January 5, 2009

January 5

Genesis 11:10-13:18

Shem was one of Noah’s sons. Just for fun, I made a spreadsheet of Shem’s descendents (11:10-26). The interesting thing is, if you take this passage completely literally, Shem lived for 35 years after his great great great great great great great grandson Abraham dies at age 175. Here is the spreadsheet:

Name		Age his son was born			Total age
Shem		100			600
Arpachshad		35			438
Shelah		30			433
Eber		34			464
Peleg		30			239
Reu		32			239
Serug		30			230
Nahor		29			148
Terah		70			205
Abraham		100			175

The point of this genealogy, as my Study Bible notes, is to make a bridge from the world’s history (and pre-history) to the ancestors of Israel, starting with Abram (whose name will change to Abraham) and his wife Sarai (whose name will change to Sarah).

Genesis 12 is an important chapter. First, God calls Abram to go to the Promised Land, and God makes a big promise to Abram: ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ God promises to make a great nation out of Abram, bless him, make his name great, and bless all the families of the earth through Abram.

Then, in the same chapter, we see that Abram is far from perfect – even though God has blessed him and watches over him, he is a human being just like us. In chapter 13, God promises Abram all the land of Canaan (which will one day be Israel).

Matthew 5:1-16

This is the beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Wow. You could write a whole book on the Beatitudes (5:1-12). Let me just say that, we would all do well to stop and reflect on what character traits Jesus calls blessed, and ask God to grow those traits in us.

Jesus calls us “salt of the earth.” As someone said today at the preaching seminar I am attending, when you add salt to food, it disappears into the food and flavors it. In the same way, we Christians are called to ‘disappear’ into the world and add a godly flavor to it – perhaps spicing up the world with the Beatitudes – being poor in spirit, mourners, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted for righteousness’ sake.