Day One: Gen. 30:1-6 “When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any
children, she envied her sister. ‘Give me sons, or I will die!’ she said to
Jacob. Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, ‘Am I in God’s place, who has
withheld children from you?’ Then she said, ‘Here is my slave Bilhah. Go sleep
with her, and she’ll bear children for me so that through her I too can build a
family.’ So Rachel gave her slave Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and he slept with
her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated
me; yes, He has heard me and given me a son,’ and she named him Dan.
I
HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY of taking my kiddos to their GiGi’s house every morning
before heading off to work. Every morning before leaving, I give
each one of them a good-bye kiss. Recently Makenna, my two-year-old
daughter, has decided on some days that she doesn’t want her daddy’s good-bye kiss.
So when I go to say my good-byes, she’ll scream “No kisses!” and bury her face.
After
a couple of days of this, I had an ingenious idea.
Since she loves chocolate, and since GiGi always keeps a container stocked with
Hersey’s Kisses, I pulled one of the bite-sized chocolates out, held it up, and
simply asked, “Would you like a kiss?”
Her
immediate response was “Yes!” As she went to grab the chocolate kiss from my
hand, I quickly planted a smooch on her cheek.
I got my good-bye kiss, and she got her chocolate.
Everyone walked away happy. To put it another way, we could say:
“Both are happy that Makenna received a kiss from her daddy.”
Look
at that sentence. Both me and my daughter would be able
to say that it accurately describes the situation, yet we mean different things.
I am happy because I got to show my daughter affection before parting for the day.
She is happy because she gets to eat a bit of chocolate before breakfast.
The point is that we have to know more information before we can understand the
fullness of that simple statement.
Reading
the Bible require this same type of commitment.
There are many things in the Bible that, if pulled apart from the rest of the
book, would be very confusing or troubling.
A prime example is the passage above.
If we don’t understand the historical situation, the type of writing, and the
ultimate point of the passage, we will have huge questions surrounding the Bible.
In other words, for us to truly understand and apply the Bible to our lives, we
must understand the context in which passages are written.
PAUSE
AND REFLECT
▷▷What
is context?
▷▷Why
is it important to understand the context of a passage of Scripture?
▷▷What
can happen if we try to apply Scripture without understanding the context?
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