies right that rocks and gems might have some energetic power or spiritual significance? Or was it just included to show how pathetic Jacob’s situation is right now? Jacob dreamt that he saw a ladder to heaven and angels of God were ascending and descending on it. God says, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to your land. I won’t leave you until these promises are fulfilled.”

One of the coolest things about this dream is that it was referenced by Jesus later. And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Jesus is the ladder. Tim Keller also points out that the angels of God were ascending and descending on it, rather than Jacob climbing up the ladder to get to God. God comes to us, through Jesus. The tracts fundies hand out always show us crossing the Jesus Bridge (usually drawn as a cross) to get to God. Who’s doing the crossing here? Who always does all the work?

Jacob woke up and thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” Jacob was afraid. Early the next morning, he set the pillow stone up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. I’d like to know more about the significance of oil in the Bible, so maybe I should read up on that. Anyway, Jacob called that place Bethel and made a vow: “If God will be with me and watch over me on this journey, giving me food and clothing so that I may return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God, and this stone will be God’s house, and of all that is given to me, I will give God a tenth.”

This isn’t the only time someone has realized that God is around and been surprised not to have known it. Rob Bell asks if we miss that we’re on holy ground all the time. Psalms says that you can’t leave God’s spirit or presence. Bethel crops up again later in the Bible. Was Jacob making a deal here, or was he accepting the promise and showing gratitude? It would make a difference to the origin of the tithe. We  would love if the tithe came out of an expression of gratitude for being cared for by God, rather than an obligation. I tend to think the tithe is an Old Testament thing. The New Testament says that we should give “generously.” The ten percent rule can be used as more of a guideline. Today, it makes more sense that everything is God’s and it’s all about the attitude with which we use and transfer money.

When I was a kid, I had a similar dream. I wanted to take communion the night before, but my parents wouldn’t let me, since I hadn’t prayed the Sinner’s Prayer. I was around seven, and I prayed the prayer so that I could do what the adults were doing. It looked official and fun. It was a disappointment. The cracker was stale and who even likes grape juice? I prefer when it’s cranberry. When I went to be that night, I had a dream that angels were going in and out of a mirror. I told my relatives the next morning, and one of them pulled out the Bible and read this story. He read what God said to Jacob and said that’s what God was saying to me.

Sweet thought, but even at that age, I figured that was B.S. (Not that God would say the opposite to a child). I went along with it, believing I was saved, but that a dream was  just a dream. I don’t think that’s how you accurately use the Bible (finding similar dreams and saying your dream meant the same thing). Fortunately, I prayed my own prayer when I was old enough to understand what was actually going on. This story always makes me smile because it reminds me of being a kid. I never worried about hell as a child because I was “saved” through passing a little litmus test and saying the magic words. I don’t think kids should sit around worrying about hell and being scared, so I guess, overall, it was nice. 

I'm not in the blogging mood this week, but...

Enjoy this picture of an exorcism kit. Hilarious.

Law school wills and trusts lesson #1: Your family will try to steal from you

Genesis 27. Isaac was old and blind, and he thought he was going to die soon. He was wrong. But he called Esau into a private meeting and told him to go hunting, cook food, and bring it to his father. Isaac said that he would bless Esau after he did all this. Esau went out to hunt. Even though God made it clear that he chose Jacob to bless, Isaac still wanted to give it to Esau. In this, he was choosing the ways of the world over God’s plan, so let’s not feel too bad for him getting cheated by Jacob here. Anything you have is given by God and isn’t really yours. Isaac’s blessing was promised to another, and that’s who was gonna get it. Esau must have liked his manly, hunting son, as well as bought into the tradition that the oldest should get everything.

It looks like Isaac was doing this behind everyone’s back too, because Rebekah overheard the plan that Isaac told only to Esau. If Isaac had done it in front of everyone, servants and all, he might have gotten his way. But he didn’t want to stir the pot and probably knew he was doing wrong and wanted it to be secret. For their parts, Rebekah and Jacob should have trusted God to bring Jacob the blessing, rather than deceiving and stealing. This story might have gone a lot differently had they been patient and trusting, but the end result would have been the same.

Rebekah overheard Isaac’s instructions and told Jacob, “I’m going to make Isaac some food, and you’re going to bring it in there and intercept the blessing.” Jacob said, “But Esau is a lot hairier than I am, and when my father touches me, he’ll know it’s not Esau. Then I would appear to be tricking him and I’d bring a curse down on myself rather than a blessing.” This is Jacob’s mentality: He’s not worried about the fact that his family is secretive and split, and that he may hurt his father or brother. He just wants to know whether he will get away with it unscathed. Rebekah said, “Let the curse fall on me. Do what I say.” She’s a true mother to Jacob, asking for the curse to fall on her. So Jacob obeyed his mother. Rebekah covered Jacob with goatskins to make him feel hairy. Goatskins? Dude, how hairy was Esau, anyway? That’s a lot of hair.

Jacob went to Isaac, posing as Esau. Isaac was all, “That was a pretty quick hunt.” Jacob replied, “Well, God must have given me success.” Here, Jacob throws out some “God talk,” using God in this deception to get what he wants. People do that a lot. Isaac was suspicious and asked to touch Jacob. After feeling the hair, Isaac thought, “He sounds like Jacob, but he feels like Esau.” Isaac asked again, “Are you really Esau?” Jacob said he was. Isaac believed him and blessed him. Jacob had “scarcely left his father’s presence” when Esau came in with food. Isaac and Esau realized they had been tricked.

Isaac started trembling and Esau burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said, “Bless me too!” Isaac said, “Too late. It’s gone.”  Esau asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me? Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau started crying. Isaac said, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck. ” This means that Esau would not be under his brother forever, but he’d probably be spending a lot of time in the desert.

Esau held a grudge against Jacob and planned to kill him when Isaac died. Rebekah warned Jacob and told him to run to her brother Laban’s land and stay with his uncle. Rebekah told Jacob that she would send for him when Esau wasn’t angry anymore. She said, “Why should I lose both of you in one day?” In explanation to Isaac, Rebekah said, “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a Hittite wife, my life won’t be worth living.” Isaac bought that. Rebekah was a good family politician.

What’s crazy here is all the scheming, diplomacy, power plays, maneuvering, favoritism, control, jealousy, and secrets. It ripped this family apart and turned them against one another. This was a GOOD family. They knew God. Rebekah and Isaac loved each other a few chapters ago and had a long, monogamous relationship. They had twins that they waited a long time for. They should have valued both of them so much. They had all the pedigrees. They were wealthy and blessed by God. They lived a peaceful existence. Yeah, Esau married some Hittite women that didn’t get along with anyone, but why? Was he spoiled by his father or over-praised for his hunting skills? Whatever happened, people got greedy and didn’t think according to God’s will, but their own plans.

This kind of thing happens in lots of families even today. Maybe even especially today. Just wait until someone rich dies and a will is contested. You’ll find that, for most people, gold is thicker than blood. And everyone feels like they deserve the reward. They only see their own side, their own entitlement. Be careful. Everyone in this story thought they were doing what was necessary, when really they shouldn’t have been trying to control the situation. It’s hard to see where you are wrong or where means-to-an-end philosophies don’t work. Once again, outrage, greed, justification, the bad behavior of your opposition, and your own sense of justice can work against you and blind you to where you are wrong.

You always have to look, in any situation, at what you did wrong, even if it’s 99% their fault and 1% your fault. Then you act as if that 1% is just as serious as their 99% and make amends for that portion without mention of the portion over which you had no control. I think the best thing to do is be open with your friends and family. Have no secrets. When they confess something to you, show them grace, listen, and repeat what they say so that they know you’ve understood them. Don’t play games. Lay your cards on the table, in the open. Tell them what you want, why you think you should have it, and what you are planning. Encourage them to be open with you and reward them for it. Don’t make alliances. This isn’t survivor. And if there's a dispute, err on the side of giving them their way. Family is more important than money or businesses or trinkets. God is in control of everything you have anyway.  

Cycles, good and bad, are hard to break

I’m currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He’s funny, if you don’t get offended by arrogance, sarcasm, overly pretentious writing, and the mocking of religion. I really don’t. So far, it’s making me understand the thought processes behind being an atheist and why some feel so threatened and annoyed when exposed to religion. I agree with him that there’s no such thing as a “Christian child.” They aren’t old enough to make that decision yet. As for raising your child Christian being child abuse? Naw. It’s the sort of thing you can reject as soon as your teens, if you want to. 

I think it’s good because it helps you understand religions people, religion, and why anyone would even think in spiritual terms. It gives you the option to be spiritual. The people I know who were raised agnostic don’t even think about it or analyze those big questions much. They don’t know it’s something to think about. I’d rather open that door to my kids. Do I recommend Christians read books like this? Absolutely, but only if they've studied the Bible and books written by Christians first so that they aren't swayed by the weakest arguments from the other side. If you have a good foundation, you can learn something and become stronger in your own faith.

I’m a good ways in, and so far I still believe in God. Should this belief be altered, it will probably affect this blog, so that’s a heads up. Unlikely though. As Socrates said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” And, well, I went to school. It’s fun to have a mental dialogue with the guy though. I don’t argue with actual atheists because they tend to get upset and think I'm trying to convert them. Everyone knows an argument usually doesn't convert anyone to another way of thinking. So I get all my arguing out in my imagination. It’s a fun mind game. If he has a good point or is able to sway me, I want to know. It’s better to know a cold, hard truth that would destroy you than to live for a lie. So far, he’s debunked the lousiest arguments for the existence of God. Good job, pick better ones next time. Dawkins has really sparked my interest in physics though, weirdly. Especially since he’s a biologist.

Genesis 26 is not a popular or controversial passage. We see repetition, the same promises, and some of the same sins and conflicts as in previous chapters. There was a famine in the land and Isaac went to Abimelek, the Philistine king. The Lord appeared to Isaac and told him not to go live in Egypt, but to stay in the land God wanted him to live in. God repeats the big promise, saying, “Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because Abraham obeyed me.” Abraham wasn’t always obedient, but he did have faith, therefore he was declared righteous. Isaac follows his father’s example both in faith/following God and occasionally stumbling. 

As a commenter observed, lies run in this family. It’s a great family of faith and blessing, but man, they can’t stop deceiving. Isaac was asked about his beautiful wife, Rebekah, and he went for his dad’s standby lie: “She is my sister.” Abimelek saw Isaac caressing Rebekah and called him on it. The King James Version said Abimelek saw Isaac “sporting” with Rebekah. So we have absolutely no idea what the king actually saw them doing, and who really wants to know anyway? It wasn’t platonic, that’s for sure. Isaac came clean and Abimelek was upset. Abimelek ordered his people not to harm Isaac or Rebekah, on penalty of death. Problem solved. 

The Lord blessed Isaac with a really good crop that year. He became rich and envied by the Philistines, so he had to move. Eventually, the pagans saw that God blessed Isaac and decided it would be smart to make a peace treaty with him. Esau got married at age 40 to a woman named Judith (did you know that was a Biblical name?) and another woman named Basemath (not one for the name books, I guess). Isaac and Rebekah didn’t get along with them. They were both Hittite women. As Tim Keller often points out, whenever there is polygamy in the Bible, things don’t go smoothly with the family as a whole.

Jacob and Esau make a deal

We’re nearing the story of Jacob, and I don’t even want to approach it because of how well Tim Keller handled it in his sermon series “The Gospel According to Jacob." I’ll do my own, inferior take though. Abraham takes another wife/concubines and has a lot more kids. He gives gifts to the sons of his concubines and sends them away from Isaac, leaving the lion’s share of his estate and the promised land to Isaac. Abraham died at the age of 75 and “was gathered to his people.” Ishmael came back for the burial, which I think is nice. He wasn’t totally shunned and didn’t hate his father.

Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah (wow, that’s a long wait). Rebekah couldn’t have kids for a long time (Isaac was 60 when Rebekah finally gave birth), so Isaac prayed on her behalf. The babies “jostled each other within her.” Jewish legend says that they were trying to kill each other in the womb. Rebekah wondered why her insides were so stirred and asked God. She probably didn’t know it was twins. God said, “Two nations are in your womb. The two people inside you will be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” When they were born, the first to come out was red and hairy all over. Which is really weird on an infant, no? They named him Esau, an name denoting his hairiness. After this, Jacob was born, grasping Esau’s heel. The name Jacob refers to the heel catching, and it’s not a good name. It names him a con-man or trickster.

The boys grew and Esau became a skilled hunter, a “man of the open country.” A man’s man. Jacob was more of an indoor guy. Most second-born kids, when they pop out, take one look at the older kid and seem to say, “I’m gonna be the opposite of THAT.” I know it’s true in my family. Jacob sat around in the tents, but he liked wild game, so he loved Esau for bringing them all food. Isaac liked Esau. Rebekah favored Jacob. So did God. That’s who God is. He doesn’t pick the obvious candidate most of the time, he picks the weak one and makes him great (like with King David). You also see God rejecting the traditional, world-made selection of the oldest child over the younger children. This is a practice that means nothing to God. Favoritism in families based on birth order just doesn’t factor into God’s choice.

God’s choice also wasn’t based on moral character or the choices of the sons. He knew which one needed to continue the line and gave the birthright in grace. You see, Jacob wasn’t all that much better than Esau. You see Jacob making lousy choices throughout his life. Esau comes across as unsympathetic twice, but he has good moments (particularly one of forgiveness years later). He has a problem with instant gratification, shown in both this chapter and his casual sex habits. Hebrews 12 describes Esau as a profane person and a fornicator. Still, Jacob has his faults too.

One day, when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came home hungry and asked for some. Esau was also called Edom. Jacob said, “Sure, if you sell me your birthright.” Esau agreed and swore an oath, his thought process being that he was going to die one day anyway, so he might as well enjoy life now. What good is a birthright when it all comes to nothing and you don’t keep anything? Huge mistake. You see this kind of thought crop up a lot, and those who know that life, gifts, and choices have permanence will reject this line of thought. The birthright was eternally valuable, and Jacob knew this. In the Old Testament, birthrights have spiritual consequences. It’s not all about inheriting wealth.

The birthright passed the father’s spiritual inheritance too. This would include the covenant between God and Abraham, in this family. The son who holds the birthright becomes the head of the family and the spiritual leader of the family. We don’t know if Jacob’s parents told him that God said the younger would serve the older. Maybe Jacob already knew the birthright was his and he was making sure he would get it. Because God said it was his, it was already Jacob’s. If Jacob hadn’t taken matter into his own hands, would things have gone differently? Would Esau have just fallen off a cliff or something? Is the tricking and dealing the reason Jacob had to spend so much time away from his family while God refined his character?            

     

I think the lesson here, for us, in this little chapter is to recognize what our spiritual birthrights and purposes are, know that we already have them, and not “despise” them like Esau in favor of other, more present and physical things. This is a common universal pattern. In order to get long-term benefits, you have to have the long term in mind. Something to reflect on. Not that Bible stories are intentional morality tales, but like life, you can find the lessons in them. We people love a narrative.

Sex, Marriage, and Nose Rings

So, you know how I said this post was gonna be special? Well, in light of the Chik-Fil-A nonsense, I was going to use this week to talk about homosexuality and gay rights. When I finally get to that, it's gonna be fantastic, if only because it's so darn controversial/fun. But I still think it's better saved for Leviticus.  I loooove Leviticus.

Genesis 23-24: Sarah died and was buried in the Hittites’ best tombs. Well, caves. Obviously, this made both Abraham and Isaac sad. It was time for Isaac to get a wife to replace the feminine energy he lost when Sarah died. Now, the Bible tells us that Abraham was “old, well advanced in years.” Umm, when was he NOT old in his Biblical story? This dude has been old this whole time. We know he’s older now. Abraham had his servant (the oldest one in his household) promise to get a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s land. In Genesis 15, this was Eliezer, but it might have changed in the following 60 years, so the servant is unnamed.

Half sister-lovin’ Abraham wanted Isaac to marry family (as you do) and not the Canaanite women. The servant said, “It might be tough getting your kindred to come all the way out there. Should I bring Isaac to the land from where you came?” Abraham said, “No, God wants us to have this land. If no woman will follow you here, then you can scrap this whole promise.” Then the servant put his hand under Abraham’s thigh and swore. Well, that’s odd. Let’s look at that. All I could find on this is that an oath made by this custom was very serious. Notice that a servant was sent, not Isaac. No one wanted Isaac to leave the promised land. What if he didn’t come back?

So the servant took ten camels and some gifts, and then he want to Mesopotamia, specifically Nahor. The servant made the camels kneel outside the city by a well in the evening, the time when all the women go out to get water. The servant prayed to Abraham’s God, asking for the right/chosen young woman to let him drink out of her jar while she watered his camels. Now, this was a lot of work, so it would take someone with a real servant’s heart to do it, especially since the servant brought other men and they would just stand around watching her haul water. You know, like gentlemen. The servant doesn’t pray for the wife to be good-looking; he wants someone nice.

Before the servant even finished the prayer, Rebekah came out with her water jar on her shoulder. This happens with prayer sometimes. Isaiah 65:24 says, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” The Bible can be pretty sweet. Rebekah was Isaac’s second cousin, a virgin, and very attractive. Sounds perfect for him. She gave the servant a drink and drew water for his camels.   

The servant gave Rebekah a gold ring and two gold bracelets. The ring was most likely a nose ring. Nose rings would make lots of conservative Christians these days faint, but it was not a big deal back then. It wasn’t trashy or immoral in any way for Rebekah to have a nose ring. It’s not something to worry about, in my opinion. Let people have their nose rings. You can care about the trendiness of your appearance and still have a servant’s heart, as long as you keep your priorities in order.

The servant then went to talk to Rebekah’s brother and mother, and they agreed that it was God’s will for Rebekah to marry Isaac. They asked Rebekah what she thought, and she said she was willing to go. Isaac was out meditating in the field toward the evening. He looked up and saw Rebekah coming. The servant told Rebekah this was Isaac. She took her veil and covered herself. When Rebekah met Isaac, she wanted to give the impression that she was modest, moral, a virgin, and a servant. The servant brought Isaac up to speed on the story and then Isaac immediately brought Rebekah into his mother’s old tent and had sex with her. They weren’t seeking romantic love when God brought them together. They were both serving and seeking God, living their lives as they knew best, and then it just happened because it was supposed to.

After they had sex, the Bible says, “she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” Lots of people use this passage to justify premarital sex and still hold to conservative values. They say it's okay as long as the Christians marry each other at some point afterward. They say, “The two didn’t sin because they were married in God’s eyes and then stayed together. Rebekah and Isaac were married after they had sex. There was no ceremony or legal document.” Certainly intercourse is essential to marriage, and many cultures required it as a part of marriage. No sex meant no marriage. It literally sealed the deal.

But I disagree with this line of thought because when Rebekah and Isaac went into the tent to have sex they had both agreed to be married to each other. She said, “I will go” to the servant, and Isaac was told that this was the wife God chose for him. They had sex with the intention to be together forever, not with the intention to love each other for the foreseeable future and maybe marry later. The sex and the intent to marry happened concurrently, and that makes all the difference. Sex does not equal marriage. It’s not the same thing. Marriage is a choice paired with sex.

Hereafter in the post, I am proceeding under the assumption that the no premarital sex rule still applies today (even though we marry at 28 and not 13 now). Christians, you don’t “fix” your “mistake” by marrying someone after you sleep with them. It doesn’t make the slate clean. You still became one without the concurrent unselfish intention to give all of yourself, forever. Don’t think that God wants you to marry the person you slept with to fix something when you wouldn’t otherwise marry them. Marry for the right reasons: Because you want to marry that person. If you love them and think you should get married after sex, awesome. If you don’t want to…not awesome. 

Two wrongs don’t make a right. They don’t make for much of a marriage either. You didn't willingly make sacrifices for each other. You didn't willingly choose that life. It sounds miserable to me. The temptation to appear perfect and not have other Christians think you committed THE SIN OF ALL SINS (sarcasm, sex is not the worst sin) is huge these days. Have the courage to move on. Let’s be honest: Most Christians have sex before marriage. If you have, you’re not alone and you’re still under the law of grace.