Back to Bethel
Genesis 34
Gen 34:35 Then God said to Jacob, “Go
up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to
you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”
IF
the events of this chapter were a movie or a television show, it would be rated
R or whatever the highest bad rating is these days. Uncontrolled lust for
Dinah, for wealth and for revenge, fueled with deceit, enslavement and death
create a grim picture of people at their worst.
What place does this deadly story have in
God’s Holy Word?
One reason God doesn’t hold back the bad
as He tells His story is that He is intent to tell us how horrible sin truly
is. Here is a prosperous family seeking only the comfort of a good life of
work, marriage and raising the next generation. Jacob’s family is the kind of
people we can connect with.
We can also connect with the violence. Daily
we see and hear stories of how sin violates a family’s desire for a good life.
Sometimes our own families are victimized by such violence.
This story of evil between neighboring
people demonstrates how desperately we need God. We need God to teach us all
how to live. We need God to protect us from temptation. We need God to deliver
us from evil desires. We need God to guide us to the truth, his peace, justice
and mercy.
Why does God tell it as it is? We need to
know how bad it is because we must “go to Bethel”—the house of God—to call on
the name of our good God.
LIFE
Link: Make your home a “Bethel”.
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