Leah
Posted on May 1st, 2008
I was struck today while reading about Leah and Rachel’s competition in son-bearing that Leah praised God when her fourth son was born. The first three sons Scripture records her using as means to buy Jacob’s love, which Rachel had stolen before Jacob even met Leah. Finally, by the fourth son, Leah relinquishes that – at least for the moment – and rather than thinking that Judah would turn Jacob’s eye to her, she simply praised God for another son.
I am struck by a couple of aspects. One, that she praised God at all. I’m sure it was a pretty normal thing in the culture of the day to praise a deity for the gift of a child, particularly of the male variety. I guess she thought that since Rachel was barren (apparently), and she now had four sons for Jacob, that he status was secured, even if Jacob never loved her as he loved Rachel. In a way, I guess the praise feels “left over.” Like an afterthought or something. Especially since, when Rachel hands over her maidservant, the competition starts all over again with renewed vigor.
The other thing that strikes me, and contributes to the “left over” feeling, is that it took her to son number four before she gave praise to God. The first three were all about Jacob. Even her fifth and sixth sons she counted as wages due her by God for some action she had taken – something God provided for her on account of her circumstances, rather than an undeserved blessing for her simply to be thankful for.
And I guess I’m struck because I have the same tendency. God is down on the list. I eventually think of Him and even thank Him for the good things in life – the blessings. But it’s after they are here for a while, and I’ve enjoyed gloating over them or showing them off to someone else. It’s about me getting my status right first. Then I’ll give God the glory and the honor. Once I’m set up the way I want to be set up, then I’ll turn over the praise.
More ramblings that probably have little or nothing to do with what Rachel and Leah actually were dealing with in their lives. Besides, there are so many reasons that I cannot understand or comprehend what they were going through…beginning with my chromosome set.
Tags: Life, Old Testament, Worship
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Moses
Posted on April 30th, 2008
I was reading today’s e-mail devotional from Back to the Bible, from the devotional by Theodore Epp called Strength for the Journey. I haven’t really been enjoying this devotional, but I also haven’t taken the time to unsubscribe yet. I much prefer the Powered by 4 that I mention here. But today’s entry may change that.
It is titled “Train a Child; Affect the World” and the Scripture passage is Exodus 2:1-15. It’s about Moses being reared by his own mother in Pharaoh’s household. The line that gets me is this:
It was doubtlessly under his mother’s care that Moses trusted God for his salvation.
Pardon me? People in the Old Testament knew about trusting God for salvation? This is the guy who spent the first 40 years of his life as an Egyptian prince and the next forty years as a fugitive desert sheepherder for his father-in-law. It wasn’t until God encountered Moses in a burning bush – God being the actor here – that Moses’ life really took a dramatic turn. And he didn’t exactly leap at the opportunity to follow and serve God – he demanded a surrogate speaker from the God who can burn a bush without consuming it! That doesn’t exactly sound like “trusting for salvation” to me.
And I think the last forty years of Moses’ life had a lot more to do with the burning bush, ten plagues, divided sea, hand-carved commandment stones, rock-struck streams, and face-to-face conversations with a God who left his face glowing so much he needed a veil than anything from the first eighty years of his life. I think his mother’s rearing probably had a lot to do with his murdering an Egyptian guard at 40…..but personal trust in God as his Savior? That’s way too AD twentieth-century evangelistic crusade for me to believe it had anything to do with Moses’ spiritual life.
Besides, God, especially in the Old Testament, seems much more concerned with people groups (families, tribes, and nations) than with particular individuals apart from those groups.
Just my own thoughts and reactions.
Tags: God, Old Testament, salvation, theology
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The Gospel
Posted on June 21st, 2007
The Gospel’s climax (at least as far as we know) may occur in the events recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but it does not begin or end there. This is a survey of Scriptures to broaden our understanding of Gospel, to look at a bigger picture than we may be accustomed to looking at. It all begins at the beginning:
Tags: Discipleship, Evangelism, New Testament, Old Testament, Scripture
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