Daily Bread, Bible in a Year — Day 14

Today is Saturday, October 31st, and this is Daily Bread, Bible in a Year, thanks for tuning in.

Welcome to Daily Bread, Bible in a Year. It's Saturday, day 14, and it's time to look back on the week.

Ben: Grace, this week felt like a whole lifetime. We started with smoke rising over Sodom and ended with Jacob limping toward his brother at sunrise.

Grace: That's exactly how it felt. And in between, a baby who made his mother laugh, a mountain, a well, a ladder, two sisters, and a wrestling match in the dark.

Ben: So the arc is really one family. Abraham and Sarah finally get Isaac, the promised son. Then God asks Abraham to give him back. Then Isaac's sons fight over the blessing before they're even born.

Grace: And Jacob spends most of the week running. From Esau, then from Laban, and honestly, from himself.

Ben: So what stuck with you?

Grace: Sarah laughing. Back in chapter eighteen she laughed because she couldn't believe it. This week she laughs because it's true. She names him Isaac, which means laughter, and says everyone who hears will laugh with me. I loved that.

Ben: Same laugh, totally different heart. For me it's Bethel. Jacob has just deceived his father, he's alone, sleeping on a rock, and God shows up. No rebuke. Just a promise. I am with you, and I will not leave you.

Grace: Which he really doesn't deserve at that point.

Ben: Not at all. That's what makes it grace.

Grace: Okay, the hard part. For me it's the mountain. A first-time reader hits Genesis twenty-two and just stops. God asks Abraham to offer his son?

Ben: It's meant to be hard. But notice how the story is told. God calls Isaac your only son, whom you love. And Abraham tells the servants, we will come back to you. Both of us.

Grace: Right, and Isaac asks, where is the lamb? And Abraham says God will provide.

Ben: And God does. He stops Abraham's hand, and a ram is caught in the thicket. Abraham names the place The Lord Will Provide. The lesson isn't that God wants children sacrificed. It's the opposite. He provides the substitute himself.

Grace: Which, I mean, you can't read that and not think of another beloved son carrying wood up a hill.

Ben: Exactly. Abraham's son is spared. God's own Son isn't. That's the heart of the gospel.

Grace: Something else surprised me too. Jacob is kind of a schemer. He grabs his brother's heel at birth, buys the birthright with soup, fools his blind father. And God chooses him anyway.

Ben: Then Laban out-schemes him. Jacob wakes up married to Leah instead of Rachel. The deceiver gets deceived.

Grace: And I noticed Leah. Unloved, naming her sons as she hopes for her husband's love. Then with Judah she just says, this time I will praise the Lord. God saw her.

Ben: And Judah is the line of David, and of Jesus. The overlooked wife carries the promise.

Grace: Then the wrestling. Jacob won't let go until he's blessed. And God asks him, what's your name?

Ben: Which is really asking him to confess it. Jacob, the heel-grabber. And God renames him Israel. He walks away blessed and limping.

Grace: So where does Matthew meet all that?

Ben: Everywhere, honestly. Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, and says he came for sinners, not the righteous. That's Jacob's story. God chooses the grasper and makes him new.

Grace: And when Jesus sends out the twelve, that echoes Jacob's family growing into Israel's twelve tribes. He's gathering a new people.

Ben: Good. And think about prayer. Jacob wrestles for a blessing. Jesus says ask, seek, knock, your Father knows how to give good gifts.

Grace: So we don't have to wrestle a blessing out of God. He wants to give it.

Ben: Yes. And the Lord's Prayer says give us this day our daily bread. That's Abraham's mountain. The Lord will provide.

Grace: And Lot's wife looking back at Sodom, then Jesus saying where your treasure is, your heart will be also. She couldn't let go of what was burning.

Ben: And the house on the rock. Jacob literally sleeps on a stone, sets it up as a pillar, and calls the place the house of God.

Grace: I hadn't connected those. That's lovely.

Ben: So what do we leave people with?

Grace: Maybe this. Jacob had to say his own name before he got a new one. Where in your life is God asking you to stop running and tell him honestly who you are, so he can bless you there?

That's the week in review. Tomorrow we'll preview the week ahead. See you then.

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