{"id":1802,"date":"2012-03-02T05:59:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T10:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godonomics\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2012-03-01T16:12:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T21:12:19","slug":"fast-track-bible-read-the-bible-in-one-month-part-2-of-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godonomics\/2012\/03\/fast-track-bible-read-the-bible-in-one-month-part-2-of-24.html","title":{"rendered":"Fast Track: Read The Bible in One Month (Part 2 of 24)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The following generations decided to build a tower to heaven instead of trusting God. This monument to\u00a0themselves was a tangible example of their continued rebelliousness. (Archaeologists\u00a0have found evidence of this\u00a0kind of tower, which they call a ziggurat.) The people refused to spread out and enjoy the new world God had provided for them. In defiance of God’s desire for mankind to fill the Earth, the following generation decided to\u00a0stay in one place and build a tower to heaven. This blatant disregard for God’s command was evidence of\u00a0mankind’s arrogance. In response to their pride, God confused their language, scattering them over the entire Earth\u00a0and putting limits on how far mankind’s pride could take them.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prior to this, everyone on Earth spoke the same\u00a0language. God invented new languages and assigned them to different groups in the city. The builders could no\u00a0longer talk with one another. People began to \u201cbabble\u201d in different languages. This place was called the Tower of\u00a0Babel. As a result of this Divine intervention, people groups with similar languages banded together and spread out all over the world.<\/p>\n

Mankind continued to trust in its own destructive (and unproductive) habits, rather than God. Even though there were many\u00a0different societies living in different places, they all eventually stopped trusting. Despite their pride, God still loved His children dearly\u00a0and decided to come down to the country of Ur to speak to a man named Terah. He and his family were\u00a0worshiping other gods, and God spoke to Terah’s son, Abram (who would later be renamed Abraham.) He made\u00a0a promise to Abraham, \u201cIf you trust Me, leave your family’s gods, and go to a new land, I will bless you in three\u00a0ways: I’ll give you a family, a land flowing with milk and honey, and a promise that a Forgiver will come from your family line to bless the world.\u201d Abraham trusted God \u2026 some of the time. His story began, like those before him, with rebellion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>God told him to leave without his extended family; but Abraham disobeyed and took his nephew Lot with\u00a0him, which caused numerous problems over the next few years. Abraham tried to trust God for a family, but his\u00a0wife was barren. After years of waiting, Abraham and his wife impatiently decided to “help God out.” Abraham decided to have a child\u00a0with Hagar, an Egyptian woman. Hagar was a servant of Sarah who joined them when Abraham lied twice to the Egyptian Pharaoh a
\nfew years earlier. Hagar had a son with Abraham, and he was named Ishmael. Abraham’s manipulation of the situation was not what\u00a0God would have called trusting Him.<\/p>\n

Many more years passed. God reiterated through His angels that this old couple, now approaching their 100th birthdays, would\u00a0have their own son. They laughed, they waited, and then they were shocked. Sarah got pregnant in her old age and decided to name her\u00a0son Isaac, meaning laughter. They realized they could \u2013 and should \u2013 trust God to provide, even when His solutions took longer than\u00a0they expected. God reminded Abraham about His promises. At last, Abraham believed God and was given a right standing by God.\u00a0Joy filled the home upon Isaac’s birth.<\/p>\n

A few years later, God asked Abraham to sacrifice this long-awaited son as a test of faith. Abraham trusted God, placed his son on a mountaintop altar, and prepared to sacrifice him. God was pleased with Abraham’s trust and offered a ram as a scapegoat in the shrubbery to take Isaac’s place. God never wants children sacrificed, and specifically condemns the practice throughout the Bible.\u00a0 So why did He give us an “almost” sacrifice of a child? This was a foreshadowing of the future Forgiver — the Messiah and Son of God, who would be sacrificed for mankind and serve as scapegoat for mankind’s moral failures. God also asked\u00a0Abraham to circumcise his descendents as a sign of their trust in God as Promise Keeper and Righteousness-Giver.\u00a0God told Isaac to trust Him for the great promises He made to his father. Isaac grew up, married, and had\u00a0children of his own: twins named Jacob and Esau. Jacob was the younger of the two by mere minutes.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Think of\u00a0Jacob wearing a wrestling uniform with an embroidered letter \u201cL.\u201d His name means \u201cL\u201diar or deceiver.) He used\u00a0deception to get his way, rather than trusting God. He wrestled his brother into giving up his birthright with a bowl\u00a0of food. Jacob wrestled the blessing from Isaac during his father’s last hours by pretending to be Esau. The elder\u00a0brother became furious and tried to kill him. Jacob ran off to another land to visit a relative, Laban, who was\u00a0another renowned liar and wrestler.\u00a0Jacob wanted to marry Laban’s daughter, Rachel, so the man made him a deal. \u201cYou work for me for seven years; then you can\u00a0marry Rachel.\u201d Seven years later, Laban deceived Jacob and gave his older daughter, Leah, to him instead. Now Jacob felt the sting of\u00a0deception and lying. He worked for seven more years to marry Rachel, and decided to turn from his deceitful ways and finally trust His\u00a0heavenly Father. God came down to Earth as an angel and \u201cwrestled\u201d Jacob all night long, urging him to stop lying his way through\u00a0life. God wanted Jacob to turn from his wrestling, lying, and manipulation and fully trust. Jacob agreed, and his name was changed\u00a0from changed from \u201cL\u201diar to \u201cI\u201dsrael. With the new name, Jacob\/Israel reconciled with his brother Esau and started down a new path\u00a0of trust. Jacob and his two wives had twelve sons, which would later be known as the twelve tribes of Israel. (That’s why Jacob’s\u00a0wrestling number is \u201c12.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Here is a live teaching of Fast Track: Genesis-Exodus<\/p>\n