A Study in Genesis Chapter 12:1-9

GENESIS CHAPTER 12

His name had been Abram, meaning “exalted father.” Later it would be changed to Abraham, meaning “father of a multitude.”

Verse 1 – God instructs Abram to leave his homeland and go to a place unnamed. This is the way it is with God. He calls and we go. Not to go when God calls is like a slap in His face. His call to Christ is much the same: God calls, we respond. If we respond obediently, the reward is even greater than Abram’s.

Verse 2-3 – God makes a promise to Abram. He will bless him. Blessing is a much misused term today. We think of God’s blessings as material. The more He gives us the more we feel “blessed.”

If you look the word up in a Bible dictionary you will see it defined as “happy.” But the word “happy” did not mean the kind of giddy, or gratified feelings we get when things are going our way. Contextually, in the Bible, “happy” means deeply spiritually satisfied. The Beatitudes can properly be read: Deeply spiritually satisfied are the poor in spirit, etc.

That is why people going through unimaginable trials can still be blessed. That is why Christians in lands where they are persecuted, tortured and killed can be blessed. That is why people in “under developed” countries can be blessed.

God’s blessing to Abram is chapter two of the story of God’s redemptive work with mankind. Jesus is descended from Abram, as shown in Matthew 1. Those who follow Him are a direct result and fulfillment of Abram’s blessing.

Verses 4-5 – Abram did what God told Him to do. God has called us to radically follow Christ. We must do so, even when we cannot see where it will lead. By trusting God in Christ, we know that our destination is eternity with Him in Heaven.

Verses 6-7 – Abram’s obedience to God would lead him and ultimately Israel into some difficult earthly times. Abram went anyway.

God promised the land to Abram. God always keeps His promise, no matter what world events might or might not take place.

Abram built an altar to God. An altar is a place of sacrifice. It served to remind people of their gratitude to and dependence upon God.

Verses 8-9 – Abram “pitched his tent” on a mountain and built another altar. Then he continued on toward the Biblical region of Judah.

Christians have no need for an altar. The sacrifice of Christ at the cross of Calvary is all of the sacrifice God needs for the redemption of mankind. Those who follow God to the cross will find eternal life.

Additional Thoughts

God promises to show Abram a country. Abram did not see the country, but he headed out by faith. We know he went by faith because faith is the essence of things hoped for; the evidence of things UNSEEN. Following God by faith means doing what He tells you, even when you don’t know where He is leading.

Abram built an altar in Shechem. In the Old Testament, an altar is a place where something dies as a sacrifice. Under the New Covenant, an altar is a place where we die to self. We don’t need it for a sacrifice, Jesus has provided the sacrifice…Himself. To follow Him, we must die to self.

Israel was chosen by God and was expected to be 1) A witness of God’s ways; 2) a keeper of God’s word (Romans 3:2); 3) a channel for God’s wonder (Messiah). God chose Israel because He’s the “captain of the team,” and He gets to choose. He chose them to provide the path to Messiah, Jesus. Those who bless Israel (and her mission) will be blessed. Those who curse Israel (and thus reject Messiah) will be cursed. And that’s just the way it is today and always will be.

God says unequivocally that He gave Canaan (the West Bank) to the Jews. It’s their land, not the Palestinian’s land, or your land or my land. It’s Israel’s land, and we would do well to respect that, even if we don’t like it.

A Study in GENESIS CHAPTER 11

Genesis Chapter 11

This chapter of the Bible is not so much about building a tower or the capabilities of man. It is about the corruption of man’s nature.

When Adam chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden, he immediately brought upon himself and the entire human race both spiritual and physical death (Genesis 2:17; Romans 3:23; 5:12; 6:23).

The resident sin-nature is passed on down through the blood line of the male to every human throughout history, except Christ Jesus who was born of a virgin without the involvement of a human male.

The sin nature is the center of man’s rebellion toward God and is variously designated in Scripture as “sin” (a singular noun—Rom. 7:13), “flesh” (Gal.5:16), and “old man” (Eph. 4:22).

Whereas the lost person has no resident power to do other than succumb to his sin nature, the saved person has the ability to choose (or yield to) the Holy Spirit within himself to overcome it.

Chapter 11:1-4

The Bible here utilizes two distinctly different Hebrew words to describe the process of communication of the entire human race at this time in history. One is dabar, which may mean “the content of what is being communicated” (the mind-set); and the other is sepheth, which is also translated “lip” or “language” and refers to the actual linguistic signs, symbols and words utilized in such communication. So not only did man at this stage of his development use the same language, but all humans were of one accord in their intent and purpose upon earth.

In Genesis 9:1, God commanded those who were saved from the Flood to disperse and populate the entire earth. In direct opposition to God’s explicit direction, they chose to stay together in their “comfort zone.”

The Tower of Babel Outlined:

1.  All nations unite to use technology (bricks) to build a big city.

2.  They build a tower, ostensibly to reach to the gods.

3.  God knows that this city will be a nightmare.

4.  In His mercy, God scatters the people.

The people decided to build a grand tower, which is commonly called the “Tower of Babel.” They apparently did this in order to establish their self-identity, to set themselves apart and to demonstrate their pride in themselves—to “make a name” for themselves.

The tower of Babel was a great human achievement, a wonder of the world. But it was a monument to the people themselves rather than to God. We may build monuments to ourselves (expensive clothes, big house, fancy car, important job) to call attention to our achievements

Genesis 11:5-9

God confused their language in order that they could no longer understand each other and scattered them over the entire earth.

The provision of languages (“tongues”) at Pentecost (Acts 2:5-11) was a reverse of the confusion of languages at Babel.

When God’s Word is proclaimed, He promotes union, understanding and order.

Today, mankind is once again attempting to come together as one race (via the United Nations, the European Union and other agencies)

16.  What is also significant in this passage is the shortening of the life span of the human race, a natural result of the curse placed not only on man but upon the earth, which now exposes man to environmental effects that prove detrimental to his health. This shortening of the life span is seen in the following life spans of those mentioned in this passage.

Name Life span in years

Shem 600

Arphaxad 438

Salah 433

Eber 464

Peleg 239

Reu 139

Serug 230

Nahor 148

Terah 205

Genesis 11:29

The name “Abram,” in the Hebrew means “exalted father.” When his name was changed to 

“Abraham,” in chapter 17, its meaning is “father of a multitude.”

Questions:  What have you learned about the character of God in these passages?

What have you learned about God’s love for His creation?

What have you learned about His plan for its redemption?

A Study in GENESIS 8 and 9

Fill a large jar half-way with sand, fine gravel, tiny pebbles and regular sized pebbles. Then fill it full with water. Shake it up very well and set it on a counter top to settle. Notice how it settles almost (but not quite) perfectly with heavier pebbles on the bottom and sand on the top. You can see four distinct layers with some mixing.

So it is that geologists have found sea creatures at the top of mountains and layers of rocks and minerals in canyons and other places where strata is observed. They have also found skeletons in places no one could imagine they could be. This is all evidence of a world-wide flood.

Chapter 8

Verse 1-5 – The waters of the flood receded, no doubt leaving strata as it did so.

Verses 6-14 – Noah used birds to determine when it was safe to exit the arc. The birds had found homes, and the earth was dry.

Verses 5-19 – The animals had entered the arc by kind; that is: Feline, Canine, Cloven Hooved, etc. They exited the same way. They repopulated the earth. Animals that had not gotten on the arc perished and no longer roam the earth.

Noah and his family were instructed to exit the arc

Verse 20 – The first thing Noah did was to build an altar on which to present the first recorded sacrifice to God. We no longer have or need altars. Altars are a place of sacrifice for the remission of sin and the sacrifice for our sins has already been made in the person of Jesus Christ.

Verse 21 – God recognized Noah’s offering of thanksgiving and promised never to “curse the ground” again. This in spite of the fact that He knew that man’s heart was sinful from birth. He had another plan to take care of that issue: His only Son, a final sacrifice.

Verse 22 - There is something very expressive in the original Hebrew: od col yemey haarets, until all the Days of the earth; for God does not reckon its duration by centuries, and the words themselves afford a strong presumption that the earth will someday cease to exist.

1 Peter 3:21, makes the ark a figure of baptism. Some try to make his comments mean that baptism saves, just like the eight souls were saved by the ark. That would be a contextually wrong interpretation. We are saved by, and only by, the remission of sin accomplished by the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary and His resurrection.

Chapter 9

Verse 1-10 – Noah is instructed to begin the process of repopulating the earth. He is given dietary rules to follow and is told that God would hold mankind accountable for how they treat one another.

Verses 11-16 – God establishes an Unconditional Covenant with Noah. No matter what, He will never again destroy the earth with water. The sign of this covenant was a rainbow.

A rainbow is an extraordinary thing. It is a refraction of the first command of God, “Let there be light.” To see a rainbow, the source of light (the sun) must be behind you. Every color of the spectrum is present in every rainbow. What a beautiful way to seal this Covenant.

Do not make the sophomoric mistake of thinking that because God promised to “remember” His Covenant that He sometimes forgets. God is God. He never forgets. The rainbow was not for His benefit. It was for ours.

The Light of the World (Jesus) is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise: A New Covenant.

The New Testament has a LOT to say about good doctrine.

How Christ Thought - Week 1

Session 1 

Writing to the Jews about Jesus being the fulfillment of all of the prophecies of Scripture (the Old Testament, for them), 

Matthew records the genealogy of Jesus, the circumstances surrounding His birth, His baptism and His temptation in the desert. Then he writes about His message.

In Matthew 4:17, Jesus begins His preaching ministry by saying, “…Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Without going into a detailed definition of the kingdom of heaven, just know that Jesus was telling the people that His presence was the embodiment of that kingdom.

Next, Jesus called twelve men to drop what they were doing, forsake their occupations and families and to follow Him. 

Jesus demands no less from us today. If we are to be His, we must totally “sellout” to Him. He is not interested in some compartmentalized part of your life, He wants it all or nothing.

Without going into detail, Matthew states that Jesus went to many places, healed many people and drew very large crowds.

The next thing Matthew gives us is an account of Jesus longest recorded sermon. Interestingly, it can be read in its entirety in 10 or 15 minutes. In this sermon you will find great insights into how Jesus thought; that is: His mind set. 

Here is a brief outline of what we call The Sermon on the Mount.

A.               How we should think (the Beatitudes) – Matthew 5:3-12

    1.                There are ten of them (if you count verse 12 as one…which it is).

    2.                They speak of recognizing one’s spiritual condition.

B.                Who we are

    1.                Salt

    2.                Light

C.                How Jesus fulfilled the Law and Prophesy

    1.                The Law is perfect and those who break it (which includes all of us) are doomed

    2.                We must be better than the Pharisees and teachers of the Law to be saved.

D.               Examples from the Law

    1.                Murder

    2.                Adultery

    3.                Divorce

    4.                Oaths

    5.                Revenge

    6.                Loving the unlovable

E.                Having a giving heart

   1.                Humble, even secret giving

   2.                Seeking no recognition

F.                Prayer

    1.                Not for show or to impress others

    2.                The form of prayer

        a)                Worship

        b)                Submission

        c)                Petition  

        d)                Forgiveness

        e)                Deliverance (salvation)

        f)            Praise

G.               Fasting

    1.                Not for show or to impress others

    2.                Humbly

H.               Your relationship to physical things

    1.                Focus on heaven

    2.                Use them to serve Christ

I.                 Worry

    1.                Don’t be concerned with things

    2.                Have faith that God will provide what you really need

J.                 Judging others

    1.                Let God do the judging of another’s heart

    2.                Understand your own spiritual needs

K.               Trusting in God’s provision

    1.                Ask, seek and knock

    2.                Treat others like you want to be treated

L.                Few will really follow Christ

    1.                The road with the most people on it leads to destruction

    2.                The road to eternal life is very narrow: it is Jesus or nothing

M.               Warning about false prophets

    1.                Wolves in sheep’s clothing

    2.                Right doctrine is extremely important. Weed out those who teach untruth

N.               Wisdom

    1.                Build on sand – die

    2.                Build on the Rock who is Christ – live eternally

A Study in Genesis Chapter 5

Throughout the Old Testament God repeatedly gives us proof that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah. He gave that proof in many ways, but one of the more frequent ways was to reveal the genealogies that wound their ways unbroken right up to the birth of Christ.

Matthew reviewed the genealogies in his first chapter to help the Jews to whom he was writing to understand that Jesus is who He said He is. Although genealogies might seem too boring to read, a careful study of them is very inspirational. They prove Jesus!

In Chapter 5 of Genesis we have such a genealogy. It shows the bloodline from Adam to Noah. There are all kinds of characters in the list. Their names and their names' meanings are in the picture in the upper left.We know most about Enoch and Methuselah.

We know Enoch because he "...walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." (Genesis 5:24). Methuselah we know as the oldest man recorded in the Bible, having lived some 969 years.

The last characters in the list are Lamech (not the violent guy of chapter 4), Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.

They set the stage for the most catastrophic event ever to strike earth, and event that would reveal God's character, His grace and His provision...The Flood.

Are We Still Here - A Video

SUNDAY SOUNDS OF PRAISE-The Name Lives On-David Phelps

A Study in GENESIS Week 4

 Reading chapters 4-11 of Genesis is like tracing the downward spiral of all humanity. After making the wrong choice, Adam and Eve could no longer trust each other. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent and both were alienated from their perfection.

Adam and Eve had been naked and felt fine about it. After they decided to do things their way instead of God’s way, they experienced shame. They hid their bodies from each other.

Sin is a vile thing. It is a stench in God’s nostrils. And because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we are born as sinners. It is not that we have a tendency to sin, it is that we are filled with the sin nature. Like God said to Adam and Eve, and later through the apostle Paul, the consequence of sin is death…an eternal death for which there is no earthly remedy.

Verses 1-2 – Adam and Eve experienced sexual intimacy for the first time, and Eve gave birth, first to Cain, then to Abel. Cain farmed and Abel shepherded his flocks.

Verses 3-7 – From the get-go, mankind has recognized the need to make things right with God. Cain felt a need to make an offering to God. He presented some of the land’s produce to Him. Abel also felt the need to make an offering. He presented God with his flock’s firstborn.

There is enough symbolism in those two offerings to last a lifetime. God’s refusal of Cain’s offering demonstrated that not just any offering can atone for sin. Abel’s offering demonstrated that only the blood of life could atone for sin. 

Hebrews 11:4 tells us that God accepted Abel's offering because he offered it by faith: "By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith." 

Verses 8-12 – Cain’s lack of understanding about making up for sin and God’s refusal of his offering made him angry enough to kill Abel, whose offering God had accepted. When confronted by God about it, Cain uttered those famous (and often misused) words, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Mankind is very prone to rationalizing and excusing sinful behavior. “It’s not my job” is a pretty standard response to taking responsibility for one’s actions.

Verses 13-18 – God’s response to Cain was punishment, but true to His nature, God’s punishment was much lighter than he deserved. Far from rendering instant death (eye for eye, tooth for tooth) God showed mercy to Cain. He even protected him. He even allowed Cain to start a line of descendants.

Verse 19-24 – A guy named Lamech appears next. Lamech accumulates wives like property. He sings songs of violence that are about how he is more violent than Cain and proud of it. This is about the downward spiral of mankind into worldliness.

Verses 25-26 – Adam and Eve then bore Seth. Seth gave birth to Enoch. This would begin the lineage of Noah and ultimately of Christ whose blood would be the ultimate remedy for man’s sin.

Video Explanation of Covenants

There are actually seven covenants in the Bible: The Edenic Covenant; The Adamic Covenant; The Noahic Covenant; The Abrahamic Covenant; The Mosaic Covenant; The Covenant of the Land; The Davidic Covenant and The New Covenant. There are a few other "minor" covenants, such as the covenant of circumcision, but these are the main ones.

In most cases, when theologians speak of the covenants of the Old Testament, they are referring to the four major covenants: The Noahic; Abrahamic; Mosaic and Davidic. There is only one covenant in the New Testament. It is called the New Covenant, prophesied in the Old Testament. The New Covenant fulfills all of the Old Covenant in Jesus, and the Old Covenant is made obselete (Hebrews 8:13).

Here is an illustrative explanation of the four major covenants.





The Bible Project

What's Your Favorite Current Christian Fad?

SUNDAY SOUNDS OF PRAISE-Who Can Satisfy My Soul?-Dennis Jernigan

A Study in Genesis Chapter 3

Genesis 3 is an accurate historical record of what happened in the Garden of Eden. If you don’t understand this chapter, you cannot understand the rest of the Bible. You must understand sin before you can understand the need to repent of it and place you faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary.

All of the problems in the universe have their origins in Genesis 3.  It is the foundation of a correct world view. God had proclaimed His creation good. Now it is fallen and exhibits all of the evils of its fall.

Verse 1-5 – The Hebrew word for “serpent” is Nachah, to shine, or a shining one. That is the picture of Satan given us in the story Lucifer’s fall, described in Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:12-18. These two passages reference the spiritual power of Satan.  Angels were created before the earth. Satan fell before he tempted Adam and Eve.

The serpent misquotes God, saying that God had said Adam and Eve could not eat from any tree. 

Eve corrected that, but went on to say the God had told them not to touch the fruit of the tree of the 

Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan then contradicts God by saying, “…you shall not surely die.”

Verse 6 – Eve picked and ate the fruit from the tree because it looked good to her. Sin often looks good, but its consequences are always dire.

Verse 7-13 – After failing to trust God’s word, thus making the wrong choice, Adam and Eve can’t even trust each other anymore. This distrust occurs because Adam’s definition of good and evil might be different from Eve’s. They had been naked and felt fine about it. Now they feel shameful. They hide their bodies from each other.

Through this act of disobedience, sin entered the world. Romans 5:12 “Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” When Adam sinned, we were all there. He brought to us original sin. We all have inherited original sin.

When confronted with their sin, Adam and Eve tried to pass the buck. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed Satan.

Verses 14-19 God placed a curse on Satan. In verse 15, we read of the eventual crushing of Satan by the heel of the Messiah (Christ) at His death. When Jesus died, Satan thought it was a victory. Little did he know that it was his ultimate undoing.

Then God placed a curse on Adam and eve. A curse by God has eternal consequences. There is only one escape from the curse of God. It is not in obedience, it is too late for that. The only escape is through placing one’s faith in, and only in, the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary. Once you have done that, you are free from the curse of sin and death…forever.

As Christians, we do not have to run around with our “tails between our legs,” afraid that we might do something that offends God. Anything we do is offensive to God unless He sees us through Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. But if He does see us through the eyes of Christ, we are secure in Him. We are set free! The sin we inherited from Adam is completely covered by Christ’s shed blood.

We might well sin, but when we do, if we are saved, it hurts us and we determine by the power of the Holy Spirit not to repeat the sin. If we are not hurt by our own sin, we are probably not saved. As Paul said in Romans 6:15, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!”

Through Christ, God gives us freedom; not freedom to sin, freedom to live in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Now that’s real freedom.

Aren’t you glad that Adam’s sin that was passed on to us is made right by the second Adam, Christ our Savior?

Exodus Explained for Christians

The Bible Project

How many different, meaningful sermons could you preach in a year?

There are 1,189 chapters in the bible.

If you preached a sermon built on the meaning of each one each Sunday, it would be 22 years before you had to repeat a sermon. If you preach Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening, in seven years you would never have to repeat a sermon.

Don’t worry! Every topic you can possibly think of would be covered, because the Bible touches every subject that has ever occurred to man.

So, why do so many preachers preach the same sermons so often? Are they lazy? Do they think some chapters just don’t have anything significant to say? Did they just forget that they had preached the same sermon just a short time ago? Could it be that they just don’t care?

Maybe they think that congregations are so simple minded that they can only take in sermons about Joshua’s determination, David’s triumph over Goliath, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s facing the fiery furnace and Lazarus dipping his finger in the water to cool the tongue of Diver (traditional name).

Perhaps repetitious preachers don’t think their congregations can remember that they have already preached that same sermon a half-a-dozen times within the past year or so.

To be sure, there are some chapters that lend themselves to special events. Christmas, Easter, and maybe Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day might be examples. But allowing for those, it would be even longer before a particular sermon would have to be repeated.

It could be that some people who think they’ve been called to preach are just the objects of their own vain imaginations and can’t really preach their way out of a wet paper sack.

Well Worth the Time

An Overview of the Stories and Meaning of Genesis

       I.           I.   Genesis is a book deliberately designed by God in a specific way for a specific reason. The book is divided into two main parts.

a.      Chapters 1-11 tells the story of God and the entire world.

b.      Chapters 12-50 tells about God and Abraham’s family.

c.      How the two of those parts relate is where you find the message of the book.

    II.         II.  Part 1

a.      The creation story which tells about God creating everything.

b.      God takes the dark watery chaos and turns it into a beautiful garden.

                                                    i.     In the garden we meet the first human characters in the Bible, Adam & Eve.

1.      Adam is the Hebrew word for humanity.

2.      Eve is the Hebrew word for life.

3.      They represent the creative work of God and His desire for mankind to reproduce itself.

c.      God gives Adam and Eve the moral choice about how they will build this world.

                                                    i.     Up to now, God has been defining and providing what is good.

                                                   ii.     The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents a choice for Adam and Eve.

1.      Will the humans trust God’s definition of good and evil?

2.      Will the humans seize the opportunity to define good and evil themselves?

3.      They choose to eat the fruit, desiring to “call the shots”…pride and selfishness.

                                                 iii.     Humans turn out to be horrible at defining good and evil without God.

d.      Genesis 2-11 is like tracing the downward spiral of all humanity.

                                                    i.     After making the wrong choice, Adam and Eve can’t trust each other anymore.

1.      They had been naked and felt fine about it.

2.      Now they feel shameful.

a.      Adam’s definition of good and evil might be different from Eve’s.

b.      They hide their bodies from each other.

                                                   ii.     In the next story, Cain becomes jealous of Abel, gives in to temptation and kills him.

                                                 iii.     A guy named Lamech appears next.

1.      Lamech accumulates wives like property.

2.      He sings songs of violence that are about how he is more violent than Cain and proud of it.

                                                 iv.     Things get so bad with the human race that God decides to wipe it out with a flood.

1.      This is not God’s anger, it is about His sadness and grief about the state of the world.

2.      The waters of the flood show that only God can wash things clean.

3.      God chooses Noah and his family (along with the animals) and saves them on the arc.

a.      Noah and his family “reboot” all of humanity.

b.      After the flood had receded, Noah planted a vineyard and gets very drunk.

c.      Something sketchy happens in his ten with his son.

                                                   v.     Humanity grows again and things are as bad as before.

                                                 vi.     The last story is of the Tower of Babel.

1.      All nations unite to use technology (bricks) to build a big city.

2.      They build a tower, ostensibly to reach to the gods.

3.      God knows that this city will be a nightmare.

a.      In His mercy, God scatters the people.

e.      All of these stories underline the same basic idea.

                                                    i.     When humans define good and evil themselves, it results in tragedy and death.

                                                   ii.     This leaves us wondering: Is there any hope for humanity?

                                                 iii.     The very next story will answer that question.

                                                 iv.     It is the beginning of God’s mission to rescue and restore His world.

    III.         III.   Between part 1 and part 2 of Genesis is a story that links the two parts and helps us understand what the book is about.

a.      A genealogy follows one of the scattered tribes of Babel all the way down to one man: Abram.

   IV.           IV.  Part 2

a.      The second part of Genesis focusses only on Abraham’s family.

                                                    i.     God promises Abram an uncountable number of children.

                                                   ii.     He says that through Abram and his family, all the nation of the earth are going to be able to find God’s blessing.

                                                 iii.     God will begin to reveal His plan to rescue humanity.

                                                 iv.     The generations He will use include: Abraham; Isaac; Jacob; and Jacob’s 12 sons.

                                                   v.     To each generation, God renews His promise to bless them and all nations through them.

                                                 vi.     Because of His promise to use this family to rescue the world, it is easy to read these stories as examples of how to    be a good person.

                                                vii.     But the family is dysfunctional.

1.      Two different times Abraham basically gives Sarah away to other men by denying that she is his   wife.

2.      Sarah gets impatient about having a son, so she makes Abram sleep with her servant girl.

3.      Abraham and Sarah get really old and think there is no way they’re going to have a kid of their own. Miraculously, they have a child in their old age named, Isaac. Isaac has Esau and Jacob.

4.      Jacob wants the family’s inheritance and devises a plan to steal it from his father, who is old and blind.

5.      Jacob goes on to have twelve sons, but loves his 11^th son, Joseph more than the others.

6.      Joseph’s brothers hate him and plan to kill him.

a.      Instead they sell him as a slave down in Egypt.

b.      While in Egypt, Joseph goes from being in a prison cell to becoming Egypt’s second in command.

c.      The Middle East suffers a food shortage, so Joseph’s brother come down looking for food.

d.      They find Joseph, now the ruler of the land.

e.      Joseph gives them food.

7.      God has transformed the evil of the brothers into something good. That’s the way God does things.

     V.            V.  Genesis closes with Joseph’s statement, “You planned all of this for evil, but God has turned it into something good, to save peoples’ lives.”

a.      These words summarize the message of the whole story.

                                                    i.     Humans keep choosing evil.

                                                   ii.     We think they are messing up God’s plan, but He keeps turning their evil back into good.

b.      God is going to use this family to restore humanity back to the garden.

   VI.           IV.  The rest of the bible answers the question of how God is going to accomplish this. Hint: Follow the next 38 books all the way to Jesus.