Episode 209: The Deceiver Becomes Deceived: Hard Lessons in Leadership & Purpose | Genesis 29 Study

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Today Counts Show Episode 209

Preview

Jim: When they got in the tent, baby, it was you know.

Winston: First time.

Jim: It was business, right? So, everybody gets their imagination around that. 25. “But when Jacob woke up in the morning, it was Leah!,” it says.

Matt: With an exclamation point. That’s what I love.

Jim: Exactly. “It is Leah!” What?

Matt: Everybody was surprised.

Jim: Yeah. So did the tent feel that way? Did she get up and stretch and pull her veil and then he goes, “What?” I mean–

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

Jacob Arrives and Meets Rachel

Jim: Hey, everybody. The Genesis Project. We’re back again. We’re on Genesis 29. We are starting to move through this amazing book of origins. Today I’ve got with me Pastor Matt and Pastor Winston, and we’re going to dive right in. If you were with us last time, this thing is heating up. Genesis 29 starts this way. Jacob hurried on. Remember, he’s going back to his homeland. Although I don’t think he ever went there, right? Wasn’t he born after?

Anyway, Jacob hurried on, finally arriving in the land of the east. He saw in the distance three flocks of sheep lying in an open field beside a well, waiting to be watered. But a heavy stone covered the mouth of the well. It was the custom there to wait for all the flocks to arrive before removing the stone. I wonder why. After watering them, the stone would be rolled back over the mouth of the well. Jacob went over to the shepherds and asked them, “Where do you live at?”

“Heron,” they said.

“Do you know a man there named Laban, the grandson of Nahor?”

“Yes, we do,” they replied.

“How is he?” Jacob asked.

“He’s well and prosperous. Look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”

All right, just to catch everybody up, remember Jacob is traveling and he’s looking for a wife. And here we go. Verse seven. “Why don’t you water the flock so they can get back to grazing?” Jacob asked. “They’ll be hungry if you stop so early in the day.”

“We don’t roll away the stone and begin the watering until all the flocks and shepherds are here,” they replied.

Jacob’s First Encounter and Cultural Context

As this conversation was going on, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherd, or as more literal translations would say,-

Winston: A shepherdess.

Jim: A shepherdess. Yeah.

And because she was his cousin, okay, so we got cousins talking to each other, the daughter of his mother’s brother, and because the sheep were his uncle’s, Jacob went over to the well and rolled away the stone and watered his uncle’s flock.

Now, I’m reading out of the New Living Translation, which is filling in a lot of gaps that I’m assuming the author figured we would have already known, because in your more literal translations, you don’t get some of these nuances that are in there.

Verse 11, it says, “Then Jacob kissed Rachel.”

So, Jacob walks up, never met her before, kisses Rachel. Probably not the way we are thinking of kissing. And tears came to his eyes. He explained that he was her cousin on her father’s side, her aunt Rebecca’s son. So Rachel quickly ran and told her father, Laban.

Verse 13, as soon as Laban heard about Jacob’s arrival, he rushed out to meet him and greeted him warmly. Laban then brought him home, and Jacob told him his story.

“Just think, my very own flesh and blood,” Laban explained.

After Jacob had been there about a month, Laban said to him, “You shouldn’t work for me without pay just because we are relatives. How much do you want?”

Now, Laban had two daughters. Leah was the oldest, and her younger sister, Rachel. Leah had pretty eyes, it says.

Hm. That’ll be a fun discussion.

The NLT says Leah had pretty eyes, but Rachel was beautiful in every way, with a lovely face and shapely figure.

Jacob’s Proposal and Laban’s Agreement

Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, “I’ll work for you seven years if you’ll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.”

We’re going to stop after verse 19.

“Agreed,” Lean replied. “I’d rather give her to you than someone outside the family.”

Commentary on Jacob’s Choice and Translation Nuance

Marriage Expectations and Cultural Norms

All right, let’s recap this. What’s going on here? What do you guys have to say?

So, we know that mom and dad sent Jacob back to their homeland to find a wife because they didn’t want him marrying a wife from another–

Matt: Canaanite. Yeah. They didn’t want to marry a Canaanite.

In verse two of chapter 28, they were specific. “Go at once and take a wife for yourself among the daughters of Laban.” So, Jacob knew what he was looking for. It wasn’t like he didn’t randomly pick Rachel. He was told by his parents, go find one of the… Now, I didn’t say which one.

Jim: But they pretty much said go marry a cousin, right?

Matt: Yeah. And then he jumped down and kissed her. Said, “I choose this one. I choose this cousin.”

Translation Differences: “Pretty Eyes” vs “Weak Eyes”

Winston: Straight up broke the custom, moved the stone, didn’t wait for the other sheep and the other shepherds, and he just said, “I’m going to flex my muscle here for Rachel.” And apparently, he had a type because he did not choose your version says pretty eyes. My version says weak eyes, which that’s pretty confusing. Pretty and weak are usually not in the same category.

Jim: Yeah, the NLT makes claim that the scholars are trying to stay as accurate in the literal translation from the Greek Septuagint. That’s a fancy word. So, Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, but then it was translated into Greek later. And so you can see the complication. So, is our bible today a translation from the Hebrew or a translation from the Greek?

What the NLT scholars want you to believe is that the answer is yes. Yes. Yes. That they look at both because, as we know, even as layman, meaning that none of us are layman, but linguistically we’re layman, the Hebrew has more nuance in its language, right? So one word, and I’m exaggerating, can mean a paragraph if it’s said a certain way, a certain sound in a certain context.

And then, of course, the scholars of the NLT. Now, the NLT is not a word-for-word translation. It is an idiomatic translation, which I think is even a stretch maybe to say that, because the idiomatic translation would be thought for thought, phrase for phrase. But as I compare all the different translations, I would say that it approaches, I’m not going to say it is this, but it approaches close to a commentary rather than an idiomatic translation, but not a paraphrase.

That’s a lot of words. Did I confuse the whole thing?

Understanding Translation Layers (Hebrew vs Greek)

Winston: No, I’m tracking.

Jim: Okay. Yeah. So, I do think it’s interesting, too. Is it weak eyes or is it pretty eyes? So the NLT–

Winston: Pretty weak.

Jim: Pretty weak.

Matt: Yeah. That’s probably…

Jim: Interesting, right? Yeah. I think the NLT also offered something. I could be wrong about it, but where did it say something about there was an explanation that if they drink too soon, they’ll get hungry too soon? Was it verse seven?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. “They’ll be hungry if you stop so early in the day.” Is that stated in the literal? You have the ESV, Winston?

Winston: I have ESV.

Jim: So that’s a literal translation.

Winston: So mine says, “Behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep, and go pasture them.”

Jim: Yeah. So the NLT educates us in a little more concrete terms that the reason why it’s too early is because they’re going to get hungry, right? So that adds value. And somebody like me, a city slicker, I’d go, “Oh, thank you very much,” because I would say, “Well, why?” Because I don’t know, right? And we know Pastor Matt is going to own chapter 30 as we get into a very interesting piece about goats.

Matt: Yeah. I’m ready for that. So ready.

Reading Character and Motive in the Narrative

Jim: Okay. So, what about this thing? Okay. So, he says to his uncle, “Hey, I want to marry my cousin Rachel.” And he goes, “Cool, but it’s going to cost you seven years of work to do that.” So, any comments about that?

Matt: He says, “You shouldn’t work for me with no wages.” Again, we’re having to read between the lines a little bit. It’s Laban. One, Laban knows why he’s there. It sets it up. Even before he’s… So he’s already working his deception before he really deceives Jacob. Which is funny, because you would think Jacob would see it coming from a mile away because he was a pretty good deceiver, the previous chapters have told us.

Laban says to him, “Should you work for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” Even though we just go right above it and we see that. We know that Jacob was there.

Jim: Yeah. For those of you joining us in this conversation, Pastor Matt just gave you a little bit of a head start into what we’re going to see with Laban deceiving Jacob. I do wonder, though, Matt, if was he deceiving then, or are you saying that because you already know it? Because I’m wondering if Laban had that in the back of his mind as an option to do if it did turn out that way. Or could he have also been hoping that somebody else would come along and swoop up Leah? But if that didn’t happen, then this was his plan B.

I don’t know. Although, because we do know where the story goes. What it seems to me what you’re doing now, this makes sense, is that because you know the whole story, what you’re doing is you’re assessing his overall character because it’s not just once or twice. There’s a lot going on here with deception.

Laban’s Character and Possible Deception

You’re kind of assessing his character, saying, “Well, I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, Jim, but I think this guy was probably always has weighted dice.”

Matt: Oh, when we get to the goat chapter, we’re really going to unpack this.

Jim: Yeah. Okay. So, now I can see that. Does that make sense?

Winston: Yeah. Laban already know that Jacob essentially came from a wealthy family, that Isaac was big time.

Jim: I’m sure they had gotten word.

Winston: So, he already did have that filter.

Jim: Yeah, because they had the Pony Express in those days, some sort.

Winston: He knew Jacob was of means.

Jim: Yeah. So, Jacob is working. Now, I assume that he’s been provided food and shelter, and so that’s part of his pay, but the other part of his pay is that he’s going to be given his cousin Rachel.

What’s interesting is Jacob left the family drama, and now he comes here and it’s almost kind of like a reset, all the kissing going on, right? And we know what kind of kissing here. This is probably cheek to cheek, hugging, families together, long lost family, heard about you, haven’t met you, but this is a great deal. So, it starts off kind of like a honeymoon, and then the family DNA just kind of seems to move in this direction where there’s going to be unmet expectations and worse, right?

God’s Sovereignty in Human Flaws

Anything else before we jump back into verse 20?

Divine Orchestration Behind the Scenes

Matt: I just love the, again, I know we said a while ago we had to kind of read between the lines a little bit, but I just love some of the detail that is here always. As we look at– It’s a reminder of the scripture’s intentionality because this relationship had to happen for the purposes of God to be fulfilled. Leah and Rachel both had to be.

By the time he gets there, it lets us know that, hey, we met at this place to water the livestock and it’s not time. It’s the middle of the day because there’s a lot of waste that would happen. They would become thirsty. In other words, that God was still in control, orchestrating. And sometimes we get discouraged because everything just doesn’t fall in place at the right time.

And Jacob’s like, “Hold up. We’re on mission. God’s moving Rachel’s steps. He’s moving Laban’s steps. All of this is working to God’s purpose.” And sometimes we get in this idea that when God’s purpose is being played out, it’s just a smooth road. Every door opens easily. Every door closes easily. Clear instructions for the exact next step.

And God’s like, “No, no, it’s not always that way.” So, I love that attention to detail in the story just to remind us that we’re flawed. We don’t always get it right, but God’s purposes will prevail.

Real-Life Struggles vs Ideal Narratives

Jim: And I think that’s a big difference between the Bible and a lot of books today, especially bestselling books. They let us in on some of the gray that happens in their lives, but a lot of the bestselling books are how to overcome and all these overcomings, and they leave out a lot of the true hardship and the stuff that goes on on the inside. Whereas we see, and again, we’re getting ahead of our story, but Leah is going to name her boys exactly what she’s feeling about each one of them, which exposes a ton.

One thing that we’ve been talking about consistently since we’ve started this whole project is that it’s always interesting how the sovereignty of God works in the midst of all kinds of human failure and junk and wounds. Whenever we get depressed or discouraged or angry about the things in our life and how they don’t necessarily go the way we want them to go… I don’t know about you guys, but I’m constantly in prayer asking God for protection, asking God for a heart to move towards Him.

It’s just a constant spiritual battle because spiritual battle affects your emotions and your mind and your body and your relationships and your work. What doesn’t it affect? So it’s encouraging to read this stuff and go, “They live on the same planet that I do.”

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The Wedding Night: Leah’s Deception

Jacob’s Seven Years of Work

Jim: Verse 20 says, “So Jacob spent the next seven years working to pay for Rachel.” I like how they said it in the NLT. “But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.” Oh, that’s some poetry there.

Matt: Sounds like somebody writing a country song right there.

Jim: Yeah, there you go. There’s a country song. You could definitely put together a greeting card on that one.

Winston: Oh, yeah.

Jim: Yeah. “Our 20 years together seemed but a long beautiful weekend.”

All right. 21. “Finally, the time came for him to marry her. I have fulfilled my contract,” Jacob said to Laban, his uncle. “Now, give me my wife so we can be married.”

Now, I think in the more literal translation, it’s a little more graphic, as I recall.

Matt: Yeah.

Jim: All right. So, the NLT is kind of PG-ing this whole thing.

Winston: Disney Channel.

Jim: Yeah. Disney Channel, this whole thing, which I don’t like, honestly. It’s not that I want to read necessarily what it says, but it literally says, I think, “go into her,” right? So, it’s talking about sexual intercourse, right?

The Deception Unfolds

Verse 22. So, Laban invited everyone in the neighborhood to celebrate with Jacob at a wedding feast. That night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob and he slept with her. And Laban gave Leah a servant, Zilpa, to be her maid.

Now, just in a real quick commentary, I don’t want to hog any of this. A lot of people go, “How in the world can he have sex with Leah and not know that it was Rachel?” I think it’s a good question, but let’s remember there is alcohol involved. And let’s also remember that the veil that we use– Well, girls don’t hardly wear veils anymore. But when they do, they’re very thin. And these were not thin.

Not only that, let’s just– It’s a little bit graphic, and this is not a male chauvinist statement, so just back off everybody. The girls in those days and in this culture did not walk around in shorts and halter tops. They were covered, and they were very restricted in how they show affection. Trust me, they probably weren’t behind a rock making out. So when they got in the tent, baby, it was business, right?

Why Jacob Didn’t Realize

All right. So, everybody get their imagination around that, right? So I think that’s very plausible. Although you kind of wonder about voices and stuff, but anyway.

Winston: You didn’t talk.

Matt: You didn’t talk.

Jim: Sex had to be quiet.

Matt: Those of you that are not watching the video, I have my head– I’m not looking at the screen. If you’re just listening to the audio of this.

Jim: No, no talking.

Matt: Looking down.

Jim: Yeah, this is serious business. We can’t have any pleasure. We’re reproducing here. This is God’s business. Boy, we got to come somewhere to the middle here.

Morning Shock: “It Was Leah!”

25, “But when Jacob woke up in the morning, it was Leah!” it says.

Matt: With an exclamation point. That’s what I love.

Jim: Exactly. It is Leah! What?

Matt: Everybody was surprised.

Jim: Yeah. So did the tent feel that way? Did she get up and stretch and pull her veil. And then he goes, “What?”

Matt: Those weak eyes got him.

Leah’s Role in the Deception

Jim: And what was Leah? Now I have to admit, my imagination– Is she not ever thinking– Maybe that’s why it was quiet. She’s part of the deception.

Winston: Yeah. Maybe she was like, “This is my only chance.”

Matt: Oh, she has to be. There’s no way you’re– Yeah. She’s not innocent in this.

Jim: Yeah. Right? Right? And so she goes–

Matt: The same thing that happened with two brothers, the same spirit is happening with two sisters.

Jim: Yeah.

Winston: Leah was just a lot of, “Mm-hmm, yeah.”

Jim: Oh, man.

Winston: She was not talking because she wanted to be married. She wanted to be married.

Jim: Yeah.

Winston: Well, this is her chance. And she probably knew about the wealth of Jacob.

Jim: Yeah, plenty to go around.

Winston: Come on.

Laban’s Justification and Second Deal

Jim: “So, what sort of trick is this?” Jacob raged at Laban. “I worked seven years for Rachel. What do you mean by this trickery?”

“It’s not our–” Okay. All right. All right. Here’s another problem. Verse 26. “It’s not our custom to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the firstborn,” Laban replied.

Now, I did some study on this because remember, the Bible reports what happened. The Bible isn’t saying that such and such is necessarily right and such and such is necessarily wrong, right? In other words, just because he says this doesn’t mean that this indeed was an ancient custom. I did some research, and there’s some weak commentaries that suggest it, but I think that they just simply go along with what they have read. When you do some deep studying, there is no evidence that this is true.

Now, there’s evidence about the firstborn son, and we’ve talked about that and what they receive. But anyway, we’ll talk about that in a minute.

Two Wives, Two Agreements

“Wait until the bridal week is over, and you can have Rachel, too. That is, if you promise to work another seven years for me.”

All right. So, one, I just want to make this clear for everybody, and if I’m wrong, guys, correct me. I’m understanding this. He had to work seven years ahead of time, and then he got Leah. But he’s gonna get Rachel in a week, but now the agreement, he’s got to work seven years after that to pay for it. So one, he had to do in a layaway program, and the other way, it’s a debt. He’s got to pay it back.

Okay. Then verse 28. “So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob had married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too. And Laban gave Rachel a servant, Bilha, to be her maid. So, Jacob slept with Rachel, too. And he loved her more than Leah.”

Okay, that’s a really important statement. “He then stayed and worked the additional seven years.” I mean, that’s not shocking. If you married two women, can you love them the same? I don’t know. I don’t have that experience.

Matt: I don’t want to know.

Jim: I don’t know.

Winston: Wouldn’t recommend it.

Jim: Wouldn’t recommend it.

Leah’s Sons: From Misery to Judah (Praise)

God Sees Leah’s Pain

Verse 31. “But because Leah was unloved, the Lord let her have a child.” I think in your guys’s translations, it’s opened her womb or something like that, right?

While Rachel was childless. So in other words, I like the literal translation better because this one says, “Let her have a child,” where the literal says, “opened her womb.” Almost, you know, God intervening. And by doing that, he’s not saying polygamy is good or correct. That’s not what he’s saying. For whatever… Well, we’ll see in a minute. I’m getting too far ahead.

While Rachel was childless, so Leah became pregnant and had a son. Now, get this, everybody. She named him Ruben, for she said, “The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me.”

Okay, so you know what’s going on inside this poor woman, right? I call her poor even though she was part of the conspiracy.

Verse 33. She soon became pregnant again with a second son, had another son. She named him Simeon. And of course, we’re all knowing that these are starting to build the 12 tribes of Israel, right?

Winston: Yeah.

Naming the Sons: Emotional Expression<h/3>

Jim: She named him Simeon, for she said, “The Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son.”

Verse 34. Again, she became pregnant and had a son. She named him Levi. For she said, “Surely now my husband will feel affection for me since I have given him three sons.” The only thing I can make of that is these words, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, have similar sounds even though in English they’re completely different. I’m making that assumption because the meaning of their names are not that different. That’s just Jim’s logic.

Winston: Jim’s commentary.

Jim: Yeah, Jim’s commentary.

Shift from Seeking Love to Praising God

And then finally, we get to the last verse of this chapter. Once again, she became pregnant and had a son. She named him Judah, for she said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” And then she stopped having children. I’ll let you guys commentate.

Generational Patterns and Divine Mercy

Winston: What’s interesting to me about Leah and Rachel and this parallel, it kind of reminds me of what was going on with Abraham and Sarah, the servant. I don’t know if that’s a stretch to try to draw those parallels, but once again, this closing of a womb, opening of a womb, God’s intervention of children, there’s a favorite here. It seems like once again kind of some generational patterns kind of showing up here in this relationship. The pain of Leah feeling– The scripture says here, “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated,” which that’s strong language.

I guess you can imagine Jacob is almost kind of taking out all of his frustration from Laban on Leah, and Leah’s bearing that. But somehow the Lord has mercy on Leah. It’s a very interesting paradigm, and it just kind of makes you question because even to your point, we’re associating Leah with the deception, but God’s still showing mercy on Leah. Even if Leah was involved in that, right?

The Theology of God’s Favor for the Lowly

Jim: But it’s consistent in what the Bible teaches us about God, which might sound kind of weird, right? Because the perfect and holy God who doesn’t make mistakes sticks his finger into the mess of the human race from time to time, and he does stuff on purpose.

What the Bible teaches us, does it not, I’m open this up to two things at least. One is he’ll give mercy to whom he gets mercy. That’s one thing that the Bible teaches us, right? But the second thing I think the Bible teaches us is that he does have a favoritism, it seems like, generally speaking, to the poor, to the wounded, to the hurting, to the broken, right?

Because, though we haven’t read it yet, in the next chapter, now Rachel becomes the one who doesn’t have kids, and that begins to affect her. And then you see God, again, we’re jumping ahead, you see God’s grace come towards her.

But the other thing too is if my history is right, we call Jesus the lion of Judah because he came from the lineage of Judah. So here the forsaken, not loved, unloved Leah, and you pronounce it Leia, that’s fine, Leah or Leia, from her womb, and of course Jacob’s, their consummation is the lineage of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Judah: From Pain to Praise

Matt: One of the commentaries I was looking at, actually two of them I was looking at around this, talked about those names sounding similar, obviously in Hebrew for whatever reason. Reuben, one of them says, is “behold a son.” Simeon means hearing, hoping that the Lord would hear her. Levi, they’re saying, meant attachment, hoping that would attach. And then obviously here comes Judah, which means praise.

We’ve heard that if you’ve been around, if you’ve heard anyone preach from the Old Testament of Judah, and Judah would go on and lead, that tribe would typically lead in battle a lot, as we would see on multiple occasions, because with praise going first, so much power in that. But it’s such a departure from the names that she had been given because they all were attached to Jacob. They were all attached to getting Jacob’s attention.

And this last one, Judah, is to get God’s attention. So, I’m going to place my feelings, as you said, she was naming these children out of her feelings in the moment. For whatever reason, God healed her heart or that pain or God did a work somewhere. And praise comes out of this now, out of this hurt and pain and frustration.

And then because God doesn’t miss a trick in the scripture, out of pain and brokenness comes praise, which should be in our own lives, but also out of pain and brokenness would come the lineage of ultimately Jesus.

The Power of Praise in Spiritual Life

Jim: Yeah. Go a little bit further on that idea of praise leading. Obviously, we think of the battle of Jericho. Shoot. Who was the pastor, author who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking?

Matt: Orman Vincent Peele.

Jim: Yes. Yes. Vincent Peele. That was a book, in my opinion, that was written before its time. Because I’ve read through it, and though you could take some things too far, because he liked to talk about it from a scientific perspective too, about vibrations and all of that, but one of the things that he talked about, or that we even talk about when we’re trying to teach new believers how to pray, we’ll use that ACTS. Is that an acrostic? Is that what it’s called?

What do we teach people to start with? Adoration, right? Adoration, adoring. I wonder how much better our lives would be as we enter conflict, when we enter each day, when we enter each time where we’re trying to have our spirits connect, our spirit to God, if we would start with praise. In spite of what’s going on in my life, I choose to recognize how big you are, how good you are, how wonderful you are, that you are a promise keeper.

Praise as Decision and Declaration

Matt: I mean, we don’t see it till nearly the end of the book of Job, but could it be that’s what helped sustain Job? Because the scripture says, “Though he slay me, yet will I praise him and yet will I love him and praise him.” We don’t get to see that necessarily lived out verbatim in scripture, because that same idea is there, that regardless of what’s happening  around me– And then of course what David wrote as a psalmist, and there’s 150 chapters, a lot to choose from there.

Winston: Yeah. It seems like she kind of just makes this shift from trying to get her husband’s affection to just, “I’m just going to focus on God.”

Jim: Life sooner or later kind of gets you to that place, doesn’t it? When you try everything else, you finally go, “You know what? If I’ve got nothing else, I’ve got faith in God.” Then that has a way of pulling you out of the muck and mire.

Matt: Yeah. I’m reading out of the NIV on this one. It says she conceived again, and when she gave birth, verse 35, she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” This time. This time I will praise the Lord. There’s just so much. She named him Judah. Says then she stopped having children.

Jim: For now.

Matt: But it was a declaration she made. It was a decision and a declaration, which is how praise works in our life. It is a decision that we make and a declaration that we make. That is kind of what you were getting at a while ago, Jim. If we would start our day, if we would approach all the things in our life with that decision and that declaration.

Final Thoughts: The Hypocrisy of the Deceiver

Jacob the Deceiver Becomes the Deceived

Jim: Yeah. One more thought I have, you guys. I frankly think we could do a podcast just on the praise part. That’s just a big takeaway for me in this chapter. But another one is not so fun. But don’t you find it hypocritical of Jacob, as well as in our own lives, where he is outraged that he was deceived? The deceiver. The deceiver.

Matt: He’s so mad about it.

Jim: Was outraged that he was deceived. And Jesus warned–

Matt: If Esau heard about this, he’s like, “How’s that feel, buddy?”

Jim: He goes, “Well, I was going to kill you right away, but I think I’ll let you suffer.”

The Danger of Getting What We Want

Winston: Well, in that vein, one of the commentaries here says, “God will judge manipulators by giving them what they want in their sinful desires.” And that’s a kind of horrifying thought, that often times what we think we want, we really don’t know all that comes with it. It’s God’s grace to not give us everything we want. But it’s also potentially–

This commentary is saying that there’s forms of judgment where God just lets us have what we want, and then you see the dysfunction of what we want.

Closing Remarks

Jim: Man. Boy, that’s a faith statement right there, right? That really is a faith statement. That’s a big one, Winston. I’m gonna have to ponder that one now. Gosh, I get convicted when we get together and read through this.

Well, Pastor Matt, are you going to be ready for chapter 30?

Matt: Chapter 30. Absolutely.

Jim: All right.

Matt: Excited. Don’t do it without me.

Jim: Yeah. Everybody, we won’t be able to do 30 without you. That will not be possible. So, you’ll get to dictate a little bit more as to the date and time of that event. And for those of you that are walking with us through this journey, you do not want to miss chapter 30. It’s got some bizarre stuff in it. Really, really bizarre. As if the whole book hasn’t been bizarre.

Matt: Right. [crosstalk] one chapter has more than the next.

Winston: All kinds of stuff.

Jim: All kinds of stuff. All right, we’ll see you all next time.

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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