The Bible Recap - Day 016 (Genesis 12-15) - Year 7
Episode Date: January 16, 2025FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Video: Genesis Overview (Part Two) - Hebrews 11 - Video: Melchizedek video - Video: God's Covenant with Abraham - TBR Resource: Names of God Note: We provide links to specifi...c resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. PREP EPISODES (in case you haven’t listened yet): 1. Let's Read the Bible in a Year (Chronological Plan)! 2. How I Learned to Love (Reading) the Bible 3. Why Reading the Whole Bible is Important (interview with Lee McDerment) 4. Preparing to Read the Bible 5. Avoiding Common Mistakes: What to Look for When You Read the Bible 6. Reading the Bible in Community SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.
If you never got around to listening to our six prep episodes before you started this
trip through TBR, let me encourage you to do that today.
You can listen to all six episodes in about an hour and they will really help make sure
you do this well and that you don't lose momentum.
Okay, we're back to Genesis now.
When we were last here, before we dropped in on Job, a man named Abram had just been
born through the bloodline of Adam and Noah via Noah's son Shem.
According to the timeline Genesis marks out, Abram was born almost 2,000 years after Adam,
but only about 300 years after the flood.
And just like Adam and Noah before him,
God continues his unique relationship
with this family through Abram.
In 12.3, God tells Abram that he's going to bless him
so that he may be a blessing.
That blessing doesn't terminate on Abram.
It's ultimately about way more than him.
It's about how the Messiah will be born through his bloodline someday through this family,
which is a blessing to all the families of the earth. But this is way over Abram's head at this
point. Initially, God just promises to bless him with land and possessions. But there's one problem.
The land God promises him is currently inhabited by the Canaanites.
We talked about them on day three. They're the group of people who are generally regarded
as enemies of God.
There's a famine in the land at the time, so Abram and his wife Sarai move to a different
place, Egypt, and Abram's lot nephew goes with them, as well as their servants and animals
and possessions.
There's some weird stuff that happens where Abram is afraid of the Egyptian Pharaoh,
who thinks he's going to steal Sarai and kill him.
So Abram convinces Sarai to pretend to be his sister, which she sort of is. She's his half-sister.
And Pharaoh did kidnap Sarai, as Abram feared, and she's basically made to be part of his harem of wives.
God is not okay with that.
And he has big plans for Sarai.
So he brings the truth to light via some classic plagues
in order to get Sarai released.
Mind you, she's about 65 years old at this point,
so she must be a stunner.
After they leave Egypt, they go to the Negev,
which is a desert region.
God has blessed them so much much and they have so much stuff
that it can't all fit in the desert. Though to be fair, I guess there would be stiff competition
for the tiny patches of grass to feed their livestock. Whatever. So they decide to split
ways and Abram leaves the first choice of land up to his nephew. Lot wastes zero time in picking
the land that looks to be the most beautiful
and fertile. But the bad news is that it is all near the Wicked People. He sets up camp
near the Dead Sea. You might even have some salt or some lotion from his old neighborhood.
But then a war breaks out not long after Lot moves there, and he and his people get taken
as captives. When Abram, his uncle, finds out, he and the 318 warriors who live in his house
— big house, by the way — chase after Lot's kidnappers for about 160 miles until they catch up
with them and get him and his people back. In 1418, we read something important that may not
have seemed important. It says, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was
a priest of the God Most High. We don't have time to dig too deep into this, so
I'm gonna put a link in the show notes with more info. And if you don't know how
to find the show notes on your particular podcast app, try doing a web
search of the name of the app along with the words show notes. Or you can find all
the show notes at thebiblerecap.com forward slash show notes.
But for here and now, I just want to point out
that his name means King of Righteousness
and he is the King of Salem, which means peace.
The King of Peace and Righteousness.
And he brings out bread and wine.
Sound familiar?
And he is a king and a priest. Two roles that are rarely combined.
So what we have here in Melchizedek is a picture of Jesus. An archetype. A model. We'll see this guy
a few more times as we read through the Bible together, so just remember that name, Melchizedek.
In chapter 15, God makes Abram a promise that he's going to have a son.
This is awesome, unless you're Eleazar of Damascus, who is the original heir of Abram's
massive fortune. But Eleazar's current hope is in the fact that both Abram and Sarai are
super old and it doesn't seem possible for them to have a child. But that's what God
says, and we'll see in 15.6 that Abram believes God, despite his
age.
We also see that Abram's belief in God's Word is counted as righteousness—not his
actions, not his sacrifices, his belief.
This is consistent with what the rest of Scripture teaches us as well.
Even in the Old Testament, faith in God's Word is what connected people to God, not
obedience to the law.
For more on that, check out Hebrews 11.
What happens next between Abram and God is pretty peculiar on the surface, but it has
some really beautiful, rich meaning if you dig into it a little deeper.
Even though Abram believes God, he basically asks God for confirmation.
So God tells Abram to do all these weird things, cutting animals in half and whatnot. Then
a deep sleep falls on Abram, which reminds me of the deep sleep that comes on Adam in
221, when God is bringing Adam into a new season too. That's when God makes Eve. But
here, God shows up on the scene not to
miraculously hand Abram the promised child, but to make a covenant with him.
And this is where my God shot comes in. This really unusual scene of passing
between the cut-up animals is an ancient covenant-making practice between a king
and a servant. I don't have time to cover how beautiful this is, so if you want more info on this, and trust me you do, check
out the link in our show notes today. But here's the short version. Typically, the
servant would walk between the cut-up animals as a way of saying, I take the
curse of this covenant that I will be cut in half like these animals if I
don't fulfill my part of the covenant."
That's not what happens here.
God shows up in the form of fire, which is typical of the presence of God in the Old
Testament, and He passes between those cut-up pieces.
This is unheard of.
No one could even imagine a God who would take the penalty on Himself.
He's a promise-maker, and he's where the joy is.
As we move through Scripture, you'll see several names of God referenced.
And as we keep looking for Him and for our God shot as we read His Word each day, we
thought it might be helpful to give you a more comprehensive guide to the names and
attributes of God.
So we built out a PDF for you that not only lists the names and attributes of God,
but also the scripture references where you'll find them.
We'd love to share that resource with you.
If you want to get this free PDF,
all you have to do is go to thebiblerecap.com
forward slash names and submit your email address.
That's thebiblerecap.com forward slash names.