My BSF study has ended for the summer and this is the time when I look back at my personal take-aways. For one thing I had never considered why the Pentateuch was written when it was, during Israel's wilderness wanderings. Although I'm sure their ancestral stories had been passed down in other forms, Genesis explains how everything came to be, how the Jews came to be God's chosen people, God's promises to them, and why they were to displace the Canaanites when they arrived at the promised land. I know God's timing is perfect, but it seemed to me that it would have been handy for the fathers of the faith to have had the preface to their own lives written down ahead of time.
But what made the biggest impact on me this time through Genesis was the life of Jacob. Jacob spent much of his long life drifting spiritually, but God would graciously step in, remind him of His promises, and point his prodigal to the proper path. Jacob did not have a Bible, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or other believers to encourage him. He had only God, who is faithful to the faithless. So faithful, in fact, that the Lord chose to identify Himself as the God of Jacob.
And it was especially encouraging to me that, despite everything, Jacob finished well. As the physical strength (moving stone well cover/wrestling Lord) that marked his life dwindled, his spiritual strength rekindled so much that his deathbed blessings to his sons also prophesied of the future Messiah. The Egyptians, who despised Hebrews too much to eat a meal with them, so respected Jacob that he was buried with the full honors and attendance of the Egyptian nobility. One BSF group member said she liked these lessons because Jacob's family was messy and, despite the best of intentions, so was hers. For me, Jacob's story was a reminder not to put a period where God has put a comma. Those spiritual drifters may yet finish well.
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