READINGS FOR MAY 17, 2024: GENESIS 33, MARK 2, PSALM 43                                                        GENESIS 33 We return to Esau’s advance toward Jacob with 400 men. Jacob, preparing for the worst, split up his family in order that some might survive. To his credit, Jacob moves to the front and bows seven times to humble himself before Esau. Fortunately, Esau welcomes Jacob, they embrace, weep, and interact with Jacob’s entire family. Crises averted. Esau asks about the waves of gifts and expresses no interest in taking these resources from Jacob. Still, perhaps this gesture of goodwill helped; the text doesn’t say either way. We do know Esau relented and received the gifts when Jacob insisted. (There was a recent interview with the famous virologist Dr. Anthony Fauci who said he was not a believer because he didn’t need the gift of faith anymore. Unlike Dr. Fauci, Francis Collins, Fauci’s former boss at the National Institutes of Health, accepted this gift of salvation. The Lord offers this gift to all. Let’s not reject it due to misplaced self-assurance.  Let’s also pray for Dr. Fauci to change his mind.)  Then Esau generously offered to accompany Jacob to Seir, his home. Jacob declined to go with him, saying his children and cattle needed to go slowly and that he would meet Esau at Seir later. Jacob then did his own thing. As a result, he was both disobedient to God and dishonest with Esau in his actions. Jacob is often so disappointing.   One wonders what God thinks about us.

First of all, Jacob left Laban at Paddan-aram, north of Gilead, because the Lord told him, “Return to the land of your fathers” (Gen.31:3). As we read before, Laban chased Jacob and caught up with him in Gilead.  Jacob’s meeting with Esau, described above, was near Mahanaim. Jacob then promised to meet Esau later at his home in Seir, which was far south and east of where God told Jacob to go. Jacob’s father Isaac, whom Jacob promised to return to see (Gen. 28:21), was living in Hebron.  Jacob went to neither Seir as he promised Esau nor Hebron as he promised Isaac but first built a house in Succoth and then bought land in Shechen—not at all what God told him to do.  Will all this deception turn out perfectly for Jacob’s family? Keep reading but take a guess. Will God be able to work with Jacob’s flaws to achieve His ultimate purposes? Keep reading but know that He will.

READING FOR MAY 17 CONTINUED: MARK 2, PSALM 43                                                          MARK 2 We encountered the healing of the paralytic man in Capernaum before in Matthew 9:1-8. The additional information we learn here is that his friends could not bring him through the door because of the crowds. Thus, they made an opening in the roof to lower him down.  How creative and persistent are we in bringing our friends to Jesus? Are we easily dissuaded, or can we think outside the box? Maybe four of us can brainstorm to find creative ways.

Here we begin to see opposition building against Jesus’s claim to be God the Son. Mark emphasizes this claim from the first verse of His Gospel. This claim becomes the reason Jewish leaders use to condemn Jesus to death and a test John uses to see if we are Christians: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). This is also a claim that some unbelieving biblical scholars amazingly miss: “I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself” (Bart Ehrman on NPR Apr. 7, 2014).

In Mark 1, four fishermen left their nets immediately to follow Jesus. Here we see a tax collector immediately leave his office to follow Jesus. Following Jesus’s call may mean leaving in a different sense for us than abruptly quitting our jobs, but it does mean immediately dying to self and making Jesus the highest priority in our lives. In Matthew’s case, following Jesus meant going with Him to interact with non-believers about becoming believers. It still does.

Must we keep the Sabbath as Israel did in the Old Testament? Here are some principles:

• Jesus fulfilled all sacrificial, dietary, and ceremonial laws not restated as NT commands (Matt. 5:17).
• First generation Christians changed the worship day from Saturday to Sunday (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2).
• Paul allows for freedom and forbids judgment regarding Sabbath keeping (Rom. 14:5-6, Col. 2:16). 

Regardless of how or how not the Sabbath is observed, times of rest were certainly practiced and encouraged by Jesus: “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a little while.’ (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) And they went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves” (Mark 6:31-32).

PSALM 43 This Psalm is an example of working through and praying about one’s internal mindset, going from depression to praise. An ungodly nation and deceitful person can make us feel rejected by God. Here are the steps the Psalmist took, which can serve as a model for us:

• Clarify the reason for the depression by self-questioning.
• Seek truth from God as an antidote to the oppression of the enemy. 
• Join with others in praising God, especially through music. 
• Anticipate deliverance by praising and thanking God for His help.