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Continous Discipleship - God Speaks Through the Patriarchs and Matriarchs
Prayer: You are the God of Abraham and Sarah and you are our God. We thank you, God, for calling us to be your people and for being faithful even though we are unfaithful. We thank you, God, for showing us wanderers your way. Open our eyes to see that way and enable us to follow it. Amen.
The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are called the Pentateuch, the Torah, the Books of Moses or the Law. These books together form one story that speaks of a God who makes and fulfills promises.
Genesis is a prologue to the story of the patriarchs and matriarchs, our ancestors in faith. It sets their story in the context of creation and the whole sweep of human history. While this is one story, it is also the compilation of many stories. In these many stories we find different names for God and conflicting sets of facts (were humans first or last in the order of creation? did God command one pair of each animal or seven pairs of the clean and two pair of the unclean animals?).
After hundreds of years of retelling these stories, Jewish editors compiled the oral history into written form. The oldest of these writings is the J, - the Yhwhist source. Close behind it was the E, - the Elohist source. The next source was the D, - the Deuteronomic text, which is identified with the book of the law discovered in the Temple at the time of Josiah. The final writing was the P, - the Priestly source. It was composed some time after the exile. Scholars believe that the writer of P may have brought J and E together so as to blend the three into one story, and D was added to complete the story of God’s promise and fulfillment.
The Old Testament (or Old Covenant) story of Abraham and his children, grandchildren, and their descendants, begins with nomadic tribes of herders roaming from place to place from the land of Haran to Ur to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan. On a deeper level, this is the story of God’s forming a people. God called Abraham to go to the land that God would show him. God promised Abraham land and descendants, a surprising promise since Sarah and Abraham were old and childless. Sure enough, Sarah had a son, Isaac, who married Rebekah; they had twin sons, Esau and Jacob (later named Israel). Jacob married sisters, Leah and Rachel, and Jacob’s family grew to include twelve sons whose families became the twelve tribes of Israel. Drought brought Jacob and his family to Egypt, where his son Joseph’s position with the pharaoh meant prosperity for Jacob and family. But later generations were put into slavery. God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage. After wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, Joshua led the Israelites into the land that God had promised Abraham.
The Pentateuch tells the story of our God, the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Leah and Rachel, and Joseph and his brothers and sister. God makes covenants with God’s people and despite the lack of faithfulness of the people and the perils which threaten the promise - God is faithful.
Prayer: So great a cloud of witnesses precedes us in faith. Thank you, God, for your call to the world and for your faithfulness. Amen.
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