the book of Genesis in the first video
we saw how chapters 1 through 11 set up
the basic storyline of the Bible God has
created all things and he makes humans
in His image to rule the world on his
behalf
the humans choose sin and rebellion and
so the world spins out of control into
violence and death all leading up to the
rebellion and scattering of the people
in Babylon and so the big question is
what is God going to do to rescue and
redeem his world well out of that
scattering at Babylon the author traces
a genealogy of just one family that
leads eventually to a man named Abram
later known as Abraham and God's
promised to abraham at the beginning of
chapter 12 opens up a whole new movement
in the story God calls Abraham to leave
his home and go to the land of Canaan
which God says will become his one day
and in that land God promises to make
Abraham into a great nation to make his
name great and to bless him now these
promises are connected back to earlier
parts of the book so Babylon had
arrogantly tried to make a great name
for itself and that didn't go over very
well
but God in his generosity is going to
bestow a great name on this no-name guy
abraham and god's blessing of abraham
echoes all the way back to that original
blessing god gave humanity in the
beginning so the question is why is god
going to bless abraham and his family
and the last line of God's promise makes
this clear so that all the families of
the earth will find God's blessing in
you now this is key for understanding
the whole rest of the biblical story
God's plan is to rescue and bless his
rebellious world through Abraham's
family and this is why the whole rest of
the Old Testament story is just going to
focus on this one family eventually
called the people of Israel this is also
why Israel will later be called a
kingdom of priests at Mount Sinai God
wants to use them to show all of the
other nations what he's like and
ultimately this is the promise that gets
picked up by the later biblical prophets
and poets who say that its fulfillment
will come through Israel's messianic
king whose reign will bring justice and
peace to all of the nations now at this
point of the stone
right none of that's clear you just have
to keep reading and watch the promise
develop and so the rest of the book
focuses on Abraham and his family first
Abraham himself then his son Isaac and
then his son Jacob and then Jacob's
twelve sons and the stories about each
generation they're united by two main
themes so first each generation of
Abraham's family is marked by repeated
failure they just keep making really bad
decisions that mess up their lives and
that put God's promise in jeopardy
however God remains faithful to them he
keeps rescuing them from themselves and
reaffirming his commitment to bless them
and bless the nation's through them
despite their failings
so the Abraham stories God had promised
Abraham a huge family but on two
different occasions he's afraid for his
life because other men are attracted to
his wife and so he denies that he's even
married to her which creates of course
all of these problems and not only that
Abraham and his wife Sarah they can't
have children and so Sarah arranges for
Abraham to sleep with one of their
servant girls which also creates all of
these problems in the family but each
time God bails Abraham out and in
chapters 15 and 17 God even formalizes
his promise to Abraham with an official
commitment called a covenant this is a
classic scene God invites Abraham to
look up at the night stars and to count
them and he says that's how numerous
your family's going to be and despite
all of the odds having no kids and no
way to have any at the moment
Abraham looks up in the sky and simply
trusts God's promise and God responds by
entering into a covenant with Abraham
promising that he will become a father
of many nations that God's blessing may
come to the whole world God asked
Abraham to mark his family with a sign
of the Covenant circumcision of all the
male boys in the family this is a symbol
to remind them that the fruitfulness of
their family is a gift from God
and so Abraham has lots of kids
eventually and he dies at a good old age
now the Jacob stories play out these
themes even more dramatically from birth
Jacob lives up to the meaning of his
name which is deceiver he cheats his
brother Esau out of his
inheritance and blessing and he does it
by deceiving his old blind father no
less and then he just takes off he goes
on to take four wives even though he
really only loves one Rachel and this
creates all of these rivalries in the
family the only thing that humbles Jacob
is being deceived by his uncle Laban who
cheats him out of years of his life the
tables have finally turned and so it's a
humbled Jacob that returns to his
homeland in a very strange story jacob
ends up wrestling with God as he demands
that God bless him
some things never really change do they
however God honors his determination and
he passes Abraham's blessing on to him
and he renames Jacob as Israel which
means wrestles with God now it's this
last part of the book the story of
Jacob's sons where all the themes come
to a head Jacob loves his second two
youngest son Joseph more than any of the
others and he gives him this special
jacket and the ten older sons come to
hate Joseph and so they kidnap him and
they planned to kill him but instead
they decide to just sell him into
slavery in Egypt where he ends up in
prison talk about family failure but God
is with Joseph and he orchestrates
Joseph's released from prison and
Pharaoh ends up elevating Joseph to
second-in-command over all of Egypt and
so Joseph saves the nation of Egypt
during a famine and he also ends up
saving his brothers and his family from
starving to death and so once again we
can see the folly and the sin of
Abraham's family is met with God's
faithfulness who subverts even the evil
of the brothers into an occasion to save
life and this is actually what Joseph
says right near the end of the book he
says to his brothers you all plan this
for evil but God planned it for good to
save many lives
now these words are strategically placed
at the end of the book because they
summarize not only the story of Joseph
and his brothers but the book as a whole
from Genesis 3 onward humans keep acting
selfishly and doing evil but this God is
not going to leave his world to its own
devices he remains faithful in
determined to bless people despite their
failures you can see this especially in
how that mysterious promise about the
descendant of the woman gets developed
throughout the book so remember Genesis
3 God promised that this wounded Victor
would come and crush the snake and
defeat evil at its source and the author
then connects this promise directly to
the line of Abraham this is a part of
how God's going to bring his blessing to
the nations now from Abraham this
promise gets connected to Judah the
fourth son of Jacob and this is how in
an extremely important poem in chapter
49 in aging Jacob he's on his deathbed
he wants to bless his twelve sons and
when he comes to Judah Jacob predicts
that Judah will become the tribe of
Israel's royal leaders and that one day
a king will come who will command the
obedience of all the nations and fulfill
God's promise to restore the garden
blessing to all of the world and then
after this
Jacob dies then later Joseph dies - and
the growing family remains in Egypt and
so the book of Genesis ends with all of
these future hopes and promises left
hanging and undeveloped and it forces
you to turn the page to see how it's all
going to turn out but for now that's the
book of Genesis