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Narrative Flow of Gen 12–50

Here are some thoughts on the narratives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the perspective of a missional hermeneutic or approach to Scriptures. The approach of missional hermeneutics attempts to understand the Bible against the broader backdrop of God’s mission in the world.

God’s promises to Abram are the primary driver of plot for the remainder of Genesis. The narratives that follow Abram’s call show how the promises play out in the lives of Abram’s family and trace how the promises of God pass from generation to generation. God appears to Isaac and Jacob and reaffirms the earlier promises to Abram.

The theme of promise demonstrates the faithfulness and reliability of God despite the foibles and missteps of Israel’s ancestors. God is faithful when Abram, Isaac, and Jacob are faithful, but the God of mission is faithful even when his new humanity is not. As we will see, this does not mean that God’s people have no ethical responsibility. Rather Gen 12–50 offers a hopeful message that contrasts sharply with the narratives of Gen 3–11 where humanity’s ongoing lostness keeps it bogged down in perpetual cycles of sin and disbodience. God’s mission will move forward now in spite of human failings through the faithfulness of God. This does not mean that humanity has no responsibility, but it places the emphasis on God’s mission in the proper place—God himself.

God made promises to Abram, and God keeps them. God sustains the community of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through threats to God’s promises. These threats most often result from ill-timed or conceived acts by God’s people. When Abraham twice passes off Sarah as his sister (12:10-20 and 20:1-18), Pharaoh and later Abimelech take her as a wife. In each case, God intervenes and reveals the truth to these men so that Sarah is restored to Abraham. God has called Sarah to be the mother of a people of promise. He acts to protect her. In Genesis 16, Abraham and Sarah conceive Ishmael through Sarah slave-girl Hagar whom Sarah presents to Abraham as a surrogate wife. Although this was an accepted practice, this means of conception was not God’s plan for Abraham and Sarah. Thus, Ishmael as Abraham’s firstborn represented a detour from God’s promise of a son. It was God’s intention for Sarah to conceive through the power and blessing of God. Ishmael receives his own special blessing (21:17-18), but it is Isaac whom God chose to serve as the key descendant of Abraham.

Jacob is the greatest example of how God is faithful to his promises despite the brokenness of his people. Jacob is God’s choice while still in the womb, but Jacob proves to be a conniving manipulator of the events and people around him. He gains Esau’s birthright by taking advantage of Esau’s hunger. Then he works in conjuction with his mother Rebekah to deceive Isaac into granting Jacob the blessing of the firstborn. This action sends Esau into a rage and forces Jacob to flee Canaan for Haran. Notice the problem: the bearer of God’s promise has now been forced to leave the promised land to return the country out of which God had called Abraham. Yet it is at this moment that God encounters Jacob personally for the first time. In Gen 28:13-15, God repeats the promises to Abraham and Isaac for Jacob and assures Jacob of his ongoing presence. This encounter impacts Jacob but does not change him. While in Haran, Jacob outwits his uncle Laban and accumulates vast wealth. This causes animosity and causes Jacob to return to Canaan. God delivers Jacob from the fury of Laban. While fretting over the necessity of meeting up with Esau again, Jacob encounters God as the river Jabbok. He wrestles with God. During this encounter, God blesses Jacob and gives him the name Israel. This encounter is life changing as Jacob finally relinquishes self-control and recognizes his need for God. The next day when Jacob encounters Esau, Esau shows no animosity over the past and welcomes his brother home. God has kept his promises despite Jacob’s unruly and scheming character.

The Joseph story (Gen 37–50) centers on the ongoing providential care that God provides for his new humanity. In these chapters, readers witness the tension and drama of Joseph’s fall from the favored son of Jacob to an imprisoned slave in Egypt and then see God reverse his fortune by raising him up to second in power only to Pharaoh. Joseph’s life in captivity is a model for missional living. Despite the profound unfairness of his enslavement, he resists the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife. Astonishingly, Joseph’s uprightness gains him the reward of imprisonment. Joseph remains unbroken and God works through him to bless others in the prison. This leads to the miraculous series of events that leads him to interpret Pharaoh’s dream. When Pharaoh hears Joseph’s interpretation, he recognizes God’s presence in Joseph’s life (41:38). He then appoints Joseph his second in command and Joseph leads Egypt to prepare successfully for a devastating time of famine. The famine is widespread and affects Canaan. This threatens the ongoing existence of Jacob and his family. Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to purchase food. In the course of these events, Joseph reunites with his brothers who are frightened at the power of Joseph because it was they who had sold him into slavery. Joseph reconciles with his brothers, and Pharaoh himself invites Joseph’s father and entire family to live in Egypt as guests of Pharaoh. This chain of events delivers God’s new humanity from famine and sets the stage for the fulfillment of Genesis 15:13-15 in which God revealed to Abraham that his descendants would be aliens and slaves in a foreign land. In the book of Genesis, God’s people live in the delta region of Egypt as the guests of Pharaoh. In the book of Exodus, there will arise a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph and began to treat God’s people as a threat (Exod 1:8-10).

In Genesis 45 and 50, Joseph offers remarkable theological reflection on the events of his life as a means of assuring his brothers that there will be no retaliation against them (see especially 45:4-8 and 50:19-21). Genesis 50:20 is sublime, “You yourselves intended evil against me; God intended it for good in order to preserve for life a vast people, just as he is doing now.” Joseph’s words lift up the reality that God intends and works good regardless of the circumstances in which God’s people find themselves. This does not mean that God’s people will avoid suffering and hardship. Such elements are simply the reality of living in the post-Genesis 3 world. But recognizing that God is faithful to advancing his mission and keeping his promises allows God’s people to persevere as Joseph did in anticipation of the in-breaking of God’s future. Joseph witnessed this in the course of his own life. He was able to view the world with 50/20 vision. Joseph was able to understand the circumstances and challenges of his own life in light of God’s promises and mission.

At the end of his life (Gen 50:22-26), Joseph takes up the mantle of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by affirming to his brothers that God will indeed lead the people back to the promised land of Canaan. This establishes the necessary transition to the book of Exodus.

Genesis 12–50 exhorts God’s people to recognize their standing in the world as a people of promise. God’s people exist as a missional community for the sake of the world. God’s faithfulness to his promises grants assurance of his grace and power. God is faithful in Jacob’s life despite Jacob’s own failings; he is faithful in Joseph’s life despite the injustices suffered by Joseph. God’s relentless faithfulness ought to embolden his people to faithful living in whatever circumstances they find themselves.

What do you think?

© 2010 Brian D. Russell

God’s Universal Intent and God’s Particular Election of Abram
The biblical story temporarily narrows with the call of Abram. Genesis 1–11 are the stories of all humanity. They have an international focus. God created the world earth and crafted humans to spread across the globe and serve as God’s visible representative. In God’s creational vision, all people were the people of God. In Genesis 1–11, there is no Israel, but only people and ultimately nations (Genesis 10). The Scriptural story moves from the narrative of all creation to a plot that follows the destiny of a newly called people. It begins with Abram whose family will be the wellspring of a new missional people.

Let’s reflect more on two key aspects of God’s call on Abram: God’s universal intent for creation and God’s particular election.

First, verse 3 “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” is the interpretive key. This clause brings mission to the forefront. God’s purposes are much wider than merely calling Abram and his family to a new life and offering promises to him and his descendants. Rather Genesis 12:1-3 offers a clue that the Bible is ultimately the story of God’s working to bring salvation and wholeness to all creation. God calls Abram for the sake of all people. Abram’s family will serve as God’s agency to bring blessing to all peoples on earth. Just as humanity was crafted for participation in God’s mission at the time of Creation (see Gen 1:26-31), God’s recreated people are born anew to work toward the fulfillment of God’s creational purposes. In other words, Gen 12:1-3 serves as reengagement of humanity’s original mission, but with a twist. If the original mission involved humanity’s care and faithful stewardship over the created work, God has now recalibrated the mission to deal decisively with humanity’s foibles and sins. In the beginning God desired to have women and men, persons created in the imago de, fill the earth and serve as his visible representatives. As we saw, in Gen 11:1-9, God achieved the goal of filling the earth with people, but there was a problem. The lostness of men and women prevented them from manifesting a witness for God. Even worse the lostness of men and women required their redemption. God moves to save a lost humanity by beginning with Abram and his family.

Second, God chose to work through a called people. This raises the issue of particularity. Why didn’t God call multiple persons from all over the planet? The answer is that God’s plan drives to a singular conclusion—the sending of Jesus. The call of Abraham established a beachhead into a lost world into which God would send his Son. The call to be the people of God is a privilege, but it is not a call to a privileged life. God’s people exist for God’s mission. They were called to be the conduits of God’s blessing to the nations. Their calling was to serve rather than to be served. Thus Genesis 12¬–Malachi 4 focus mainly on the potential and pitfalls of living as God’s people in the world. These texts record the forward advance of God people in preparation for the incarnation of the Son. But as we will see, the nations remain part of the story. Sometimes they will serve as adversaries who pose a threat to God’s promises and mission (e.g., Egypt and Philistia); other times we will witness persons born outside of God’s people become core characters in the narrative of redemption (e.g., Rahab and Ruth). So yes in his wisdom God did indeed call one family out of all the families on earth, but he did so for the sake of the many.

Third, the call of Abram involves the creation of a new community. God commands Abram to unplug from his ties to culture, family, and kinship networks of Mesopotamia to strike out anew on his own. As discussed earlier, this is a separation not for privilege but for service/mission. It is also a means of God creating a new community. In Genesis 1, God created humanity last in order of created things (living and non-living). Humanity was crafted to serve as a missional community to reflect God’s character to and for the Creation. In an analogous way, God calls Abram and his family to live and serve as a new humanity. This communal aspect is vital. It is easy for us to view Abram’s call as a solitary one. Our Western individualism makes it easy to think of Abram as a lone hero figure. But from the beginning, Abram is not alone. Abram’s wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, and his many servants accompany Abram on the journey. At the beginning God created humanity for authentic relationships. This continues in the new humanity that God creates. In the popular imagination, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob function as heroic individuals, but at their core, these are family stories. The mission of God always advances through community. It is decisive for us in our day to hear the Scriptural testimony regarding the crucial role that community plays for the advancement of the Gospel.

Any reflections, questions, or critiques?

© 2010 Brian D. Russell

Why does God call Abram out of the millions of humans on the earth at that time? Gen 12 does not answer this question. Likewise we do not know if God had called others before Abram who had declined or ignored the call of God. Perhaps God saw in Abram a spirit of adventure. As Gen 11:27ff notes, Abram had already experienced a migration and demonstrated a willingness to travel to Canaan. On some level, God calls a person who had already possessed some inkling to travel west to Canaan. On the other hand, Abram’s call must be reckoned an act of grace. We have no indication of any prior relationship between Abram and the LORD. In fact, later tradition in Joshua 24:2-3 suggests that Abram was a worshipper of other gods before the LORD led him to Canaan. But it is this man and his family whom God engages in relationship so that God’s plan of salvation may begin to blossom. Whatever the particular reason, God called Abram for the sake of all humanity. Stunningly, Abram serves as the initial answer to the plethora of problems and issues raised in Gen 3-11. This reality raises the importance of Abram’s call for a missional hermeneutic of the Old Testament.

The recurring theme of childlessness is a dominant one in Gen 12–50. It strikes Abraham/Sarah, Isaac/Rebekah, and Jacob/Rachel. In the first two instances, childlessness serves as a threat to God’s promises to multiply descendants for God’s people. In the latter, it sets up the intra-family tension that God will use to preserve God’s people during a time of famine. In the ancient world, childlessness was a mark of divine displeasure and punishment. Sexuality was a direct connection to the divine. The religions of the ancient Near East practiced rituals to persuade the gods to bless an infertile couple with children. In the context of Gen 12–50, childlessness functions to mark God’s people as the product of God’s grace and mercy rather than the result of human procreative power. God’s people do not exist due to some sacred manipulation of the gods. God’s people are a gift to the world. Abraham and Sarah endure decades of childlessness before the conception of Isaac. God called Abram and Sarah to be the wellspring for a new humanity that exists for the sake of the nations. The great irony of Abram’s story is his lack of an heir. Abram is obedient to God’s call and trusts God’s promises, but he has no son. God renews his promises to Abram in 15:1-6. Abram’s trust in God is reckoned as righteousness, but there is still no son. In chapter 16, Abram and Sarah take matters into their own hands by conceiving a child through a surrogate, Sarah’s slave Hagar. This was an acceptable practice, but it was not the way God planned. God does not need humanity ingenuity to fulfill promises. God’s plan entailed a miraculous birth. Childlessness is no obstacle for God. Thus, late in life and according to God’s renewed promise (Gen 18:10), Sarah bears a son named Isaac for Abram.

The very next generation experiences the same challenge. God’s providence brought Isaac and Rebekah together (Gen 24), but like Abraham and Sarah, the bearers of God’s promises are barren. The drama is short-lived as God opens Rebekah’s womb in response to Isaac’s petition, but the theme remains the same. God’s people are multiplied through the gracious work of God.

God ability to bless the childless serves as a recurring theme in the Old Testament. In the sublime Ps 113, the psalmist portrays the grandeur and transcendence of the LORD in the opening verses (Ps 113:1-6). Stunningly, the psalmist asserts this great God’s care and compassion for the marginalized. Verse 9 announces, “[the LORD] gives the barren woman a family; she becomes a joyous mother of children.” When Isaiah is looking for a symbol of God’s work of salvation for those languishing in exile, he proclaims, “Sing out O childless woman; break into song and shout you who have not labored. For the children of the desolate woman will be many more than those of the married woman, says the LORD” (Isa 54:1).

What is the point of this theme? The people of God are not limited by the weakness and struggles of humanity. God’s people are capable of much more than the sum of their collective abilities, talents, wealth, and resources. In fact, the biblical God often bypasses the typical human avenues of power to pursue his causes through outsiders. The advance of God’s mission is dependent solely on God’s strength and power. God declares this definitively for the initial generations of God’s people by multiplying descendents for Abraham through the wombs of women who otherwise were unable to bear children. It also teaches the community about the character of God. God does not merely side with the powerful and the self-reliant. He is with those whom other human communities tend to marginalize. God advances his kingdom and mission through the margins.

The Disease of Conceit. Conceit is a community killer. It is an ever present danger in our lives.

In the book of Romans, Paul presents in extended fashion his understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans 1-11). The book moves explicitly to exhortation in Romans 12. Paul calls the Christians in Rome to present their bodies corporately as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2). Transformation begins with the individual but always involves the community as a whole. God created us to live in authentic community with one another (Genesis 1:26-31). When we experience the salvation that God has offered to us in Jesus Christ, God calls us to be part of the body formed by followers of Jesus Christ. Corporately, we become a “living sacrifice” to God. We are called to no longer be conformed to the patterns of the world, but rather be transformed. The life transformation occurs in community.

It is striking therefore that the first specific direction about the community is a warning:

NIV Romans 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

1) Paul writes not as a person with positional authority. He writes as a person who has experienced the grace of God. Paul could have written: I am an Apostle and this is what I say, or I saw Jesus Christ personally on the road to Damascus or I have been a student of Scripture for all of my life. But he doesn’t. He writes as one who has received grace. Isn’t this the position of us all? None of us can stand on our own merits. As we begin to think about community, this is the starting point. The community of followers of Jesus Christ is a community who owes its existence to the grace and mercy of God.

Paul reminds us of this elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

1:26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things– and the things that are not– to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God– that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

2) Don’t be self-centered. Paul’s admonition is so basic, but so profound. Too many of us are infected with the disease of conceit. Conceit robs us of our ability to function as healthy members of the body of Christ. If we are puffed up, we will limit our ability to serve. If we happen to be leaders, we will model conceit to our communities and create (unintentionally) centers of narcissism rather than the centers of outreach and evangelism. We need constantly to remember the words of Jesus, “For the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

3) Conceit is a community killer. Our world is plagued by division: racial, economic, geographic, sex, age, and so on. From early childhood, human beings form insular groups and cliques. The new community created in Jesus Christ, however, is called to be radically different. There is a profound unity in Jesus:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Nothing kills the community that God created us to embody more than conceit. The Church that God dreams about is an oasis in which everyone is welcome to receive God’s grace and find his or her place in the only institution that exists for something greater than itself.

4) Conceit throttles mission. If we don’t value others and privilege our own self-interests, we will never be able to reach out beyond ourselves. All our talk about missional church, missional reading, and radical outreach will prove to be vacuous if our communities are filled with conceit.

How do we move forward as a community?

Value the diverse gifts of the community. Although this is obvious, it is not so easy to practice. It is not merely a matter of mouthing the acceptance of various gifts and talents which persons possess; we must actually invite and unleash each member to deploy his or her gifts fully. We must therefore put away “cookie cutter” and/or “fill in the blank” ways of filling out ministry teams. Instead, we need to ask ourselves constantly, “How does our community need to change in order to utilize fully each member’s gifts?” Leaders need to focus on mobilizing and training.

Recognize that we need one another. In healthy communities of faith, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. Too many communities of faith never experience this reality. Too many pastors function as the paid servants of the whole. Yet pastors need every single member more than any single member needs the pastor. We need one another. Consider the words of Bonhoeffer:

Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. (Life Together, 77)

Recognize and show gratitude for the contributions of each member. As leaders we need to model gratitude and show value to each person. The cure for conceit is the creation of a culture of gratitude. Saying “Thank you” acknowledges the presence, value, and contribution of another member and pushes the one who shows gratitude further and further away from a self-centered life governed by conceit.

Practice a gift-based ministry. We must learn to encourage, equip, and empower each individual in our communities to unleash his or her gifts. This is a more difficult leadership challenge than merely trying to fill-in the blanks on some pre-packaged leadership structure, but in the long run, it will yield much more fruit. You will gain a maximum benefit from each member. This is the heart of Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:6-8 –

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

What do you think?

Bob Dylan has a killer song titled “The Disease of Conceit”. Read the lyrics. Listen to an audio sample.

Here is a poignant and understated cover of Dylan’s The Disease of Conceit

© 2006 Brian D. Russell (Revised 10/2010)

I am offering the course Biblical Interpretation for the Missional Church (BS750 crosslisted also as MS750). This is a 3 cr/hr tutorial that will be taught in tandem with the 2011 Kingdom Encounter at Asbury Seminary (Florida campus) featuring Alan and Debra Hirsch.

Alan and Debra Hirsch will teach on the content of their latest book: Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Shapevine)
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If you are interested in my course, download a pdf of the syllabus here.

Here are the required texts for my course:

Contact me if you have questions.