August 1st, 2013
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Pre-determined Flavor?

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Accept me, Good Lord, as a living sacrifice, alive and eager to be used as You see fit.

Read GENESIS 26:1-25

[1] Now there was a famine in the land-besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time-and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar. [2] The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. [3] Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. [4] I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, [5] because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.” [6] So Isaac stayed in Gerar. [7] When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” [8] When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. [9] So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, “She is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.” [10] Then Abimelek said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” [11] So Abimelek gave orders to all the people: “Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” [12] Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. [13] The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. [14] He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. [15] So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. [16] Then Abimelek said to Isaac, “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.” [17] So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled. [18] Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. [19] Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. [20] But the herders of Gerar quarreled with those of Isaac and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him. [21] Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. [22] He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land.” [23] From there he went up to Beersheba. [24] That night the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.” [25] Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“Wisdom is the ability to view life as God perceives it” (Chuck Swindoll). We certainly need God’s wisdom with all the choices we have to make!

Think Further

As a Christian child, I used to play a childish game with God. Taught that God controlled everything, I struggled with the question of whether everything was therefore pre-ordained. Did it matter to God, I asked, if I had chocolate ice cream or vanilla?  Had I chosen the preordained flavor? As Paul says, when I was a child I reasoned as a child but now as an adult “I put childish ways behind me” (1 Cor. 13:11), but the question can still haunt me. To what extent are our actions predetermined? The story of Isaac in its own strange way holds, if not the answer, at least an approach to it.

In today’s reading, the promise is transmitted to the next generation. Despite the faithfulness of the original receiver of the promise, it is not simply inherited genetically. The “because” of v. 5 troubles commentators. It must be understood separately from v. 3 that God’s original oath was given to Abraham before he obeyed (Gen. 12:1-3). “Because” shows that Abraham chose to obey. Abraham could have chosen otherwise. We cannot tell what God would have done then to further his purposes, but he would not finally have been frustrated. As John the Baptist said, God could raise up children of Abraham from the stones (Matt. 3:9)! Isaac, too, could have chosen otherwise, but he did not; he chose to live as a recipient of the promise, failing sometimes as Abraham did, but striving to align himself with God’s ways in worship (25) and in peacemaking (31). We, too, are recipients of God’s promises because of the faithfulness of Jesus. Even such a great act as his death and resurrection does not guarantee our salvation. Life with God is a gift but we can choose not to receive it (John 1:12,13).

Apply

“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Josh. 24:15). Think of choices you have to make today. Ask for God’s wisdom as You make those decisions.

Closing prayer

Father, You are my Guiding Light. I look to You today to make Your will known to me. I trust You and long to be Your obedient child.

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