Word Surprises

In  Genesis 18  the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah to announce that they will have a child within a year and also let Abraham know that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached a level that God had come down to 'see for himself'.  Obviously God knew what was happening but He purposefully orchestrated a discussion with Abraham that prompted Abraham to plead for the lives of the righteous who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.  In verse 17 the Lord quizzically asks "shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do since he's getting all the blessing anyhow and why should it matter to him?" (paraphrased). Of course God is inviting a response, and pleasingly, when Abraham hears God's question he doesn't blithely wander back home content in the knowledge that God had promised him great things, but rather he comes before the Lord and and asks: “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You ...

Spiritual bias Until recently I had never read the story of Hagar in its own right and in the past generally skipped across the detail focusing on Abraham and his faith. This  changed recently as I slowly read through  Genesis 16  and realized just how much God loved Hagar and her son. It's an amazing story about a son of promise (Ishmael) but not "the son of promise" (Isaac).  I skipped this detail because I carried a negative image of Hagar into the story each time because  my thinking has been shaped by St Paul's use of  the story of Sarah and Hagar and their sons Ishmael and Isaac to illustrate the differences between the bondage of the Old Testament Law (Hagar representing being born into slavery) and t he Gospel (Sarah representing being born into freedom).   This chapter graphically displays how God works in the midst of human failure to show His love and mercy to all people no matter who they are. Hard work Genesi...

After reading about Abram's journey through Canaan in Genesis 12-15 and the altars he built whenever God spoke to him, I've been thinking about how we mark "God encounters" like he did.  Over the years I've collected a bundle of "encounter" memorabilia; things like key verses, magazine or book articles that have spoken to me just at the right time, or tokens of encouragement from people. At the moment they are scattered in various places and I'm now forced to concede that I need to put something more organised in place to remind me of those moments or they will be devalued by forgetfulness. A simple way to build a "spiritual alter" would be to: 1. Write it down or store it immediately in a special place like an journal or folder that you can keep all through your life. My experience is that the enemy encourages us to forget these wonderful times.  2. Tell someone who you trust about it but only after you've written it down or ...

Seeing it is Easter , I thought I'd post a couple of thoughts I had while reading    Genesis 3:14-15.    When Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent, God immediately cursed him and said "on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life." It crossed my mind that Satan ( Rev.12:9 ) is always found slithering across the floor of life and the dust that he seeks to "eat" is us! God made humankind from the dust and in His image ( Gen 2:7 ) but the devil wants to bring us down to his level and destroy that image. However God's words indicate that Satan's dust-eating days would be finite and he would have an end! Verse 15 further shows that right from the start God had a plan to redeem mankind and destroy Satan's power. There would be enmity between Satan and the woman's seed (Jesus) and He would crush the serpent's head and destroy him while Satan would strike at His heel. This was at the Cross. When Jes...

In Genesis 9:8-17 we read the narrative about the covenant God made with mankind and the sign of the rainbow. Notice what God says in verses 13-17: v.13 " I set My rainbow in the cloud ... for a sign .. between Me and the earth." v.14 "when I bring a cloud over the earth ..." v.15 " I will remember My covenant ..." v.16 " I will look onto it and remember ..."   What struck me as that the narrative doesn't neutrally say "when a rainbow appears in the sky" or "when you see a rainbow remember the covenant" instead we see God's very personal involvement in this covenant and how He constantly reminds Himself and the earth about it.  Apart from Genesis there are only three other verses in the Bible that refer to rainbows and they are  Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 4:3 and 10:1.  The first two refer to the Lord seated on His throne and the last refers to the great Angel of the Lord declaring the fulfillment...