Daily Bible Reading: 11.29.08

Genesis 28:6-30:24

I don't even know how far behind I am in my reading right now. I think only a couple of days. But today's reading..WTF!?!? Jacob takes a wife. Let me back up. Jacob is the son of Isaac, son of Abraham. God promises Jacob the same thing he promised his forefathers; to make him a great nation that will bless all the peoples of the world. So Jacob runs into some shepherds and one happens to be the beautiful daughter of his mom's brother. He falls in love, works for seven years to marry her (and I thought two years being engaged was a long time), and is deceived by his uncle to marry his oldest daughter Leah. As you can imagine Jacob isn't too pleased when he wakes up to someone other than Rachael (Come to think of it this would make a decent episode of Friends). Jacob does get to marry Rachel a week later and works another seven years because of it.

Jacob now has two wives, when he only wanted one. I can't even handle a relationship with one woman right now. I can't imagine trying to please two. Granted Jacob just neglects Leah and because of it God makes Rachel barren and gives Leah four kids. Rachel gets jealous and has Jacob sleep with her maidservant, Leah has Jacob marry her maidservant, and everyone is having kids all over the place. And it seems that this is all in God's plan. Jealousy, deceit, favoritism, polygamy? I am trying to understand if the sinful actions of a fallen people are being used to God's glory here, or if the majority of this behavior was acceptable to God. Clearly God blesses Rachel when he gives her Joseph. And most of us know how God uses Joseph.

Sometimes I think we worry too much about not sinning. That somehow Christianity can be boiled down to a list of do's and do not's that if followed closely will grant us an eternal retirement in some otherworldly paradise. God did give some commandments. Perhaps we made a mistake by calling them "commandments." Maybe covenants would have been better. When Moses comes down from the mountain and God speaks to His people, he is entering into a marriage covenant. He's not trying to control them, he's trying to protect them. He's promising to take care of them. It was never about do and do not. It was always about being God's. The whole of Leviticus is not about the rules, it's about God showing the world that these are His people and they are different from everyone else.

As I grow and learn, I discover more and more that the goal is not a lack of sin, but to be more God's everyday. And whatever my actions be, God will use them to His glory...because He's God. He can do that.