Episode 207: “If You Bless Me…” — Jacob’s Conditional Faith & Leadership Lessons | Genesis 28 Study

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Today Counts Show Episode 207

Preview

Jim: War has changed, right? Even war has changed. I don’t know what to call it. I guess it’s war with Iran. Iran is at least in the center of it, and now that it’s being pulled into it, it’s just so different. But it’s interesting how a portion of the world sees Israel as the enemy.

Another portion of the world, probably the minority, sees Israel as what this states here, as a blessing to the rest of the world, as God’s vehicle in which to bless us all.

Appreciation of our Supporters

Winston: Hey, before we jump into the podcast, we want to thank all our donors and supporters who make the Today Count Show possible. It’s through your generosity that we’re able to shape leaders through this content and this podcast. And be sure to like, subscribe, and follow wherever you find yourself coming across this content. All right, let’s get to the podcast.

Introduction

Recap of Genesis 27

Jim: So, you guys, last time we were in Genesis 27.

And just to remind us of the craziness that was happening there, Rebecca, Isaac’s wife and the mother of Esau and Jacob, this is how that chapter ended. It was just the weirdest, bizarre ending. Complains about her daughters-in-law and probably their little missy friends, which is labeled in that verse Hittites, but probably a smaller term for a broader term of Canaanite women.

So, that’s where we ended off in chapter 27. Now, I want to talk a little bit about chapter 28 before Pastor Matt, Pastor Winston, and myself dive into it.

Setting Up Genesis 28

So, here’s what’s going to happen because, if you’re like me, you’re going to get all confused with all the different names and who’s related to who and what’s what. But basically, what is happening now is we are laying the groundwork for what is going to become the 12 tribes of Israel. Not necessarily in this chapter, but in the next chapter. But this one sets… So, when this Bible was written, everybody, it wasn’t broken up into chapters and verses.

So, this is kind of just how we stop and start. That’s why I thought maybe I would kind of start off with the end because, remember, I think one of the last comments we made was what a weird way to end chapter 27.

Isaac Sends Jacob Away

All right. So, chapter 28, Isaac instructs his son. So after listening to his wife Rebecca complain, Isaac brings Jacob back to himself and he says, “Look, you got to get out of here,” and not because Esau wants to kill you, because I don’t think he was aware of that. That’s a whole another sidebar, right? But Isaac instructs his son Jacob to leave and go find one of his cousins to marry. Now, that’s Jim’s shortcut to what’s happening.

Meanwhile, his brother Esau, the one that he just stole from again, hears all of this and you can tell this man is broken. He’s insecure. So, to try to find his father’s acceptance, knowing that he has married, I’m not sure how many, but more than one Hittite woman, he then goes to Ishmael, which is his father’s brother by another mother, his uncle and brother of his father Isaac, to marry one of his cousins on his father’s side of the family.

Family Drama and Soap Opera Energy

Winston: Sounds like a bad reality show.

Jim: It is. And so we’ll look at verse 29 next time. But then there’s a whole another part of the soap opera that picks up. So, if you are behind or if you just have landed on this, you might want to go listen to Genesis 27 and then listen to this one, 28. And you sure better not miss 29. How are you guys doing? You guys all right?

Matt: We’re good.

Jim: All right.

Winston: Doing well.

Matt:  Love it.

Reading Genesis 28

Isaac’s Blessing and Instructions

Jim: All right. So here we go. We’re going to jump into Genesis 28. It says, “So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, and said, you must not marry any of these Canaanite women. Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of your grandfather Bethuel, and marry one of your uncle Laban’s daughters.” Now, I’m right. That would then be a cousin, correct? Okay. All right. Just want to make sure I got this straight.

No one in my family has ever said, “Go to Tennessee and find your cousin and marry her.”

Matt: He just randomly picked on Tennessee.

Winston: Wow.

Matt: I’m not from there, but I don’t care.

Winston: I thought Alabama, but yeah.

Jim: Actually, I got cousins in Tennessee.

Matt: Okay. Well, there we go.

Jim: Verse three says, “May God Almighty bless you and give you many children, and may your descendants multiply and become many nations.”

The Blessing Repeated

It’s almost like a repeat of his actual blessing, right, that he’s giving. “May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham.”

So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to stay with his uncle Laban. And if you’ve been with us in the Genesis project, you remember Laban coming in and becoming part of the family and the big celebration that sent off his sister. Laban, his mother’s brother, the son of Bethuel, the Aramean. How do you say that?

Aramean? Yeah, Aramean. Good enough.

Esau Reacts to Isaac’s Decision

Let’s go to verse 6 through 9. Esau knew that his father Isaac, this is where this dysfunction continues as we stand on our perch of judgment, Esau knew that his father Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to find a wife, and that he had warned Jacob, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” He also knew that Jacob had obeyed his parents and gone there, gone to Paddan-aram. It was now very clear to Esau that his father did not like the local Canaanite women.

Did he or didn’t he? We know that his mom didn’t.

Esau Marries into Ishmael’s Family

So, Esau visited his uncle Ishmael’s family and married one of Ishmael’s daughters, in addition to the wives he already had. Wives, plural, right? He already had. His new wife’s name was Mahalath, I guess. She was the sister of, you got me, Nebaioth, and the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son.

Let’s pause there for a minute. So what we see is even though Isaac thinks he’s running the ship, he’s probably not exactly running the ship. Sends Jacob out. As you guys recall in the last chapter, his mother already told him, “Hey, you need to get out of here,” but it was for a different reason, right?

Matt: Right.

Jim: And now Esau’s earshot, or hears this, and now he does the same thing but on the other side of the family.

Why So Much Detail Matters

The Purpose of the Details

So, the story continues. Any thoughts that come to you guys’ mind here?

Matt: It’s interesting the level of detail that has passed on in this story.

Jim: Yeah. Why do you think that is?

Matt: And obviously there’s going to be some things that come out of this with groups of people, right, that will become enemies of Israel and will rise up against the others. But this is one of those moments of scripture that, if we’re not careful, we will discount it and overlook it because it just seems to be the minutiae of details just there. We almost treat this like filler words.

The Long-Term Consequences of Disobedience

Because really Genesis 28 is not known for this part of the story. It’s known for what’s about to happen in the rest of life. But this front side of it is setting up the dysfunction of the family, the soon-coming enemies of Israel, and where those descendants have come from and how they’ve disobeyed from the beginning.

God told him not to go do that. His father’s telling him not to go do that.

Jim: God told who not to marry.

Matt: That’s it. Yeah. And yet we’re still… Moses finds it necessary enough to write it down plainly that they went against what God said. So let’s fast-forward a thousand years, and he wants there to be a record of, “You want to know why you’re still dealing with some of the junk you’re dealing with? It’s because you have ancestors that disobeyed completely what God told them to do, and yet we still deal with the effects of it.”

Generational Impact and Ongoing Blessing

And so, again, our sinful, broken nature is impacted, but it’s just a reminder for us reading the Bible today that it not only impacts us, but it impacts generations to come. Even if they don’t deal with it directly, they deal with the indirect issues that have been created-

Jim: Yeah. They could be totally unconscious.

Matt: – from our disobedience.

Winston: And also, I just see the tension of the blessing in the midst of this. Like, the blessing is still there.

Matt: Yeah. He says it over and over. Well, he blessed and commanded blessing. That phrase is in there.

Winston: Yeah. So, in all of the dysfunction, the blessing remains, right?

Matt: God’s still writing a story.

Marriage, Faith, and Application Today

Applying the Passage to Marriage

Jim: What do you think the application is for us today in this sense? So, we know enough about the history in Genesis where they weren’t supposed to marry these women anyway, right? This is an Old Testament time where it probably had to do as much with faith as ethnicity.

But how would we apply this whole marriage thing today? What dangers do we have in marrying folks from a different faith or no faith? Is there a link here, you think, in any kind of hermeneutics, or is that a separate thing?

Matt: I think there’s a link to it because Paul is writing, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” You keep reading that, what fellowship does light have with darkness? Winston and I, we’re probably both in the middle of, and you may be, but we’re doing some pre-marriage counseling with different couples. There’s just a lot of people right now in that stage of life. So, I’m doing some, he’s doing some.

What People Bring into Marriage

And you don’t have to talk to someone long to figure out that they’re bringing their childhood religion. Even if they’ve walked away from it. Or they grew up in a religion that they don’t practice anymore, and they’ve come to Christ. We’ll just call it Christianity, but it still lingers back there.

And so, I think the application for today is, yeah, it matters who you marry, who you spend time with, and where they’re coming from. We’re not going to get into good versus evil or good or bad person here. I’m just talking about, from a fitting-together point of view as a follower of Christ, he was very clear, if I was going back and looking in Genesis 10 as well, when all of this is starting to break up by tribe, there’s a reason they didn’t need to marry certain people from certain regions.

Traditions, Rituals, and Tension

The gods that they worshiped, the rituals that they had, the traditions that they had. I mean, we see, we’re probably dealing with it right now in our SIMBAS that we’re doing. We’re watching the collision of traditions come together. I ask one–

Jim: They’re Christian, but there’s different traditions.

Matt: Yeah. There’s still tradition. Because I’m like, let’s just take Christmas. What are y’all going to do Christmas Day? “Oh, we always go to my mom’s house.”

Jim: Oh. Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Matt: Oh, really?

Winston: Or we celebrate Christmas Eve.

Matt: That’s it. And so, I asked the girl, I’m like, what do you… “Oh, we always go to my mom’s house.” I’m like, “It’s going to get awkward.” That’s a very simple, basic thing, but let’s go much deeper than that.

Interfaith Marriage and Compromise

Where Faith Becomes Divided

Jim: Yeah. Exactly. To your point, so this is kind of… see if you guys follow me on this.

So, I marry somebody of a different faith. They believe in God, but from a different faith. Jesus is the dividing line. All right? And so we hear a lot about interfaith marriages, and we hear about interfaith schools, and we hear about, frankly, interfaith, I don’t know what to call them. It’s hard for me to call them church because church comes out of a New Testament, right?

Winston: Universal gatherings.

Jim: Yeah. And what I sometimes wonder is what we maybe don’t understand is that it might seem practical. We might be coming up with practical solutions to these problems that we’re creating when we marry outside of our faith. But let’s go back to your traditions that Pastor Matt was talking about.

Practical Solutions That Water Down Faith

So, you make compromises, right, with Christmas. Is it Christmas? Do we go to the folks’ house Christmas Eve? Do we open the presents? How does all that go? So, most families, if they’ve got some kind of fond-heartedness, they’ll come up with a solution. But when you apply that to different faiths or faith and no faith, practicality, what it does is it waters down faith because you no longer have tenets that you can hold on to because they will offend the person and the family of origin.

And so, for this sake of harmony, you choose less truth, less and less truth.

Connection, Collaboration, and Courage

In our training at Lead Today, when we talk about relationships, we talk about that second P about people. What we teach about the three practices are connection, collaboration, and courage. And the way we explain that is, when you’re in authentic relationship, connecting means you matter. Collaboration means we matter. And courage means the truth matters.

And what we’re trying to get at here, to Matt’s point, is there’s detail in here because there’s truth in here. But keep going where you were going with that.

Theological Foundation in Marriage

Prayer, Decision-Making, and Faith Alignment

Matt: Getting into what I was thinking earlier is when he says, I’m looking at verse six or seven, six, “Do not…” I mean, it was very clear. He blessed him and he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.”

And the detail of even, and you touched on it a little bit, but this theological foundation and basis of how I connect to God, how I trust God, how I trust God with my life, how I trust my decisions. So, when I am married to someone that does not think, “Let’s pray first. Let’s see what the Lord would have us do. Let’s talk to God about this,” that kind of language, they instead come back with, “The vibes feel right,” or, “Hey, let’s go check the spirits,” or, “Let’s find the crystals,” or whatever the collision would be.

Then we lose this foundational, fundamental piece of what scripture is teaching us because when you go to Deuteronomy, it’s clear how the family should be set up.

Letting the Kids Choose

Jim: And how many of those marriages end up saying stuff like this? “Well, we’re going to let the kids choose.”

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Because now one’s lobbying this, the other’s lobbying that.

Matt: That’s it because we can’t decide as the adults in the room. So, we’re going to allow the kids to choose. And it all boils back down to because we didn’t have an understanding of each other’s faith, of each other’s moral compass, moral ground, a foundation of where we’re going to stand.

Assumptions Instead of Real Conversations

And I was talking to someone the other day, and Jen and I, because of our church context culture, we had understood similar beliefs. We talked about some, but some we didn’t talk about because we were in the same environment, same church, same doctrine, same Bible, same services, all of that.

But there are a lot of people that are coming together that haven’t grown up together, if you would, or been in the same environment like that, and they’re not having the conversation. They’re showing up at maybe a church or at a Christian-ish whatever, and they’re like, “Oh, yeah. It looks like you think you love Jesus. I’m pretty sure I do. We probably share a lot of the same.” And the conversation never goes any further.

The Canaanite Question and Family Division

Believing in a God Is Not Enough

And this is why you could have asked a Canaanite, “Do you believe in God?” Right? Oh, they believe in a god.

Jim: Yeah. Gods.

Matt: Just pick one. But without digging any deeper, we’ve now created an issue that now will begin to divide the family in such a way that we will not live out to the fullness of what God has for us.

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Jacob and Esau as Needy Sons

Adult Dependence on Parents

Jim: Yeah. And I also think it’s interesting here. We have two grown men that are obviously very needy, in some way, somehow have become so dependent on their parents as adults. Jacob flees because of his mother’s suggestion.

Winston: Suggestion.

Jim: And Esau’s disdain. And we got Esau doing the same thing. Esau now still needs… This is what struck me. So, his birthright gets taken from him, from his brother.

Winston: Taken.

Jim: Yeah. Taken. Yeah. Yeah. He gave it up because he’s hungry. And then he gets cheated out of the blessing. But he still desires his father’s approval.

Matt: 100%.

Esau’s Search for Safety and Approval

Jim: And so he goes to the other side of the family, his father’s side of the family, to marry a cousin. So, we’ve got one traveling one way, one traveling the other way, both looking for cousins to marry.

Matt: And you go back to the chapter or three that we’ve been in previous to this, and you find that Esau being potentially the favorite of his father, and the way he was betrayed and all of that by his own brother. So, there’s going to be this side. He felt more comfortable going to his father’s side of the family.

Jim: Good point.

Matt: Because, hey, I feel safer. Dad, I would feel safer over there.

Jim: I would think so. Because my mother and my brother–

Matt: Yeah, my brother and my mother, I’m not sure. They’re conspiring over here.

Counseling This Family

But, again, I love the detail of the family dynamics here.

Jim: You would really need it as a counselor if you’re counseling this family. This is good information.

Matt: You could probably just make your own living right here. You wouldn’t need any other clients. If they had the money to pay you about three times a day, you would need to meet them.

Jim: I think they did too.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Because it was bad.

Esau’s Victim Energy

Complicit in His Own Story

Winston: Esau seems like a victim to me. I get victim energy from Esau. I get things are happening to him, but also are they? He seems like, “My blessing got taken. Oh, my father doesn’t love me.”

Jim: Yeah. I’ve never really understood his deal that he made when he was hungry. I mean–

Matt: I don’t think anyone does.

Jim: Yeah. That’s just strange. So, it reveals something different, for sure.

Winston: Yeah. It’s not like he’s just, “I feel sorry for him.” It’s like, you seem like you’re somehow complicit in this. Seems like you’re kind of bringing–

Jim: It’s almost like a role he’s playing.

Winston: I think just a sense of entitlement, being the favorite-ish. He’s kind of playing out this weird, I don’t know, victim energy to me.

Jim: Okay.

Jacob’s Journey Begins

Jacob Leaves and Lies Down to Sleep

All right. So anyway, Jacob’s on his way, and so we’re going to pick up the story from there. So Jacob’s on his way to find a wife. It says, “Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep.”

Matt: That sounds terrible, by the way.

Jim: I know. I’ve always wondered that too.

Winston: Literally between a rock and a hard place.

Matt: Yeah. It’s just… Lord, anyway.

The Stone Pillow

Jim: Yeah. And I am a pillow snob. There’s no doubt about it.

Matt: A smooth stone, I would assume. Not a jagged stone. I don’t know. Anyway, yeah, we digress.

Jim: I don’t even know what to think about that. Yeah, a stone. I mean, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was reading right past that.

Matt: Yeah. So quit complaining about your Tempur-Pedic.

Jim: Yeah.

Jacob’s Dream

The Stairway to Heaven

Verse 12. “As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.” Odd.

Verse 13. “At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. They will spread out in all directions, to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.

What’s more, I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.'”

Jacob’s Response to the Dream

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it.” But he was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is. It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven.”

Let’s pause there, and then we’ll look at next, his oath that he makes.

Covenant Renewal and Generational Promise

The Covenant Passed Down

But one of the first things that we see is that what God is constantly doing as he’s building this nation, really, is the new guy in charge every time God renews his covenant. This is almost verbatim what we heard spoken now. Would this be the third generation?

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the one thing that jumps out at me is, one, in verse 13, “And he said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.'” Your translation says grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. This, again, reminds that generational piece that God is building. One is God is building his lineage and his bloodline. So, we’re making sure this is intact all the way through. So, we have a clear path to that.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

But later in scripture, we will see that he is referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jim: Yeah.

Matt: And we can unpack that when we get there because we’ll get there. But it is a reminder. And then the thing that still jumps out is that that blessing is almost verbatim, if it is not verbatim, to how many people will come from him and how they will be blessed. But I want to look at the end of verse 14. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.”

Jim: Yeah, you could miss that.

Israel, Blessing, and the Present Day

How People See Israel

Matt: There’s a lot to unpack. We could attempt to unpack, and then in current culture, even where people stand with Israel and all of that, because we’re going to see Jacob’s name change soon. It really is interesting, particularly today. We have… war has changed, right? Even war has changed. I don’t know what to call it.

I guess it’s war with Iran. Iran is at least in the center of it, and now it’s being pulled into… It’s just so different. But it’s interesting how a portion of the world sees Israel as the enemy. Another portion of the world, probably the minority, sees Israel as what this states here, as a blessing to the rest of the world, as God’s vehicle in which to bless us all.

Knowing God Through Revelation

I’m not Jewish. I’m not close to it. But I recognize that… I think I wrote the other day in my journal as I was writing this. It’s nothing new. You’ve heard it before, but I felt the need to write it. As a created being and not the Creator, I can only know certain things if the Creator reveals it to me. And good theology teaches us that one of the ways that God has revealed himself to us is through Israel. Through other means, but also through–

God Finishes What He Starts

Matt: There would be a root of Jesse that would come up. The scripture… there are all kinds of indicators there. If you go on to verse 15, “I’m with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.” Again, we could unpack some things there we don’t have time for, but “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

And we stand in the seat of watching, not judging the right or the wrong of any of it. But God is going… scripture up to this point has proven it, and scripture continues to prove it all the way through Revelation, that God will finish what he starts and that there… this is a covenant that he is putting in place.

Why God Speaks Directly to Jacob

Did God Bypass Isaac?

This isn’t there’s a battle going down in front of him, and I’m going to be with you till the end of the battle. No, but this is that same covenant language that Abraham got, and he’s passing it down to Jacob here. Part of you just kind of wonders, it doesn’t say this anywhere, but did God just not trust Isaac enough to make sure that Jacob really got the true covenant language? And God said, “I’m going to step in and do this myself.”

Winston: Say it again.

Matt: “I’m going to put this boy to sleep, and I’m going to make sure he understands that I am his God, and I am with him, and I’m not going to quit until he does.”

Comparing Jacob and Ishmael

Jim: Didn’t we ask that a similar question when Ishmael was underneath the bush with his mom, and though it was a different blessing, we talked about that he told Abraham about the blessing to Ishmael, but then he repeated it to Ishmael, and we assume that Abraham did not pass that on?

Matt: Yeah. So, there’s so much dysfunction that we’ve talked about with Isaac. That yes, it’s a reminder for us in scripture, but it also could be just one of those moments of, “Jacob, I want you to know.”

Jacob the Younger, Yet Chosen

And again, you’re looking at… he’s the younger. So Esau should be getting it. It should be, as we’ll read later, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau, right? If we went straight lineage, but it’s not.

Jim: But we know that ain’t going to happen when we get into chapter 29.

Matt: Yeah, this runs off the rails.

Jim: Yeah. The tribes of Israel come from different mothers.

Matt: Yeah. So, being able to say, “He is the God, the great I Am, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is, again, this reminder to Jacob.

Jacob’s Insecurities and Direct Encouragement

A Dramatic Reminder from God

Or maybe Jacob had enough insecurities with all the issues they dealt with, but maybe he was insecure enough that he needed that reminder. I mean, because this is a dramatic story. I mean, he’s seeing a staircase. There’s a lot going on here.

Jim: Well, on the other hand too, you could say, “Hey, Winston, I was talking to Joe Blow the other day, and he just thought you did a wonderful job doing this, that, and the other thing.” So, that’d be good to hear, but it’d be better if he told you, right? It’d be better if he told you.

Matt: That’s good.

Jim: I mean, it could be both, right? Or because of, right?

The Joy of Exploring Scripture

Matt: Yeah. Because of… this is the fun of breaking down the scriptures like this and getting into these details and finding the nuances of the way it’s worded. That’s what I love.

Jim: What an amazing time in the history of mankind. What were these guys thinking? I mean, that dream itself. And of course, he woke up in amazement.

Bethel, the Stone, and Jacob’s Vow

Jacob Sets Up the Stone

Right. So, it says in verse 18, “The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar and he poured olive oil over it. He named that place Bethel, which means house of God, although it was previously called Luz. Then Jacob made this vow: If God will indeed be with me and protect me…”

I’m interested to see what the sentence structure… What version are you reading out of?

Matt: NIV.

Jim: NIV. I’m interested to see beginning in… well, that second part of verse 20, beginning with “if”. On the NLT, “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God.” I’m wondering about that modifier of if, if it reads the same way there.

Conditional Language in Jacob’s Promise

So here it’s, “Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking, and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God, and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and all that you give me I will give you a tenth.'”

The language is slightly different here because it’s almost as if he’s telling God, “If you do all of that, I’ll do this.” I’m not sure it’s supposed to work that way.

Jim: Yeah.

Winston: Little bargain with God.

Fleecing, Bargaining, and Tithing

Is Jacob Bargaining with God?

Matt: I don’t think we put our demands on… The NIV is reading as if he’s putting his demands on God and saying, “I’m going on a journey, and if you’ll give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely…”

Jim: Yeah, I wanted to say “since God will,” but apparently that’s not what…

Matt: That was not the language.

Winston: What’s it called? Fleecing?

Jim: Yeah. Fleecing.

Matt: A little bit. Yeah. God, if you will, I will. If that happens, I’ll do this.

Winston: Did that happen with Gideon?

Matt: Gideon. Yeah. He put a literal fleece out. It’s the word.

Conditional Faith and the Tenth

Jim: But I think the fleecing though… isn’t the fleecing more about getting a confirmation, getting a confirmation to go do something, or–?

Matt: In that case, yeah. So, I mean, it was still a little bit of a… in this case, it feels like more of a demand.

Jim: It does. It feels conditional.

Matt: Conditional. That’s the word I’m looking for.

Jim: And so, verse 22, “And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.” So here we come back to that tenth, and particularly related to the house of God. Interesting.

The Significance of the Place and the Stone

Wondering About the Location

I just had this thought. I don’t know why I didn’t search for it before we came on the podcast. So maybe we could search for it later, unless you guys know off the top of your head. I wonder if there’s anything… is there something significant about this physical place today in relation to where it is right now?

Winston: Two things that jumped out to me. I just preached on the gates of hell, that phrase, “the gate of heaven.” I thought that was interesting, not just in general. But then John 1:51, Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus and the Ladder Image

And so, seemingly referring to this Old Testament story in the New Testament.

Jim: Yeah. The Mount of Olives, right?

Winston: Jesus potentially talking about himself. Is he the ladder here?

Matt: Yeah. Like, connecting man to heaven.

The Stone Under His Head

The question that comes to mind for me is… and I have no resources in front of me to look this up or I’d be typing right now, but is there any significance of the stone that his head laid on that becomes the stone of the altar?

So, it’s when we’re recording this, it’s in the afternoon, so I’ve had a long day of thinking about a lot of other things, so my brain’s a little less sharp. But I’m really curious if there’s a significance of the stone, and there may be none, but is there an idea that we could practically take away from this?

Why Oil?

Oil as Symbol and Practice

The things that we… I don’t know. He laid his head on it, and then he took the stone that was under his head, that he placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar, and he poured oil on top of it. I did have someone ask me earlier today in a Bible study, why oil? Like, when we sanctify, anoint, or set apart something, why oil? I told him I’d have an answer next week, but those are interesting. So, it’s funny that’s popping.

Jim: Well, the 23rd Psalm talks about oil, right? And we’ve learned since we’ve all taught on that and studied that some of it was practical because it was an ointment for the flies that would bore in the nostrils of the sheep. But it was also more than that with the sheep.

Holy Oil and General Oil

I’m trying to think. Oh, I think it was repellent as well as healing, as far as the sheep goes. So, that seems to be symbolic to us in that way.

Winston: And when they were building the temple, God had them create oil which was separate from oil. So, there was like two different oils. There was a holy oil and then there was a general oil as well. And so there was–

Matt: Avocado oil.

Winston: Was that what that was?

Matt: No, I don’t know. Extra virgin olive oil.

Matt: It was literally, I think, anointing oil for them.

Humor and Anointing Oil

A Childhood Memory of Church Oil

Fun sidetrack. We’ll put a little humor in this right now for those that stay tuned in with it. When I was a child, I grew up in a church that would anoint with oil. But I never paid attention to… I just always knew what the bottle looked like and I knew what it smelled like. It always had this distinct smell, right? And the bottle that it came in was there. It wasn’t a special bottle. It was what they bought off the shelf.

The first time I went in the grocery store and I saw that they bought that oil in the grocery store, I freaked out because I really thought there was something special about that oil. I’m like, they bought that down at Walmart.

Jim: Let’s talk about it though.

Overspiritualizing vs. Practical Application

Let’s talk about that because I was just going to ask you guys a question about overspiritualizing versus applying this to today because I’m not sure that, as a whole, we can be found guilty of overspiritualizing, right? I think we are so industrialized and practical. But I just pulled up what you asked, and I think we know this, but it’s a good reminder.

Oil symbolizes God’s presence and blessing. So, throughout the Bible, oil represents blessing, divine favor, the presence of God. That has to do with setting something or someone apart in that way.

And they talked about King David and priests like Aaron and sacred objects in the tabernacle. So, this might have been a foreshadowing of some of those practices. But where did he get the oil? I guess he just carried it in his pouch.

Winston: In his satchel, in his bag.

Matt: No, he did not carry that in a man purse.

Winston: Indiana Jones?

Matt: Yeah. Okay, I’ll go with Indiana Jones more than I’ll go with a man purse. But I get so excited to go somewhere. We’re running it off.

Daily Gratitude and Not Missing God’s Presence

Recognizing Divine Moments

Jim: No, no, no. I wonder how… sometimes I think we secularize so many things and don’t recognize decisions that we make, things that happen. We don’t stop. I don’t know about you. I’ve kind of stopped and started this habit. These phones are amazing, right? And there’s so many things. So, in my notes, I have daily gratitudes as a way to remind myself that every day there’s probably divine moments that I’m missing. There’s things I’m taking for granted, right?

The Practice of Gratitude

And when I remember to do this, sometimes I’ll have a streak of 30 days, boom, boom, boom. And sometimes I’ll go, “Oh, 30 months has gone by.” But I’ve never found a day where it was difficult to find something in that day where I could give gratitude.

Matt: That’s good.

Jim: Give blessing to… even yesterday. I was really tired when I wrote this, so I don’t know. But I put, “Day trip to Denver and back, working with a client on a sensitive subject, and I felt God was with us.” And then I had a side note: they presented me with a little birthday cake. Just a funny little thing, right? Little things like that are there.

How Often Do We Miss That God Is There?

Winston: I mean, one other thought for me is, to your point, how often do we miss that God is there? Whether it’s a hard moment, whether literally hard, laying on a stone, a rock. How often are we just not awake to the things that God is doing in our midst? And then you kind of look back and you’re like, “Ah, he was there. He was really in that place.

Matt: “He said, “How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God.”

The Place Was Already Awesome

Jacob Didn’t Know What He Was In

Winston: But that place wasn’t awesome before the dream.

Jim: No.

Winston: That was not an awesome place.

Jim: It was already awesome. It was just he didn’t know it was awesome.

Winston: Yeah. Right.

Matt: And it goes to show the power of one God encounter. But if I’m remembering right–

First Time in the Same Room

Jim: This is kind of fun. I get to touch you.

Matt: I know.

Jim: Touch you in a podcast-

Matt: For the first time.

Jim: – physically.

Matt:  28 chapters.

Jim: Even though you’re just down the road.

Matt: 28 chapters. We’re actually in the same room on this.

Missing What We Had

Appreciating Something Only After It’s Gone

Jim: Well, what I was going to say, Matt, is what this is convicting for me is, has this ever happened to you? Something was in your life, and it’s not like you didn’t appreciate it, but you probably weren’t consciously appreciative of it. It’s gone, and you look back at it and go, “Gosh, I missed that. It’s gone.” I just wonder how many times we, in our life, do that.

Obviously, from this text, we see that these are very human people. They’re heroes of the faith, but are they really? I mean, they’re instruments that God has chosen. From what I can tell, I’m not sure we would hire some of these people.

Broken Humanity and Hope

Matt: No. They wouldn’t pass some of the– They wouldn’t pass the interview.

Jim: The background check.

Matt: They sure wouldn’t pass the background check, but they’re not sure they’d make it through the interview process, for sure.

And yeah, you’re exactly right. But yet it’s a reminder again. It’s the reminder enough detail is here that God uses broken humanity, which gives you and I hope, and all of our listeners hope, that yeah, you’re going to have some flaws. You’re going to have some hiccups.

But God has a purpose. God has a plan, and we got to keep leaning into it. We don’t get to just arbitrarily act the fool all the time. But as we lean into what God has for us, we get to fulfill the mission of what he’s doing on this earth.

Jim: Yeah. All these men respond. They just needed to be awoken out of their slumber.

Final Thoughts and Closing

Men Asleep and Israel’s Birth

Anything else, Winston, before we land this plane? So, you guys got anything?

Winston: I was just going to say there’s a lot of men that are asleep out there.

Jim: Yeah. And sometimes I am. Yeah, sometimes I am. Opportunities around us all the time. So, if you are interested in how Israel is birthed, we’re in the conception phase, I guess I would kind of call it. And the birth begins in chapter 29. I think it’s a birth. So, cool.

We’ll see you all then.

Podcast Outro

Winston: Thanks for spending part of your day with us on the Today Count Show. If today’s conversation encouraged you, challenged you, or helped you grow, share it with someone in your circle because we’re better when we grow together. And be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and stay connected with us on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And remember, real change doesn’t happen someday, it happens today. Until next time, keep showing up, keep building, keep making today count.
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