Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is it OK to Play Favorites? | Torah | Genesis 34

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Do you play favorites? How does favoritism show up in your life? Do you play favorites with your kids? Does your boss show favoritism at work? In today's episode, Keith shares how the dangers of favoritism show up in Genesis 34. Listen to find out how to avoid favoritism. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 34 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Okay, just for a moment, I'm going to take you behind the scenes of 10-minute Bible Talks, or TMBT, as we call it. When we get near the end of a series, we all get together and think and pray and talk about what our next series should be. And then Patrick goes through and breaks the series into little chunks and assigns you a series. them to Tanya or Jensen or me, and of course he keeps some of those chunks, some of those stories for himself. We have Patrick do it because he went to a private school. And all the money his parents paid for that private education has to have a payoff of some sort, right? Okay, so just for

example, when we decided to go through Genesis to start the new year, Patrick went through Genesis and he divvied up all the chapters and then assigned them to one of us. And I think he should be fired for giving me Genesis chapter 34. It is a terribly dark passage. Jacob's only daughter, Dina, is raped. There's lying, death, blaming. The Bible is many things, but one thing it's not is boring. We could skip this chapter, this story, but that would make us boring and chicken. And I don't want to be boring, and I don't want to be a chicken either. So let's dive in. Here's the big picture of what happens in Genesis 34. Jacob's family is living in a place called Shechem.

Dina is out walking when the city's prince, who is also named Shechem, sees her, attacks her, and rapes her. We're not going to talk much about sexual abuse in the few minutes that we have together today. But I want to make sure you know that sexual abuse of any kind is a horrible evil and that this young woman, experienced something that was painful and violating. Violating a person made in the image of God is a really big deal. I think individuals and churches and non-profits who help vulnerable people, and in the case of Genesis 34, vulnerable women like Dina have a special place in the heart of God. Now back to the story. In an odd twist, Shekham ends up falling in love with Dina. So he and his father, a guy named Hamor who happens to be the king. They approach Jacob to arrange a marriage between

Dina and Shechem. Well, after some back and forth, Dina's brothers, Jacob's sons, do something that's pretty tough to swallow. They say, look, we'll give you Dina as your wife if you and your whole city get circumcised. So circumcision was a sign that people were going to start following Yahweh. Surprisingly, the whole city agrees and get circumcised. And on the third day after the circumcision, when the people in the city were in the most pain, Simeon and Levi, two of Dina's brothers. And remember, Jacob's sons, they come into the city and they kill every male, including Hymour and Shechem, and they rescue their sister, Dina.

When Jacob hears about what they've done, he's furious. He says, why would you do that? Now we're going to be hated in our neighbor's eyes. Now they're going to try to kill us. Simeon and Levi respond to Jacob and they say, should we allow our sister to be treated like a prostitute? And then that's how the story ends. What's happening here? Why is this story in the Bible?

And maybe most importantly, what can you learn from it? Well, I'm glad you asked. If you're familiar with the book of Genesis or you've been listening to all the episodes here on TMBT, parts of this story might sound familiar. Have we heard anything about a man who loves a woman? speaks to the woman's father to try to make a deal to get her hand in marriage. Well, yeah, we have. Isn't that exactly what happened between Jacob and Laban? Jacob loved Rachel and agreed to work seven years to be able to marry her. But there's more similarities between these stories. Deina's brothers told the Shekmites that if they all got circumcised, then Shekam could marry their

sister. But that was a trick. Three days after the mass circumcision took place, they attacked, and killed the people. Well, we remember that Laban agreed to Jacob's proposal to work for Rachel's hand in marriage, but that was also a trick as he substituted Leah for Rachel. Everything that Laban did to Jacob, all the lying and deceiving, well, Jacob's sons are now doing that to Shackham. But these parallels in these stories, they go back even further to an earlier story. Because remember, Jacob had teamed up with his mother to trick his father Isaac into giving him his blessing instead of to his brother Esau. So what we're seeing is that sin begets sin. And Jacob deceives his father, Laban deceives Jacob, Jacob's sons deceive Shackham. Is this story telling us that sin

has passed from one generation to the next? Well, sure it is. That's at least one thing we need to notice in this story. And it should serve as a warning to every parent, to every grand parent, to every person who someday might be a parent. And the warning is this, deal with your heart, deal with your sin, break the cycle of sin, don't pass your sin on to your kids or your grandkids. But there's more to this story than that. Let's go back into the story and see what else we can learn from it. Here's how it starts in verse one. Now Dina, the daughter Leah, had born to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. Jacob had two wives, Rachel. and Leah. He loved Rachel more than he loved Leah. I mean, Rachel was his favorite for sure.

But God blessed Leo with more kids than Rachel. Why does the story point out that Dina was Leah's daughter? We already knew that. There must be something significant about that fact. But what is it? Well, at the very end of chapter 34, after all this has played out, Jacob is angry that his two sons, Simeon and Levi have tricked, have lied to Shackham and killed the people. This is how the chapter ends. Jacob says to Simeon and Levi, you've brought trouble on me, making me obnoxious to the Canaanites, the people living in this land. We are few in number.

And if they joined forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed. But they replied, in other words, Simeon and Levi looked at their dad and said, should he, meaning Shackham, should he have treated our sister like a prostitute? Now, those are harsh words, challenging words that these sons say to their father. But they could have said something even more challenging, right? They could have looked at Jacob and said, should you have let Shackam treat your daughter like a prostitute? I mean, Simeon and Levi felt like they had to defend their sister

because their dad hadn't defended his daughter. Why didn't Jacob do anything to protect his daughter, Dina? Why didn't he try to avenge the crime against her? Well, the story hints that the reason that Jacob is cavalier about Dina's health and safety is because she was the daughter of Leah, and Leah and her children weren't the favored ones. As we keep moving in the book of Genesis, we're going to see this issue of favoritism play out again in the story of Joseph. It's a pattern we've seen play out throughout the entire book. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob.

Well, Isaac's wife Rebecca favored Jacob over Esau. Dad liked one, mom liked the other one. It was a supremely dysfunctional family in which Rebecca and Jacob team up to deceive Isaac and the family is split apart. So fast forward now and here is Jacob favoring some of his children over others. Earlier we said we saw sin being passed down from parents to children. Now, that is true, but specifically this sin in this chapter is the sin of favoritism. Let's think for a moment about what is wrong with favoritism. We've already seen how favoritism divides this family. And we see favorism play out in families today. It's easy for parents to favor the kid that maybe is more like them than the kids.

who is different than them. Maybe one kid has the same interest, as was the case between Isaac and Esau. Or maybe one kid sins in the same way as a particular parent. So mom or dad finds it easier to deal with that kid. They are more gracious to the kid because it's a way of being more gracious to themselves. They're more understanding of one kid's sins because they are more like their own sins. The other kids sin in a different way. And so maybe, maybe, that parents are harsher toward those kids. There are all kinds of ways that favoritism can play out in the home, and it always divides. It always ruptures relationships. But what about outside the home? First, let's start with this. There are multiple passages in the Bible that says that God doesn't show

favoritism. Favoritism is related to self-righteousness, and it can even be related to racism. Let me show you how that works. When Peter was called to go to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius, he didn't want to go because Peter looked down on Gentiles. He looked down on people of other ethnicities. He looked down on people different than him. Eventually, he ends up going and he sees God at work in Cornelius' life. And Peter says this in Acts 10.

He says, watch, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism. but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. So what Peter is doing, and I'll credit to him for doing this, is he is rebuking himself. He's saying that I look down on Gentiles. I thought I was better than Gentiles. I thought God didn't care about Gentiles, at least not as much as he cared about me. But now I see that God doesn't show favoritism. He's working in all kinds of people.

He's working in people of different races, in different educational backgrounds, in different genders and people who live in different areas. Peter says that God doesn't play favorites. And so neither should he. And guess what? Neither should you. Neither should I. James 2 tells us that churches must not show favoritism. Oftentimes churches show favoritism to the rich. And the Bible is really clear that that is sin. It's wrong. It divides churches. And it dishonors God. I'm sure what churches is. do, can also be applied to us as individuals. In other words, just like churches show favoritism for the rich, so you and I in our own individual lives tend to show favoritism to people who can do

something for us. So favoritism is sinful because it's inconsistent with the character of God. When we show favoritism to others, we are using people selfishly for own gain. Instead of trusting God, we are manipulating people and circumstances to try to get what we want in life. Favoritism is a way of showing that we think of ourselves as better than others, or at least we think of some people as better than other people. Remember this. Favoritism rendered Jacob's family dysfunctional. Favoritism led to all kinds of violence. It led to Jacob not protecting his daughter. It led to her brothers lying and murdering on her behalf. Maybe you think favoritism is no big deal. Well, to be frank, you're wrong. Favoritism is a really big deal in the eyes of God.

If you see favoritism in your life, confess it, be honest with God about it. Ask him to change you. Maybe you and I should pray what Peter said in Acts 10. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. God loves everyone. Everyone is made in the image of God. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.

Thank you.