Commenting through Genesis 22

Genesis 22 – God Tests Abraham

Does God test us? Is this test fair?

After these things God tested Abraham’s faith. God said to him, “Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” 2 Then God said, “Take your only son, Isaac, but this is certainly not his only son the son you love. Did not Abraham love Ishmael as well? Go to the land of Moriah. Then kill him and offer him as a whole burnt offering. Do this on one of the mountains I will tell you about. A sacrifice is first killed humanely and then burnt. No animal is burned alive. Abraham is offering his son in the same way descendants will offer animals. What kind of an offering is this? It’s not an offering for sin. An important part of the process for making meat kosher is to certify that the animal is killed humanely. The rabbi inspecting the killing makes sure that the animal has no fear when he is killed. Would this be applicable to Isaac? Would it be important that he have no fear?

Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took Isaac and two servants with him. He cut the wood for the sacrifice. Then they want to the place God had told them to go. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to the servants, “Stay here with the donkey. My son and will go over there and worship. Then we will come back to you.” DW and CL both mentioned that Abraham expected Isaac to somehow be alive when they were done. Or was he just saying that not to cause alarm with the servants? Surely they knew this was a pilgrimage to offer sacrifice.

Abraham took the wood for the sacrifice and gave it to his son to carry. Abraham took the knife and the fire. So he and his son went on together.
Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” Abraham answered, “Yes, my son.” Isaac said, “We have the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb we will burn as a sacrifice?”

This is an emotional scene. Why is this part added to the story? Surely this could have been left out and we would still get the point? Why is this part included? We can read into this Abraham’s care for his son. He has not told his son what he intends. So his son is not to be given a choice in the matter. Yet Isaac is probably an older boy, possibly a teenager. He could make a run for it. But where would he go? Trying to live alone would be suicide.

We can possibly conclude that Isaac is beginning to understand what is about to happen. He is the lamb. He is old enough to understand about sacrifice. Others around him may sacrifice children to their gods. And yet he never tries to escape. Would you try to escape in a similar situation?

Abraham answered, “God will give us the lamb for the sacrifice, my son.” Is this unintentionally prophetic?” Or does Abraham believe that eventually he will sacrifice a lamb instead of his son? Surely not.

So Abraham and his son went on together. They came to the place God had told him about. There Abraham built an altar. He laid the wood on it. Then he tied up his son Isaac. And he laid Isaac on the wood on the altar. Then Abraham took his knife and was about to kill his son. Notice the literary effect. The writer repeatedly uses “son” and his name to personalize the act.


But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. The angel said, “Abraham! Abraham!” Abraham answered, “Yes?” The angel said, “Don’t kill your son or hurt him in any way. Now I can see that you respect God. I see that you have not kept your son, you only son, from me.” What does it mean “not kept him from me”?

Then Abraham looked up and saw a male sheep. Its horns were caught in a bush. So Abraham went and took the sheep and killed it. He offered it as a whole burnt offering to God. Abraham’s son was saved. So Abraham named the place The Lord Gives. Even today people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be given.”

Genesis 31:42 Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now hadst thou sent me away empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time. The angel said, “The Lord says, ‘You did not keep back your son, your only son from me. Because you did this, I make you this promise by my own name” I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. They will be as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. And they will capture the cities of their enemies. Through your descendents all the nations of the world will be blessed. This is because you obeyed me.’” We take this “all the nations of the world will be blessed to be an allusion to the savior of the world Jesus.

Then Abraham returned to his servants. They all traveled back to Beersheba, and Abraham stayed there. This is a sign of his obedience. He stayed where God had put him. To me this is analogous to the statement by Abraham, when asked where Sarai was to say, “In the tent.” She was where she was supposed to be. He was proud of it. Here this comment tells us Abraham is where he is supposed to be. Often we are to wait. We are not to be busy doing, just for doing’s sake.

Why does this passage show Abraham talking to the "angel of the Lord" and no God himself? In other places Abraham speaks to God directly. Why not here?

Genesis 22 and 24

I spent some time yesterday preparing to teach on Genesis 22. I really enjoyed going over it and writing out comments. I used a paraphrase called the New Century Version to go through. I was taken aback by some of the turns of phrase in 22. It was fun and I got a lot of insights. It turns out they were mostly for me.

I got to Life Group last night and found that CL wanted me to do 24, not 22. 22 is about the almost sacrifice of Isaac. 24 is about Rebekah becoming Isaac's wife.

Because of the people who did not come last night CL wanted to do 24 first so I did it cold.

It turned out not to be too bad. No one reacted in an argumentative fashion to my not so serious ways. I do need to remember to tone it down. I explained that the servant, whom CL identifies as Eleazar of Damascus, "put out a fleece" when he arrived at the village of Abraham's relatives. I had to explain quickly the story of Gideon, the original fleece putter. That brought me up short, surely everyone knows that story. But no I think we did have a couple of people who did not know the story. It would be good to go back over it in more depth.

I am too blunt. I need to pray that I will be more loving and patient at Life Group. Thank God they were very loving and patient with me last night.

Court last night

Another adventure. You may remember that I got a ticket at 5 AM on a Saturday morning about three months ago It was on Memorial Drive. There was no one on the road but me and this policeman. I got a ticket for not signaling when changing lanes. I was very polite slowly moving into the lane at least two seconds in front of him. I was very polite when taking the ticket. But I did express my disgust at his behavior both in giving me the ticket and in making me wait 5 minutes while he stood by his squad car and I sat impatient to try to make it to Marathon prep in time to start with the rest of them. I did make it BTW, barely.

Anyway I had to go to court a month ago and got arraigned and a court date set. Last night was my court date. It was dismissed.

I was so proud of myself until I realized that DW and DD2 and others were praying for me. I have to give God the credit. No one else on this light docket was getting off. There is really no explanation except that God gave me favor. I felt that I was morally right, but that can mean little in a case like this.

He had me on the facts. The fact that the policeman did not show may or may not have been important. There were other policemen there waiting for their cases to come up.

I am tempted to think that the policeman was too embarrassed to face me in court. But maybe not. He had all the power of government on his side. He had the facts on his side. I did change lanes w/o signaling. However the situation on the road might make him look silly. He may have realized that.

I still cannot understand why he pulled me over unless he was just bored or felt dissed that I changed lanes in front of him. I did not mean to annoy him but in retrospect I should have known better.

I always park in the little neighborhood across the street from the police station. The same homeless man was there from last month to give me advice on the parking rules. He was very nice. Last month I gave him a tip. This month I did not have a small enough bill.

Sunday - car batteries - not reading at 6 PM - Some Kind of Wonderful

Hmm, was there anything special yesterday? Well the thing I was most proud of is that when April's car needed a new battery I was able to put it in. April's car wouldn't start. She charged it about a week ago and now it was low again. This time an overnight charge would not hold. So we figured it needed a new one.

It meant her wings were a bit clipped. She could not go to church by herself. She had to ride with her parents. We had to stay through two services since she worked in childcare during the late service.

(You know Jill I was actually a good child care worked when I was April's age. Do you believe it? It's hard for me to believe."

So after service we agreed to find an auto parts store open that sold batteries. I was convinced they all sold batteries and most were open on Sundays. They were not sure. I decided to drive down North Main into town looking for auto parts stores. THERE IS ACTUALLY ONE RIGHT THERE AT 11th (whatever it turns into) and North Main. So we went in there and bought the battery.

I have actually had practice putting batteries in my Toyotas. Usually they are really not special that just sit loosely on the housing and put the cables back on. This one was especially fit for the housing, one had to unscrew and mounting bolt. It was sort of tongue and groove, one had to angle it in and then put the bolt back on. April helped me. I wanted her to get a learning experience out of this.

My procedure for getting the cables off is to carefully hit the cable connector back and forth until it gets loose and then wiggle it off. We found (by God's grace) a wire brush to clean off everything from the corrosion that accumulates. That took some time because I did not want to use too much force and break something. But after they did start moving the cables came right off. We then had to remove the bolt from the housing to take the old battery off. April quickly put the new one on and rebolted it in place. She also placed new post washers (those red and black asbestos rings) underneath the cables. They work a little bit.

The cables went on and we quickly found that the car now started right up. Praise God!!

I was so excited that I had bought new washers for my old battery on my Toyota. I went out and replaced them. I was proud of myself. (Not that it will probably allow me to avoid buying a new battery for my car soon.)

So I heard Michael's sermon twice. We get to see his granddaughter a lot. About a year ago it ceased to be about motorcycles and became his granddaughter. I am glad that he loves her and can find ways to make her into a sermon example.

RC spoke at the evening service. I read my Greek bible and admittedly heard very little of it. An old singing partner BMc came early to get a good seat for 6 PM. He said he'd been called by several people to come to hear BP's sermon. On one sheet BP was the preacher tonight. But the bulletin said RC. And so it was.

The funny thing was that RMc called me at 3:30 and said he was still in Austin and asked could I read the lectionary. I said sure and prepared for it. But I did not communicate with anyone, not RC or BMc so before the service RC asked BMc to read. I saw them talking and guessed what it was about. I felt it was probably the best since I was already singing. It's not impossible to do both but it is awkward. Even though I knew with my head it was a good thing I still felt rejected. That is silly. But emotions can be.

I think in the future if there is a registered reader in the congregation I will ask them to serve if I am ever again caught in this situation.

1 Kings 7

Again I did not realize that Solomon's Palace was bigger and in some ways grander than the Temple. The Temple was built in 7 years. The palace was built in 13 years (7:1). It was called the Palace of Cedars or the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. It must have been pretty amazing in an area without large trees to see all that beautiful wood.

There is mention of stone but mostly in the foundation. So that may be why we do not find any remains of this palace when archaeologists dig.

He built one just like it for his Egyptian queen (7:8) So I guess she is his main queen. No mention has been made of other wives, yet. Perhaps at this time he only has one wife. One wife is God's best. A man and a woman are to join together and are to be faithful to one another. They cannot do that when there is more than one wife (or more than one husband for that matter).

All this costs money whether in food for workers or money to buy or produce the beautiful things. Solomon is a very wealthy man.

Special attention is made to the beautiful windows (7:4-5). We are to understand that there is new architecture and engineering advances being made here.

Innovation is quickly copied and spreads. I think this passage may be modestly describing innovations that spread, perhaps even to Greece and then to Rome.

१ किंग्स ६ - लाइफ Group

1 Kings 6 - Life Group
In this chapter the author describes in detail the building of the Temple of God. It is referred to as God's house or the house several times. This is where God will live. But it is of course where God's people will come to worship. The next chapter will describe the house Solomon is building for himself. His house, by the way, is bigger than God's house. And the throwaway line, "and he built a house just like it for his Egyptian bride." Wow.

Anyway back to 6. There is a very detailed description of the stages of it being built. We can almost see it going up. First the foundation then the stone walls. Then the wood all around so that the stone can no longer be seen. Then the special floors of cypress wood. Then the walls are inlaid with gold. I think just the inner rooms are inlaid with gold but I am not sure. The doors are described, they move on pivots. If you have ever gone to Israel and seen all the stone monumental buildings at the archaeological sites you might forget that this is just the skeleton. In their day the stonework was covered. In many cases the stone was not seen. It was covered by wood paneling. It was painted or covered by tapestries. We forget that when we see the Temple wall.

The commentator takes this image of house and moves it to us today. We are God's house. God dwells in us now, instead of in a temple of stone and wood and gold. Jesus came and said no longer will you worship in Jerusalem. You will worship God in spirit and in truth.

And corporately God dwells in his church. We the body of Christ are his living stones. We are his house. Solomon's house for God took seven years. Our Body of Christ and our individual temple to God is still under construction.

A family lives in a house. We are God's family. As adopted sons we are relations. We are dependent on one another spiritually. Sometimes we help each other financially too. We give to missions to poorer parts of the family of God in other countries. We often give to each other when we are in need. He mentions the Greek word for house is oikos. This is the basis of our English word economy. The family of God is interdependent like an economy.

As our house of God is still under construction we live in expectancy that God will continue to grow us and mature us and will finally accept us into his kingdom, the heavenly mansion prepared for us. We help each other along the way and encourage each other.

We had Life Group last night. I continue to marvel. What a weird group we are! Not to say motley, this is a very gifted group. But we all have our quirks. CL is continuing to teach. I just have to open meetings and sort of move things along. CL pretty much demands that of me. But there are so many people who can pray, teach, lead prayer, act as amazing hosts. I do very little but sit back. That is how I see myself, sitting back.

We were at the Thomas' again last night. They have such a beautiful house and entertain so lovingly. We overstayed our welcome a bit I am sorry to say.

We split up to pray at the end, men and women split up. We found that there have been many answers to prayer. This includes major steps forward in my effort to close the company at work. Also our prayers for relationship healing among my siblings has been answered too. We still have some major requests so God is not finished there either.

Trusting God for Guidance

Worried about guidance

I'm reading the last chapters of Packer's Knowing God. It is really hard to just flow through this, for me anyway. There is too much to think about. Sometimes I brood about it, like the last chapter on Romans that speaks of God's adequacy to save us. Something about that is hard for me.

But I am mostly sanguine about guidance, finally, after so many years of getting it wrong.

I believe if you are seeking to be a disciple of God you can mostly trust your skills and desires to guide you.

Some people have their life plan lined out for them. At least it looks that way from the outside. Some people will testify to that too. Great for them. I've never been like that. I was hoping someone would tell me what I was called to do. But it never happened. Silly I know. For one thing I'm such a curmudgeon. If someone really did try to tell me I would likely have not listened anyway. I am pretty hard to tell anything. So the concept that some angelic person was going to guide me is ludicrous. And yet it was a fantasy of mine.

My life is not straightforward. I cannot say there has been a logic to my life. I've never been able to see one. But I trust God has led me, most of the time. I think it has been good in God's eyes. He is subtle enough guide me into the paths of his choosing. I have to believe that.

There is scriptural reason for thinking so. Packer lists some. I will give you some of his.

Isaiah 58:11 assures us that if the people repent and obey, "the LORD will guide you always."

Psalm 25 "Good and upright is the LORD, therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way ... " A sinner I am. Humble I am working on.

James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him." (RSV) Notice God says without reproaching. How wonderful a promise that is. There are no stupid questions. And the answer might be right in front of you.

Over time I have learned not to expect direct words from God. Yes I think I have heard direct words. But often I get logical reasons why I should do so-and-so, not so much a Moses like pronouncement. God is wonderful enough to explain it to me, most of the time. I think this is God's guidance as much as any other oracle might be. It might seem to come from my brain.. But I trust that my commitment to God insures God will often work through what seems a natural means.

The loud disclaimer must be made that we have the Bible as a rule for the limits of what God would call us to. God will not ask me to do something against the ten commandments, as much as from time to time I'd like to pretend to myself. No matter how much I might think it good to lie or steal, it is always sin.

God says in Romans 12:1-2 "Let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed." "Then you will be able to discern the will of God and to know what is good and acceptable and perfect."

We can be confident that God can guide us. He works with us individually. We can be confident God will guide us. Each of us has a unique call for our lives. It will not look like anyone else. Most of us are called to be "regular joes". God needs good regular joe servants. People are watching. You never know who. God is using you.

If you desire to obey, God is able to use you. Psalm 119 is all about God's readiness to teach those of us ready to obey. And God takes whatever we give and keeps it.

Psalm 23:3 "he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Remember God seeks his glory in our lives. He will be glorified in ways that we may never know, at least not before the day of judgment. This passage underscores that God will lead us to act righteously, that is according to the rules of right living the Bible describes. He will never lead us into sinful, hurtful acts.

But people go wrong if they think they must get a direct word from God for everything they do or say. I've tried that too. It will make you neurotic. It will make you much too introspective. Most of the things God calls us to are just prosaic choices we make. They involve inclinations, preferences and such. And yet God is guiding.

Certain jobs would be outside God's will. God tells us to find a believing spouse. Do not be "unequally yoked" means to me to find someone with the same level of commitment to God, not just being a believer. One will save oneself a lot of grief later if you do that, no matter how gorgeous the person you have you eye on. It is not enough if they are simply a Christian. They should be the same level of disciple you are.

Outside of that there is a lot of leeway in choosing a job or a spouse. A lot of that will involve your God given talents and passion and preferences of people of the opposite sex.

You can try demanding that God give you a word about your job or a spouse. If he does great. If he doesn't you can trust your inclinations. If you do get a direct word I think you should get it confirmed by a mature Christian that you trust. If it is a word from God it should line up and others should be able to check you if there is a problem. We should not trust ourselves totally about revelation. We are all so liable to mistakes in hearing God.

All of us should be willing to share these revelations to see if they line up with scripture and with a confirming word by someone who knows us. I may not be altogether too good at this but it makes it no less true.