Chapter Two

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The Week of January 29

God could have solely worked through individuals. But we find God endowing a man with a covenant: I will make and bless you into a great nation. Can you put yourself into Abram’s sandals, leaving a known family to live in a strange land? And through believing by going, he was living by faith and being credited as righteous.

This story is primarily in Genesis but includes passages from Romans and Hebrews of the New Testament describing the events from the other side of the cross. p 473

Thought questions:

p13 Abraham was an elderly man when he began this journey of hundreds of miles at 75 y/o. He truly was leaving the familiar and cleaving to God in trust. In what ways have you trusted God while in an unfamiliar, cross-cultural or traveling situation?

p15 When he was nearly 100 y/o and 'his body was as good as dead', Abraham unwaveringly trusted God for a child and heir. When have you trusted against all hope?

p18 When the child was born, they named him Isaac, meaning laughter. Sarah had laughed at the possibility of a son. God made the laughter and joy permanent through the name. How have you had tears of futility turned into joy?

Abraham was not a perfect man. Not once but twice he portrayed Sarah as his sister and not his wife. She was taken into the harems of Pharaoh and Abimilech and was almost made to be their wife. Talk about building trust into marriage. This only illustrates that God uses broken people to live by faith, even when they do so imperfectly.

p20 When Abraham and Sarah had their only biological son, God asked that Isaac be sacrificed back to God. On one level this is incomprehensible. On another level, it is exactly what God did Himself by asking His only begotten Son to sacrifice His life by faith for the sins of the world (John 3:16,17). How could God ask for and then fulfill such a request?

p23 Jacob, Isaac’s second son (meaning 'grasper of the heel'), stole his brother's birthright, then blessing and wrestled with God. I wrestled with God just prior to becoming a follower of Jesus. He wanted me to follow and I was resisting. Have you ever 'wrestled' with God?

It is interesting to me…God wanted to give a blessing to the first son, but both Isaac and Jacob were second sons with older brothers (Ishmael and Esau). Jacob son Joseph was his eleventh son. What does this tell us about the unpredictable and sometimes upside down ways in which God works?

Chapter One

the week of January 22

This is a great privilege to join you in this quest to read through the Bible in 31 weeks!

A few things you should know. There are thought questions available for each chapter at the end of the book, beginning at page 473. There are character descriptions beginning at page 489. The Bible passages referenced in each chapter are on 495-6. And a timeline is found from xi to xv and at the beginning of each chapter. These tools are helpful to give us historical context.

Each week I will write comments and create further questions to sharpen your thinking. Here we go…

Page 1… In the beginning God… The most important thing is that God did the creating. The process is important, the timing is less important. Why is it that Christians bicker about whether the time to create took 7 days or billions of years? May we agree to disagree over this issue?

Page 2… God made animal life according to its own kind. Then He made Adam and Eve in His Own Image. In what way are people after God’s Own Kind?

Pages 2 & 3… After God finished ‘Days 1-5’ He said each ‘was good’. After finishing ‘Day 6’, which included His creating mankind, He rested and said it ‘was very good’. What is the significance of this?

Page 4… God wanted Adam & Eve to have transparent relationships, with God and each other. What was the result of the broken trust between the humans and between them and God?

Page 5… It is sad that God had made mankind in His own image but they wanted to be like God on their own, that is equal to God. How do we currently do the same thing?

Page 5… God knew where Adam and Eve were hiding. But He still called out to them, ‘Where are you?’. What does this tell us about the pursuant character of God?

Pages 9-11… How is Noah’s redemptive story a foretaste of our salvation in Christ?

See 1 Peter 3:18-22.

Bonus reading: Read Psalm 104 and Psalm 8.