the tindog coffeehouse

Our church has been challenged to read through the Bible in a year, and seeing as how I’ve never done that, I thought now would be as good a time as any to give it a shot. Barely in to the process, I can honestly say it’s been really interesting.

Now, I’ve probably read all of Genesis before, but never straight through and certainly not in only a couple of weeks. And a few things really stuck out at me as I was reading it.

First off, the Bible isn’t a G-rated book. Genesis alone is filled with adultery, incest, rape, prostitution, fratricide, genocide, lying, deceit, and any other horrific act you can imagine. People talk about how today’s society has gone to hell in a handbasket. I’m pretty sure we’ve got nothing on the folks in the Old Testament. I mean, God was so disgusted with all of it that He wiped everybody out with a gigantic flood, and even that didn’t deter them. That’s when you know there’s a serious problem.

Second, I noticed that God made a lot of covenants with people back then. The first covenant, of course, was with Adam and Eve when He promised them everything in the Garden of Eden as long they didn’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17). He also made covenants with Noah (6:9-22, 9:1-17), Abraham (15, 17, 18:20-33, 22:1-19), Hagar (16), Isaac (26:2-5), and Jacob (35:9-12, 46:1-3).

Why did God make so many covenants (and so often had to repeat them)? I think there are probably a couple of reasons. For one thing, these folks didn’t have a formal government or system of laws. These were largely nomadic shepherds who relied on covenants (basically legally binding handshake deals) to work out all kinds arrangements with other families and tribes, from commerce to property rights to arranged marriages. This was what they understood, so it makes sense that God would use the same mechanism when dealing with His people. Further, even though modern readers of Genesis might think of this as an antiquated concept, readers in Moses’ time would’ve innately understood and related to it.

As to why God seems to repeat His covenants, I think it’s because people tend to have a short memory. We forget about God’s promises to us when they don’t come true in the time we think they should, so He has to keep repeating Himself. Also, we’re pretty dumb most of the time. God is faithful with His end of the deal, but we’re constantly dropping the ball on our end.

Another thing that stuck out was how personal God was in Genesis. Not only did He talk to people audibly, He actually interacted with them physically. It says that after Adam and Eve first sinned, that God was “walking in the garden” (3:8). Later, He “came down” to inspect the Tower of Babel (11:5). He also visited Abraham (18) and physically wrestled with Jacob (32:22-31). Again, I think part of the reason for this is because that’s what people understood at the time. They didn’t have the Bible or churches or pastors to teach them about who God was; they only had God Himself. How else would He communicate with His creation other than to do it directly?

Finally, I was struck by how seemingly impulsive decisions drastically changed the course of history forever. Of course, there’s Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden. But there are other examples as well. God promised Abraham in chapter 15 that he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky, but when Abraham got tired of waiting on that promise to come true, he took matters into his own hands and had an affair with Hagar, who gave birth to Ishmael. And from Ishmael would come many of the Arab people that would conflict with the Israelites and later Muhammad, who would found Islam.

Later in chapter 37, Joseph’s older brothers decide on a whim to sell him into slavery instead of leaving him for dead (37:26-28). As a slave, Joseph was taken to Egypt, which would ultimately lead to all the Israelites — including Joseph’s brothers — becoming Egyptian slaves (47:13-26, 50:15-21, Exodus 1:1-11).

How would history have been different if Abraham had never gotten Hagar pregnant or if Joseph had never been led away to Egypt? Those two momentary lapses in judgment would have repercussions for thousands of years and cost countless lives.

There are a lot of other topics in Genesis worth digging into such as the Creation vs. Evolution debate, the Great Flood, and more. I won’t go into any of these now, but maybe I can come back to some of them later. (I’ve already touched on Evolution a few times before.) Also, I don’t plan on doing blog posts for every book of the Bible as I read through it, but I’ll probably post a few random thoughts here and there.