If you’re reading along and don’t have a One Year Bible, click on this link Every Day in the Word. If that doesn't work, go to http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/ and click on “Every Day in the Word.”
Genesis 32:13-34:31
32:13-21
Jacob sends Esau that day's equivalent to the "12 Days of Christmas." There is a family and cultural dance taking place here. I'm more impressed by what is missing. Any wife will tell you, mine in particular, that "nothing says you're sorry, like saying you're sorry." The gifts were an interesting token, but the words never came. People who are secure in Christ, should have boldness using that word.
32:22-32
For us as disciples, the only lesson I can see here is that the Lord tests our tenacity. Faith is more often seen in persistence and endurance, than in genius and success. Apparently there was a folk legend of something like this, and if so, God was using it and making a point with Jacob. He would now give Jacob a constant reminder of this day and the blessing pronounced on him. What an interesting "reminder" to give to a scoundrel. This limp would be a permanent disability. With every limp, Jacob would be reminded of his wrestling and contending with God and man and the words of blessing from the angel.
A couple of things:
First, it is good, as disciples, to have visual reminders of God's blessing to us. I keep several things around my office that remind me of past blessing, pointing to the fact that I can depend on God also in the future.
Second, understand, that this promise of blessing on Jacob would not end his woes. Oddly, the hip disorder was going to slow him down to make him less "tricky," and be a reminder to depend on God. Whether Jacob actually becomes more "spiritual" is something I doubt.
Third, this is the naming of the nation Israel. Isn't it interesting that the name came out of strife and contention and it will be this way until Christ returns. Israel has been and will be a focus fighting in the world, and it has been and will be the focus of spiritual aggression against God.
You've gotta laugh, because here, on the day when Esau is coming with 400 men, and running the hundred in 13 seconds would be a handy skill, Jacob is now disabled, though blessed, by God.
33:1-17
I'm sad every year when I read this. Here comes Esau, like a big, friendly, drooling, St. Bernard, running up to Jacob, hugging him, crying, and then there is Jacob, blessed, with a bad conscience and a totally unfriendly, suspicious and "stiff-arming" manner.
It was actually the Lord who soothed Esau. Blessing Esau as he had allowed Esau to forgive. Also, it doesn't seem that Esau had a complicated and conniving nature, so he might not have been disposed to hold on to things.
Jacob never says he's sorry or that what he did was wrong. (Keep this in mind when you read the next few dysfunctional family adventures. The kids were like Dad, except for one notable exception.) Jacob's entire demeanor is to be "accepted" and then left alone. The way Jacob thought, the way he stole the birthright and the blessing, made him this way. Esau looks good and honest. No ulcer there. But Jacob has masterminded his own little tragic life: rich, blessed, miserable. And it will get worse.
Forcing the gifts on Esau was important to show socially that there was some sort of "good" relationship between the two parties. This is why Abraham refused the stuff from the King of Sodom. He didn't want to be shown as "bonded" to, or in league with him.
This is why both Pharaoh and Abimelech gave lavish gifts to Abe after Abe tricked them, to show that things had been smoothed. By Esau taking these gifts, he was being forced by Jacob to show that all was well between them. Esau's greeting and actions before these show that all was already forgiven. This looks like manipulation to me, and if so, Esau must have just smiled and thought, "Same old Jacob."
34:1-31
There must be a passage of time here. When Jacob returned, his oldest son, Reuben would only have been about 13. If you look at the numbers mentioned previously, you can figure this out. Dinah would have been a baby, along with Joseph, when they entered the land. There must be 10 to 15 years here at least, considering what Simeon and Levi were capable of.
I've heard preachers "wax elephants" regarding Dinah meeting with the women of the land as being something wrong. I can't see it. Shechem was wrong, and he seems repentant and wants to do the right thing.
Now the real issue here, dads, is that Jacob takes no real leadership to bring the situation to a conclusion. In that leadership vacuum, Simeon and Levi, "chips off the old block" take over, but as it often is when sin is out of control, they go way beyond Dad. After Simeon and Levi killed all the men (Jacob mentions later that they also lamed the animals), the other brothers, lined up and ready with their shopping carts at the city gate, entered the city and did "supermarket sweep," looting the dead bodies, houses and markets. The neighbors would learn that this was "No Ordinary Family."
Their words to Jacob, after he rebukes them, lack an "I'm sorry." But, Jacob was no better with apologies. Jacob's woes aren't over. The family now has two unrepentant murderers.
Matthew 11:7-30
Jesus is very pointed in this section. John the Baptist ended an era, so to speak. In Luke Jesus says, "the law and prophets prophesied until John." As disciples we, now, are also living "at the end of the age" and have a very important role and place in God's continuing work.
The "greater and least" thing Jesus mentions is like when Jesus says, "something greater than Jonah is here." What Jesus was bringing into being, the fulfillment of the plan of redemption, was the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. John was not washed in the blood of the lamb, but we are. We are part of that "better plan," that fulfilled the weakness of the law. Romans 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
In verse 18 Luke adds, "eating bread and drinking wine." The point is that neither John nor Jesus were "politically correct" but they were following God. A good lesson to us, as disciples.
Vs. 25-26, God intentionally blinds the proud and understanding, and I'd add, even among His children.
V. 27 will make you a good Calvinist.
The rest is the promise of "rest in the battle." Notice the order….come to me….learn from me….and I will give you rest. I heard this preached by Tony Evans once and it was amazing. If you don't have the devotion, learning is just effort. You have to have Him and want Him and be submitted to Him or learning just makes you hard and proud. But then, you have to learn from Him. You have to submit to His word and His way. As Evans said, "Don't go asking Him to do things your way or bless your way. He'll tell you that your way doesn't work and it hasn't been working. No, you've got to do things His way. You learn from Him." And then, and only then, do you get the rest.
Psalm 14
Paul uses the words of this psalm to show that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin. Only God can break that power; but for all men, including disciples, that power is still there. The answer is that now in Christ, for us, there is no condemnation and that the power of sin is broken by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the true cure comes when our bodies are "redeemed," resurrected.
Proverbs 3:19-20
Isn't it interesting to have this proverb, following the psalm that says, "the fool says in his heart, 'there is no God." If I found a pencil lying on a desk and tried to convince people the pencil "was just there, it just happened after 80 zillion years of evolution and earthly events," they would say I was a fool. The gentle ones would tell me the pencil needed an engineer to design it because it's really two halves glued together around that fabricated graphite core and then it gets 12 coats of paint, etc….. No, the pencil is evidence of a designer and manufacturer. I would be a fool not to believe in a "creator" of the pencil, but then people turn around and say the world just happened. Sin makes a fool. Sin is the most powerful and deadly force on this planet. Why don't we have a world "Sin day" and put little black ribbons on all our products to remind us that we're fighting against sin? Hard to fight against something you don't believe in. Oops, I guess I'm reflecting on Psalm 14 again.
I'm writing these comments to and for those at New Song who are following a One Year Bible and involved in a discipleship cell. We're meeting weekly and discussing the texts, not necessarily my comments. We're growing together, learning to become and make disciples who make disciples. We will all be leading others in this process and training them to do likewise.
The comments I'm writing are in no way exhaustive, but meant to give some leading thoughts on how the text applies to us as disciples and to encourage and stimulate our growth in reading the Bible, with the effect that we will grow as disciples and encourage the growth of others as disciples growing in the word. If you would like a more descriptive commentary that is still readable and concise, I'd recommend the Bible Knowledge Commentary. It's keyed to the NIV, so the result is, the commentators are constantly telling you what the Greek or Hebrew is. That never hurts.
I am not endorsing any particular One Year Bible, in fact, no one in our church reads the version I do, die revidierte Lutherbibel 1984.
Anyone reading along with us is welcome to do so and encouraged to take their own notes and make their own observations. If the comments made do not agree with your particular tradition or understanding, that's OK. Nothing I've written is meant to criticize any point of view, but only to express the truth of what God has written to us, as I understand it.
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