Read the Bible in 90 Days: Genesis 17:1 to Genesis 28:19
Posted by Tina Kubala at 6/9/2009 9:20 PM 
Categories: books
Tags: holy bible Christianity bible in 90 days
Categories: books
Tags: holy bible Christianity bible in 90 days
Between June and August, I have committed to reading the entire Bible. In a mere ninety days, I will be experiencing a vast array of writings relevant to religion, history, and literature. While I cannot commit to blogging on the topic daily, I would like to periodically share my thoughts as I undertake this exciting endeavor. I'm following (roughly) the reading guide put out by Faith and Victory Church.
Rebekah
As I read, I have been focusing on finding meaning in the stories. The story itself is familiar. I understand what happened - the plot. I will admit, sometimes, with the cultural barrier inherent in reading ancient text, it can be difficult to be sure of the point the author intended.
When you believe the Bible was divinely inspired and preserved with a purpose by a loving God who has something to say to us in these writings, it can be frustrating to reads pages of events not knowing what lesson was intended.
I have always said, these problems are not so acute in the New Testaments because our world is so much closer to the culture which produced it.
Certain events in this section of Genesis are, well, bizarre. Before you start thinking how sacrilegious I am, let me present the specter that is two generations of patriarchs masquerading as siblings with their wives. Both were in unfamiliar territories and feared for their lives lest the king kill them for their wives. If I'm missing something in these parallel stories of Abram and Sarai, then Issac and Rebekah, please feel free to help me understand the meaning behind the tails.
As I was reading, one theme that resonated was "leap of faith."
Specifically, when Abraham sends a man to secure an appropriate wife for his son Issac. He dispatches a trusted agent back to the land they had come from because God has told Abraham not to allow Issac to take a wife from the women of Canaan.
The trusted agent meets Rebekah at her family's well, and as God reveled to him, she is the woman who is meant for Issac. He proceeds to negotiate for Rebekah, explaining to her family what God had reveled to him.
What I find amazing is what happens when they ask Rebekah for approval:
"And they called Rebekah and said unto her, 'Wilt thou go with this man?' And she said, I will go." (Genesis 24:58)
The Biblical account does not tell use her thoughts on the subject. Unlike the men in the story, we are not told if God revealed some important key to Rebekah. We only are told she went freely whatever her reasons.
The fact that she walked out into the desert wilderness with strangers amazes me. She trusted. It was her very life at stake.
Beyond that, she was accepting a husband, sight unseen. She would have no way to return home if her betrothed turned out to be an old man with one leg. There would be no tearful phone call home to her father for a plane ticket home.
Nor could her family be assured to know her fate. Even during the settling of the Western United States, when lonely pioneers sent for brides, letters would be sent home to assure Ma and Pa their daughters were safe. These days, we don't send a young woman to the mall without her cell phone.
Maybe one of the things that makes faith tricky for modern man is how little faith it takes to live our day to day lives. When you can get up in the morning and check an online weather report for your town and you know food is located down the street at the local mega-mart, it is unnecessary to believe anything to get out of bed in the morning. We know so much about about our lives, have so many options, and so much control.
Maybe we could learn something from Rebekah's willing leap of faith. She must have been scared, but she went. I am amazed at the strength of my cultural foremother.
Now if I could only figure out the lesson from Rebekah pretending to be Issac's sister, I'd be on a roll.
Have read this many times, but never thought the way you have. Thanks for sharing.
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One reason I see the story from that point of view is that my life includes a similar leap of faith. I moved across country to join my husband before we actually got married. We'd been together two years in my home town. For some complex reasons, it was a calculated risk. But unlike Rebekah, I could have gone back home.
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