Immunity from Loss or Significance?
If God were to come to you and offer you either immunity from loss or a significant life for circles broader than your relational or familial networks, which would you choose?
Bethel Blessings
God meets Jacob twice at Bethel and the encounters are worth comparing.
While Abraham’s anxiety focused on children, Jacob’s anxieties mostly focused upon security. Abraham’s life would be marked by the struggle to have a legitimate heir by his wife Sarah. Jacob’s story would be a struggle for security within the context of family threats. He was first threatened by Esau, then Laban, then Esau again and finally the fear of retribution for the murder and looting perpetrated by his sons against Shechem. Jacob’s constant worry about security would be matched by Yhwh’s faithfulness to deliver him time and time again.
The blessing at the first Bethel meeting had the following elements:
- God’s self-declaration: “I am Yhwh the God of Abraham…”
- Land: “I will give you and your descendants the land you’re sleeping on.”
- Descendants: “they will be like the dust of the earth, they will spread out…”
- Future Blessing: “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you…”
- Personal Blessing: “I am with you and will go with you”
- Safe Return: “I will bring you back to this land and will no leave you…”
The blessing at the second meeting in Bethel had these elements:
- Renaming: “Israel shall be your name”
- God’s Self-declaration: “I am El Shaddai”
- Re-assert the creation mandate: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1 to the man and the woman, Genesis 9 to Noah and now here to Jacob. New beginning?)
- Descendants: “nations will come from you, kings from your loins…”
- Land: “The land of Abraham and Isaac… to your descendants.”
- Continue reading →
