Islands, Elevators, Cows, and Crops: Migration Economics. Genesis 36:6-8.

The island of Manhattan must have seemed huge to the Dutch who first arrived in 1626, securing the rights to farmland by paying the Lenape people $24 in beads and trinkets for the area that would come to be known as “Manhatto.” Forty years later the British took over and the island would grow so populated the only place left to go was up. Fortunately, the Otis Elevator company was there, ready to begin shuttling New Yorkers into the sky day and night, higher and higher every year. Suddenly the air above the island could support not merely a five-storey walkup, but ten storeys, then twenty-five storeys, then fifty storeys and beyond.

E.B. White referred to Manhattan’s tall buildings as “sky acreage, hitherto untilled.” Just as the Otis company allowed New Yorkers to begin tilling the sky, the growing population stopped tilling the soil, too tightly packed on the land to continue farming it. The last working farm disappeared from the island in the 1930s. Manhattan grows no crops and raises no cattle. All the food must be shipped in daily. But the wealth being generated on the island–the value created by the work of millions–is enough to pay for the daily delivery of untold tons of food. 

Our modern economy and urban geography create vertical pressure. The agrarian societies of Bible times created horizontal pressure. It happened to Abram and Lot. Abram and his nephew were both so wealthy there was not enough land to feed their animals. They had to split up. Abram let Lot choose, and the young man chose the best land, a choice that kicked off a chain of unpleasant events, see Genesis chapters 13, 18, and 19.

Less familiar is the story of the separation of Jacob and Esau. The reconciled twin sons of Isaac grew rich in their old age and faced the same problem: there was not enough grass and water to support their animals. They would have to spread out.

“And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together, and the land where they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in Mount Seir” Genesis 36:6-8.

Stories like this make me sad. Why can’t families be together? Jacob and Esau finally had a good relationship, but their own prosperity forced them to split up.

I remember teaching high school and realizing that I had five cousins who also taught in high schools at the time, and at least half a dozen cousins that were high school students. Yet we were all in different schools–spread out across hundreds of miles. Why didn’t God send us all to the same place, where we could see family every day? Doesn’t that seem like the way things should work? 

It may seem that way. But God did not send you here to live a comfortable life in your insulated family bubble. You are here to reach other people, to make a difference. Sometimes God calls us to change jobs, other times to change cities or even nations. My father moved 300 miles for work. My wife’s father, a thousand. Most Americans have ancestors on other continents.

Moving, whether to Lubbock or Lithuania, is simply part of life sometimes, part of the adventure to which God calls us, and for which He will reward us: 

“And He said unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come, life everlasting” Luke 18:29-30.

AΩ.

  • The E.B. White quote is from his 1948 essay now published in book form, HERE IS NEW YORK.

Economy of the City. Genesis 34:20-21.

Everybody’s got to eat. And find shelter. And pay bills. The fact is, you need money. Even if you don’t want money, you need it.

How does one amass wealth? By selling something for which people will pay. This is true whether you live in a culture based on barter and trade, or whether you live in a modern, cash-based society. People create value. Human labor creates value. Ideas, creativity, and effort create value.

And if people create value, then more people should create more value. And bigger cities, bigger nations should create greater value–a stronger economy–than smaller communities. This is not a new concept. People have understood this for as long as they have understood simple addition: more people equals more money.

“And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the city gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, ‘These men are peaceable with us. Therefore, let them dwell in the land, and trade therein. For the land, behold it is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters … Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours?'” Genesis 34:20-21.

When Jacob and his twelve sons arrived in Shechem, the locals saw the arrival of the prosperous family as a chance to increase their own wealth. They told the city fathers to welcome the newcomers knowing that soon they would be able to share in Jacob’s property.

Unfortunately, the men of Shechem made an error in judgment. Humans bring value. But humans also destroy value. We are capable not only of towering achievements but also of appalling destruction. In 1931, Americans built the Empire State Building during the Great Depression (and completed the project ahead-of-schedule and under-budget). A few years later, Americans used only two bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 200,000 people. Towering achievements and appalling destruction.

Perhaps it is ironic that the men of Shechem did not consider the Problem of Evil. Or rather, they did consider it, but concluded that Jacob’s people “are peaceable with us.” That was a bit naive, considering that Shechem had raped Jacob’s daughter, Dinah. The sons of Jacob were already plotting their vengeance and soon killed all the men in the city, stole their animals, crops, and wealth, and captured their wives and children, Genesis 34:25.

Markets and economies are not as complicated as those who favor government control would have you believe. A healthy market allows free people to freely trade for goods and services. Currency (cash money) and investment products (stocks) increase the efficiency of markets, allowing greater wealth for everyone. But we must never lose sight of human evil. We must be shrewd.

Caveat Emptor is the rule–the Buyer Must Always Beware.

“’It’s no good, it’s no good!’ says the buyer— then goes off and boasts about the purchase” Proverbs 20:14.

Is that not the way it works? The buyer argues a product is terrible, the seller argues it is amazing, the two agree on a price, and each one tells himself he got the better deal.

The truth to remember is that skepticism is warranted. Humans create value. But humans also destroy things. More people means more value. But sometimes more people means more risk of total annihilation.

Caveat Emptor. Buyer Beware.

AΩ.

*I do not disagree with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not only did the bombings save the lives of countless American and Allied soldiers, but the Allies did all they could to warn the people of Japan, dropping flyers all over the cities. Sadly, the Japanese had proven ruthless in their attempt to seize control of the entire world, and they were savage in their treatment of Allied prisoners (not to mention Japan’s own soldiers and citizens). After five years of fighting, Japan had done nothing to indicate it would stop the destruction. Only the overwhelming force of the atomic bomb finally brought them to the table for peace talks. Finally, I do not consider myself a qualified apologist for the use of the atomic bomb, nor am I claiming a Biblical basis for its use.

Jacob and the Troublemakers. Genesis 33:10.

Are you a troublemaker? Do you ever feel like you are being singled out for constant punishment? Like me, did a teacher ever place your desk way off in the corner of the room where none of the other children could talk to you? 

Curiously, some teachers are drawn to the troublemakers. Some of them discover that they really enjoy the kids who drive their colleagues crazy. My wife is like that: we enjoy telling each other stories about the difficult young men we have taught who nevertheless burrowed their way into our hearts forever. I looked one of them up online just this morning (and discovered he is working as an oil and gas landman!).

Jacob was one of God’s troublemakers. When the twin sons of Isaac were born, Esau came out first but Jacob’s fist was wrapped around his heel. They called the second born “heel grabber” and the name stuck, indicating the way he always seemed to be struggling to get what was coming to him.

Jacob later conned Esau out of his birthright, then deceived his blind father into speaking over Jacob a blessing meant for Esau. But Jacob was a victim too–he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword, right? Jacob was manipulated many times by his father-in-law, Laban, and years later ten of his sons conspired to sell son number eleven to human traffickers, and for thirteen years Jacob grieved for a son he thought was dead.

Jacob’s entire life was one of constant struggles with people.

Sometimes the man won, sometimes he lost. But Jacob never stopped fighting. (The man had no chill.)

Yet, God delighted in the contentious heel grabber.

Like a father who is amused by that difficult child that can’t stay out of trouble, I imagine God turning on the Jacob Show every day and just watching the fireworks. What would the man of strife do next?

Think about this. The Bible reports many dreams. God came to prophets and showed them so many things. Other times, he walked up in human form, as He did with Abraham, and talked to him about Sodom and Gomorrah. Daniel walked around with God inside the fiery furnace. John saw visions of the future while he was alone on the island of Patmos. God talked to Noah and Moses and Paul. God even spoke to Jacob’s mother, telling her “Two nations are in thy womb … and the elder shall serve the younger” Genesis 25:23.

Most of God’s interactions with people can be described as conversations. Or maybe conversations with dreams or visions attached. 

But with Jacob it was different. God delighted in the troublemaker; He had something special in mind for Jacob. A divine interaction like no other. God came to the man late one night: 

“Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’

But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’

The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’

‘Jacob,’ he answered.

Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with man and have overcome.’

Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.’

But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.’ The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip” Genesis 32:24-31. 

Wait, what? God came to Jacob so the two men could … RASSLE? Seriously? Can you imagine that? Look at the pope in his tall hat (the mitre) and the fancy robes, the cathedral filled with the smoke of incense, and all the fat, old cardinals in red robes, and think about this: the God they dressed up to serve so piously came to Jacob in the middle of the night because He wanted to wrestle! Wrap your head around that! 

And the same is true for all our churches. In one way or another, all of us value a level of decorum and sobriety. We wear nice clothes, we drink coffee, and we behave. As we should. The Bible clearly says that God is a god of order and our worship should be ordered and reverent. 

But it is refreshing to remember that God wrestled with Jacob.

Boys love to wrestle. I wish every young man could spend hours wrestling with a gentle, but much stronger father. It is so valuable–and a great way to communicate love and affection between father and son. But wrestling is more than that. It is a competition. It is grappling. It is fighting, though a rather safe kind of fighting, where a boy learns rules and to respect an opponent. 

But why did God do this? Why did He take on flesh, gird up His loins, and wrestle all night long with Jacob? For one thing, God loved Jacob. He did. It seems so obvious to me. God looked at the life of this striving, angry, scheming, sometimes devious man, and God just loved him. And God knew how to reach Jacob. Jacob did not want a dream or a vision or a postcard from Heaven. Jacob was a man of action!

God knew that a good night of wrestling would reach Jacob on a deeper level than anything else. 

So that’s what He did: God showed up and wrestled with the man for hours! And God limited himself. He limited himself to a level of power similar to Jacob’s. Thus, neither one could quite seem to win. It was almost as though God made himself Jacob’s twin. The two were evenly matched and they wrestled for hour after hour. 

Jacob must have been thinking of his twin brother the entire time. After all, he had not seen Esau in twenty years, and he knew he would be seeing him the next day. Not only that, but the person Jacob had wrestled with the most in life was surely his twin brother Esau.  The two of them must have wrestled for hours growing up. That’s what brothers do. But Esau had promised to kill Jacob. There was so much bad blood. Esau was on his way with an army of four hundred men. The brothers would meet again tomorrow. 

And now Jacob is spending the entire night wrestling with someone he can’t quite defeat, but who can’t quite best him either. Over time, an awareness comes to Jacob. This is no ordinary man. No ordinary enemy. None of Jacob’s favorite moves seem to work on this guy. But every time the man has a chance to take a kill shot, he doesn’t do it. So the two wrestle on. 

What does this crazy, almost sacrilegious story have to do with me and you? First, if you consider yourself a troublemaker, a deceiver, a heel grabber, or a failure of any kind, God loves you. God can look on your life and delight in you when no one else can.

When God looks at you, He sees someone He deeply loves.

Second, WRESTLE WITH GOD!

WRESTLE WITH GOD IN PRAYER!

Go for it. When you have a need, a desire, a dream, or just something small that you want, WRESTLE! Don’t look at prayer as just a mild conversation, like handing God your shopping list, then walking away.

God wants to be involved in your life. He wants to engage with you, to wrestle with you, to hear from you–a lot–and to talk back so you can hear from Him.

When you are praying for something, pray like Jacob who said, “I will not let you go until you bless me!”

Grab onto God and demand that He bless you. Don’t worry about praying wrong. If you pray wrong, or your tone needs to be adjusted, God can show you. But for now, be like Jacob. Grab onto Him and ask Him to bless you. 

Finally, this is a proxy wrestling match. Jacob was wrestling with God. But he had to be thinking about his brother. Jacob was extremely anxious, but after wrestling for hours, I think Jacob was able to face Esau with peace. If Jacob was not confident, he was at least spent. His energy was drained while he “pulled an all-nighter” for the ages. What was left to fear? 

The next day Jacob would be reunited with the greatest wrestling opponent of his life.

Everything Jacob knew about wrestling he and Esau had discovered together. That is the way of brothers. God understands that, and He wrestled all night to show Jacob that things were going to be okay. In the end, God blessed Jacob, gave him a new name, and made his hip lame to remind him: he had wrestled with God. 

And things worked out. Esau forgave Jacob, even refusing his gifts. And Jacob spoke to Esau in words that harken back to a night spent tumbling in the dirt: 

“Accept the gifts I offer, for I have seen thy face and it is as if I had seen the face of God, and He was pleased with me” Genesis 33:10.

I imagine it this way:

God wrestled with Jacob with the ferocity and well-matched strength of a twin brother, and Jacob was reminded of Esau. A few hours later, Esau showed Jacob astounding forgiveness, and Jacob was reminded of God. 

For the rest of his life, Jacob would know he had survived an all-night wrestling match with God. (Who else can say that?) What else could life throw at him? Whatever might happen, Jacob would face the future knowing he could handle it. He would survive. He would survive the loss of Rachel and of Joseph, knowing full well that he had “struggled with God and with man and prevailed” Genesis 32:28. 

AΩ.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part. Genesis 30:22-24.

Abraham and Sarah, Parents at Last! –Image generated with A.I.

Have you ever had to wait just–forever? It’s tough, isn’t it? You wait in line. You wait on the phone. You wait for summer. You wait for vacations, marriage, careers, promotions. As children, our experience of waiting for Christmas morning is so universal it has become a cliche: Slow as Christmas. Everyone knows what it feels like to wait. But some of us have spent decades in the crucible of waiting. 

Noah hammered away for what some believe to have been one hundred years, all the time waiting, and no doubt wondering, what rain and flooding was all about.

Abraham waited 25 years for the birth of the son he was promised. –And that is assuming he did not start waiting until he was 75. Personally, I bet that by age 75 he and his wife had already waited so long they had given up on children. The two spent six or seven decades wrestling with the pain and hopelessness of barrenness. 

Moses spent forty years herding sheep in the wilderness. Can you imagine the thoughts in his head as he approached his 80th birthday, a no-account old man wandering the desert with his father-in-law’s sheep? I had all the education and languages and loyalty to rescue the Hebrews, but I failed and God banished me to waste my life in the desert. 

What about David? He was anointed king at about age fifteen. He quickly proved himself by killing Goliath. He became a high-ranking military officer, a gifted tactician on the battlefield–and then he waited. And waited, while Saul chased him around Israel trying to murder him. And David honored God and the king by not killing Saul, though he had several opportunities and plenty of well-meaning advisors telling him to do it. Fifteen years passed before he finally took the throne. (We condemn David for the failures that came later, but imagine the dark turn his life would have taken if he had murdered Saul when he had the chance.)

My favorite is Joseph, of course. (He is my favorite in many categories.) What a life of integrity. He was sold into slavery at 17 and spent most of the next thirteen years in prison. But he was faithful to God and God raised him to second-in-command when he was 30. 

Finally, there is Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob. She was barren, and only after her sister Leah had given Jacob six sons and a daughter, did Rachel finally become pregnant. 

“And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bare a son. And said, ‘God hath taken away my reproach.’ And she called his name Joseph, and said, ‘the Lord shall add to me another son’” Genesis 30:22-24.

God heard Rachel’s prayers. Of course He did. God knew she was hurting, and He showed compassion on her and blessed her with Joseph and then Benjamin. The Lord “took away her reproach,” removing forever the shame Rachel felt because she was barren. 

If you are waiting for God to show up in your life, consider these two verses:

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices” Psalm 37:7. 

Be patient and don’t let the success of others make you anxious. Fret not. Instead, be still before the Lord. Tell Him about your prayers, your hopes, your unfulfilled dreams. But be still and fret not. 

“Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains” James 5:7.

Do you have the patience of a farmer? Can you settle down, calm yourself, and be still? Can you sit in the shade on a blazing sunny day and trust God to send the rain? 

I believe God chooses different people for different kinds of struggles. One of mine is the struggle of waiting. But I remember Moses and his forty years in the desert with only sheep to talk to.

I think of Joseph who had such a special bond with his father, but spent years in a dark, rat-filled dungeon, though all he had ever done was act with integrity.

I encourage myself by remembering David and his fifteen years on the run from Saul.

And I think of Hannah, who finally had a son, Samuel, then almost immediately handed him over to be raised by Eli the priest.

And most of all, I remember the JOY: Abraham and Sarah’s JOY over the birth of Isaac, David’s JOY over the kingdom, Joseph’s JOY when he was reunited with his brothers and his father, Hannah’s JOY when God gave her a son. Moses’s JOY when God called him–though he was reluctant–and God gave the old man’s life an incredible mission and purpose. 

“The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, He is patient…” 2 Peter 3:9.

AΩ.

* You know what verse people love on waiting? “They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength…” Isaiah 40:31. That is a great verse but the word ‘wait’ in this context does not seem to mean wait in the sense of time passing so much as it means trusting, hoping, or depending. If you depend on the Lord, He will renew your strength.

** The title comes from the chorus of “The Waiting” by Tom Petty: 

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you get one more yard

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part.

Blessings and the Power of Words. Genesis 27:27-29.

Jacob received three blessings in only two chapters of Genesis. First, he pretended to be his older brother Esau and deceived his father Isaac. Isaac, thinking he was blessing Esau, offered his greatest blessing to what he believed to be his firstborn son. He began with a comment about the smell of his outdoorsy son that I used to enjoy saying to my son when he would come inside sweaty on a hot day:

“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field the Lord has blessed. Therefore, God give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. May people serve thee and the nations bow down to thee. Be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curseth thee and blessed be he that blesseth thee” Genesis 27:27-29.

Summary: May God give you food and wine and leadership over family and nations.

Later Jacob leaves in search of a wife, and Isaac blesses him a second time. This blessing is significant because this time Isaac knew he was blessing Jacob and not Esau. Isaac seems to have realized that God had chosen Jacob to carry the Abrahamic line of blessing.

“May God almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people, and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave to Abraham” Genesis 28:3-4.

Summary: May God give you many descendants, plenty of land, and the blessing of Abraham.

These are amazing words. I have never heard a father bless his child in quite this way. And yet, Isaac’s best blessings can’t compare with the words God speaks over Jacob:

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” Genesis 28:13-15.

Summary: I will give you more descendants than you can count, plus land and territory wherever your children may go, your descendants will be a blessing to the world, and I will be with you and bring you home one day.

People today have taken a renewed interest in the power of words. I agree that we should speak words of blessing over our families and loved ones. I agree that words have power and that as Christians we should use our words to bless others and not curse them. We should speak positively and express hope and faith in Christ at all times.

But let’s be reasonable about it too. By that I mean, may God protect us from the hocus-pocus notion of MANIFESTATION. That is the idea that by simply saying something, we can make it happen. I recently heard a witness on a documentary refuse to say what he believed happened to a crime victim. “I don’t want to say what I think happened because I don’t want to make it true by putting that out there into the universe.” I was stunned. The woman has been missing for three decades, yet he believes that if he speaks his theory about what happened in 1998, he might somehow make that theory become the thing that actually happened.

Can you see how ridiculous that is? The past is over. You cannot alter history by saying something incorrect years later. In fact, you cannot alter reality by your words even one second later. The past is over. It exists only in memory.

But even when you are speaking of the future, the heresy of manifestation is ridiculous. Manifestation is based on an idea called the “Law of Attraction,”[1] which says that positive thinking and positive speaking about what you desire can ATTRACT those desires into reality. This too is false because the so-called law of attraction assumes that “the universe is listening.” But the universe is absolutely NOT listening.

God listens. God, the CREATOR, listens to your words. But the universe—God’s CREATION, is not listening. The universe is inanimate. That means it is not alive. It is not a person. The molecules in the air around you are not capable of listening to your words or responding to them.*

Believing the universe to be alive and capable of hearing and responding to your prayers is not only irrational. It is IDOLATRY.

We can sum up the lesson of blessings in a few simple words. We should bless people we love. We should use our words positively, whether we are wishing them a good day, or speaking a blessing over their entire lives. We should bless them by invoking God, remembering that the Creator of the universe has the power to answer our prayers. When we bless others, we should speak prayers of blessing over them, good wishes that begin with statements such as “May God bless you in your new career…” or something similar.

We should not consider our words to have magical power. We are speaking a prayer to God, asking Him to bless our loved ones. We are not casting a spell and hoping the universe will cooperate.

Dear God, teach us how to use our words for blessings and not curses. May we bless you and honor others with our words. Guard us from the ungodly notions of manifestation and the so-called “Law of Attraction” and teach us to pray bigger, bolder prayers for those around us. May we bless others and pray for them with the power, inspiration, and creativity of the Biblical patriarchs.  

AΩ.

[1] Many credit Rhonda Byrne’s book and documentary film THE SECRET with popularizing the ideas of manifestation and the Law of Attraction.

*Though the “universe” cannot listen, the universe is filled with sentient beings who can. Not only can God hear your words, but angels and demons can also hear your words. But whether they can respond to them—or would want to—is another matter.

Divorce. 1 Chronicles 8:8.

A curious fact is recorded in the Biblical genealogies:

“Sons were born to Shaharaim in Moab after he had divorced his wives Hushim and Baara. By his wife Hodesh he had Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malkam, Jeuz, Sakia, and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of families. By Hushim he had Abitub and Elpaal” 1 Chronicles 8:8.

The writer notes that Shaharaim married and divorced his first wife (who bore him two sons). Then he married and divorced his second wife. Then he married his third wife and she bore him seven sons.

But what may appear to be missing is any criticism of Shaharaim for being twice divorced. The writer simply reports the man’s actions without commentary.

Does that mean divorce is acceptable?

No. Jesus condemned divorce.

“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way in the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery” Matthew 19:8-9.

Not only does Jesus condemn divorce. The Old Testament prophet Malachi does too:

“Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another? … The Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit … So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty” Malachi 2:10-16.

Many translations put it more bluntly: “‘For I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel” Malachi 2:16.

So if divorce is wrong, why is it not condemned in 1 Chronicles 8? Consider the purpose of the passage. The genealogy recorded in 1 Chronicles was a historical record of the lives of actual people, for the benefit of their descendants. The family line of Shaharaim—his great, great grandchildren, for example—need to be able to prove that they are Hebrews from the tribe of Benjamin. They do not need to feel guilty over Shaharaim’s failures as a husband.

As Bible readers, we must avoid drawing conclusions based on the fallacy known as the “Argument from Silence.”

That is, if the text is silent on the matter, do not assume silence equals approval. When facts are presented without comment, we should not draw any conclusion based on silence. Rather than assume divorce is okay because Shaharaim’s divorces are not expressly condemned, we should assume nothing. Instead, look elsewhere in the Bible to see what it says about divorce. It actually says a great deal, calling it a violent betrayal based on unfaithfulness and hardness of heart. God literally says, “I hate divorce.” Would that include the two divorces of Shaharaim? Certainly. First Chronicles is silent about Shaharaim’s divorces, but that does not render them acceptable.

Dear God, find us faithful. Make us strong, loyal spouses, with marriages rooted in integrity, love, and patience. Give us the wisdom to interpret the Bible correctly, and to draw no conclusions where none is supported. Alert us when we base a belief on something the Bible has left unsaid. Thank you for your grace and compassion that reaches all of us–especially those suffering from divorce. May we love people and bless them with your compassion, forgiveness, and grace.

AΩ.

Study Genealogies to Show Thyself Approved. 1 Chronicles 1:1.

Image: In 1946, Norman Rockwell produced this painting for the Saturday Evening Post following his visit to a one-room schoolhouse in Carroll County, Georgia.

My son’s first-grade class learned two things “by heart.” They learned to sing the song of the U.S. presidents, and they used a sort of rhythmic chant to help them learn to recite the second chapter of Luke, the popular “Christmas story.” I remember using one memory trick when I was in college—a Greek professor taught us to sing the Greek alphabet using the same alphabet song we had all learned as English-speaking children. (I cannot get past Epsilon thirty years later.) Nevertheless, singing and poetry are well-known memory tricks. Another involves landmarks and pictures. In fact, before a trip to New York, I found it helpful to memorize the landmarks on a map of Manhattan.

“Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahaleel, Jered, Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The sons of Japheth … the sons of Ham … the sons of Shem …” 1 Chronicles 1:1-17.

The book of First Chronicles begins with a genealogical record that runs for nine chapters! NINE CHAPTERS. Why? Because Israel had been captured and the people were going into captivity in Babylon for what Jeremiah prophesied would be seventy years. When their unborn descendants returned to Israel, they would need a detailed record to prove which of them were Israelites, to which tribe they belonged, and whether they were qualified to serve as priests.

But why does the Bible pass such records down to us? What can these long, boring lists of difficult-to-read names teach us today? Here are seven lessons from genealogies; the first six I have discussed previously:

  1. Biblical genealogies prove that character traits can be passed down: they run in families.
  2. Genealogies indicate that in God’s eyes, the birth of a child is the birth of a lineage—not just a single person.
  3. Genealogies prove no man is an island. We are connected.
  4. Genealogies prove God loves “the little people.”
  5. Biblical genealogies defeat racism, proving that we are all the human race.
  6. Genealogies indicate that God values family trees and our ancestral heritage more than we do. (It means something or it would not be in the Bible!)
  7. Finally, memorizing Biblical genealogies provides a mental framework on which to hang additional information.

The children growing up in Biblical Israel would have memorized parts of these genealogies the way the song of the U.S. presidents was memorized by my son and his first-grade friends. Such memorized lists then become a frame from which to hang future information.

Without that mental structure, facts just float around in your head never connecting to other facts in a meaningful way. For example, you must know something of the map of Israel if you are going to understand the Bible. You have to know the difference between the relatively small Sea of Galilee (a freshwater lake) and the Mediterranean Sea—which is basically the ocean. You should know that the Jordan is a small river bisecting the nation from north to south, and that Bethlehem is a small village just a short walk from Jerusalem. Similarly, you need some sense of history and the timeline. The genealogies provide that. They provide landmarks to help you chart the history of the nation.

Dear God, help us to do a better job studying the Bible. Show us how to study the broad strokes: genealogies, the order of the kings and which kings were heroes and which were evil, the Divided Kingdom and the captivity and occupation periods. And God, give us an interest in studying the maps of the Holy land. Thank you for the amazing resources available to us today. May we use them in a way that honors You through our hard work.

AΩ.

City Planning. Nehemiah 11:1-2.

Image: New York City by Jan Christopher Becke.

An article I read begins with a great question:

“What do Ron Paul, Nancy Pelosi, and President Donald Trump have in common? They have all promised to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington politics.”[1]

As the article goes on to point out, there never was a swamp on the Potomac–in spite of the persistence of the myth. What there was, was a grand city built out of nothing from the ground up. Today it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But my guess is no one was in a hurry to live there in the earliest days.

As a young college student, I once stumbled onto a set of books on city planning. My thought was Oh, ‘city planning’? That’s a thing?’ As an English major, I was aware of subjects like engineering and business, but who knew colleges were offering degrees in city planning? I started imagining the problems faced by city planners: how do you provide power, water, and essential services? What about sewers, flood control, and wildlife? How do you divide land between homes, businesses, and government?

I’ve since run across some real-life city planning problems:

How was Galveston to respond to the hurricane that wiped the city off the map in 1903? (The city built a concrete seawall and bounced back, though its port was moved to the safer waters of Houston.)

What was Detroit to do when factories closed down and workers moved away leaving miles of urban housing empty? Old neighborhoods became ghost towns, leaving the people in the suburbs to travel through miles of empty areas to reach their jobs in the city. (The city razed the empty houses, converting the land to parks and gardens.)

New York found itself filled with disease-ridden, crime-infested tenement housing which often saw ten or twelve families living in apartments designed for single families.[2] The city fought for the poor by passing laws requiring more fire escapes, more working outhouses/toilets, more space-per-person, more ventilation, more windows, periodic inspections, and in the end, a “Multiple Dwelling Law” that led to many tenements being torn down.

Finally, there is the fact that Houston (like so many of the world’s great cities) is sinking due to subsidence. My day job is part of the solution, a project to convert the city from over-use of groundwater to greater reliance on river water.

As I have noted often, the Bible is an intensely practical book.

(Unlike most religious texts, the Bible is not always poetry, and it is not always ‘spiritual.’ It is often quite practical.)

The Bible addresses many city planning topics.

For example, wild animals were once a serious consideration for city planners. God tells Israel He will drive the idol worshippers out of the Promised Land—but not all at once, because “the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you” Exodus 23:29.

Another practical text is Leviticus 14:33-53, in which God tells the people how to handle mold if they find it in their houses.

Sewage is addressed as God tells the people to relieve themselves outside of camp and use a shovel to bury it, Deuteronomy 23:12-14. Septic systems still work that way today.

Finally, in 2 Chronicles 32:30, King Hezekiah secured water for the city of Jerusalem by designing a 500-meter tunnel to springs outside the city. An army that might lay siege against the city would never know they had a water source behind the wall. To this day, engineers marvel at Hezekiah’s Tunnel.[3]

When the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity, they faced numerous city-planning problems.

They had to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. They had to rebuild the temple. And they had to rebuild the city—its houses and its culture. There was no life in Jerusalem because there were so few people there.

“Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. The rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of every ten of them to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the remaining nine were to stay in their own towns. And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered to dwell in Jerusalem” Nehemiah 11:1-2.

Jerusalem is in the news every single day. It is the most hotly contested real estate on earth: everyone wants to own Jerusalem. It is not only the holy land for three of the world’s largest religions, but it is a beautiful, historic city.

But no one wanted to be bothered with Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity. Too many headaches. Much like the early days of the District of Columbia, only the leaders wanted to be in the capitol city. Creating Washington or reviving Jerusalem was going to be a lot of work. Would you be up for it? Notice who was.

“The leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem” v.1.  Being a leader means doing hard things. The early days of a new project are hard, but that’s what leaders signed up for.

‘The people blessed those who willingly offered” v.2. I think the next best thing to a leader is a VOLUNTEER. And you know who appreciates volunteers? Those who did not volunteer. But so do the leaders. Leaders value volunteers. And–

If you hope to be a leader, volunteering is one way to get there.

“The rest of the people cast lots” v.1. This third group was drafted. They may not be appreciated the way volunteers are, but they will pitch in, do the work, and reap a deserved reward. Service is appreciated, whether you volunteered or not. We appreciate your service for the kingdom.

Dear God,

We are available. Show us when to step up. Show us when to volunteer. Use us as leaders and servants. May we serve You willingly, work hard, and treat people with kindness and compassion. Thank you for the practical words of the Bible. May we exercise wisdom as we study it and follow it.

AΩ.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/draining-swamp-guide-outsiders-and-career-politicians-180962448/

[2] I was reading yesterday about one tenement found with a wet cellar full of pigs, complete with a heavy load of unventilated manure. More commonly, landlords placed newly arrived immigrant families in the cellars or the tiny attics several flights up. Several of these tenements were found to contain nearly 100 children in only four apartments. In such close quarters, it is understandable that recurring epidemics spread like wildfire, wiping out large numbers living in poverty. HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, by Jacob Riis (1890).

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel

What if You Have No Family Tree? Nehemiah 7:61-65.

Alex Haley’s book ROOTS includes a scene in which an African tribal leader expresses shock over any child unable to recite from memory his genealogy to the tenth generation. I have never met anyone in America that can recite from memory ten generations of their genealogy. I can’t do it. In fact, my written record of my father’s line stops at generation six (Larkin Wales, born 1808, Kentucky, died 1884, St. Helena Parish, Louisiana).[1] I guess I would be the dunce if I went to school in a village in Gambia, Africa.

The Bible contains 25 lengthy genealogies, and many more brief genealogies. As I have written elsewhere, God is interested in you as an individual. But the pages and pages dedicated to genealogies in His word would seem to indicate that He is also interested in you as a member of a lineage. He sees those who came before you and those who will come after you and God understands the role you play in that unbroken line.[2]

But understanding such things or why they matter is harder for us. Not simply because  we lose track of records.

Our identity as Americans rebels at what a family tree represents.

Sure we are curious about these people. But we are offended by the notion that their lives could have any impact on our own. America is the land of independence and nowhere is that impulse felt more passionately than by youth struggling to escape the “boring” lives of their parents.

Governor Nehemiah records an interesting story about family trees. After the Israelites returned to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity, Nehemiah had them counted. There were 42,360 people. Nehemiah put the people to work, often giving them duties according to their family lines.

But during those 75 years in a foreign country, some families (or probably both the families and the nation’s historians) had lost the relevant genealogical records. After all—when you are dragged off to a land a thousand miles from home, where no one speaks your language or worships your God, you will lose many things. Your connection to the past is broken. You have NO CONTINUITY.

These Hebrews lost touch with ancestors because they had NO CONTINUITY.

“These were they who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer; but they could not show their fathers’ houses or their descendants, whether they were of Israel: the sons of Delaiah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nekoda … Of the priests: the sons of Hobaiah, the sons of Hakkoz, the sons of Barzillai … These searched among  their ancestral registration, but it could not be located; therefore they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood. The governor said to them that they should not eat from the most holy things until a priest arose with Urim and Thummim” Nehemiah 7:61-65.[3]

God had given Moses strict orders regarding the priesthood. Priests had to be members of the tribe of Levi. And to perform select priestly duties, they had to be not only Levites, but directly descended from Aaron.

But these folks could not even prove they were Israelites. Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the priest were not about to resume the offering of sacrifices without verifying the ancestral lines of every priest.

Nevertheless, those without papers were not without hope. Nehemiah would summon a priest to bring the Urim and Thummim, the “holy dice” Moses placed inside the breastplate of the High Priest’s robes (Exodus 28:30), and the priest would ask God for answers about the lineage of each potential priest.

But does knowing a genealogy or a family tree make any difference? Does God expect you and me to be able to recite our family trees?

No. Given the mobility and immigration in today’s world, given the job transfers around the globe, adoptions, the forced breakup of families during generations of enslavement, and numerous other disruptions, it is rare to find families who live in the same city for more than three or four generations. We barely know our ancestors.

Like the Hebrews without family trees, Americans have NO CONTINUITY.

Any family tree an American draws up is likely to look about as broken as Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree.[4]

But even if you are privileged enough to know your grandparents or even great-grandparents, Americans simply don’t talk about family trees. It’s not part of the way we think. Where the billions of people living in Asian nations care about these things so much they actually call it “ancestor worship,” Americans and the people of Western Europe see themselves as islands in an archipelago, every person disconnected from every other person.

The poet-pastor John Donne may have told us “No Man is an Island,” but Americans do not believe it. We are obsessed with our own independence, committed above all else to a life of passionate self-determination.

And perhaps that is the lesson here. Not everyone knows their ancestors. We have no continuity. We live in broken homes. Foster homes. Adoptions. Absent fathers. Divorces. Blended families. Job transfers. And people on the run. People off the grid. Fugitives.

And for all of the above, there is grace. GRACE. Lean-in to God’s amazing grace.

But later on …

When you can, and as the Lord provides, …

Consider learning more about your lineage. It will bless you, as it did Timothy, to whom Paul writes:

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” 2 Timothy 1:5.

Like abilities and talents, even faith and spiritual gifts can be passed from one generation to the next.

Search for the good traits in your ancestors and God will use that search to reveal the good traits He placed in you.

AΩ.

[1] I can locate (but have not memorized!) ten generations of the Henderson clan, beginning with Thomas Henderson, Father of Colonel Richard Henderson. Thomas was born in 1650 and died in 1709 in the Colony of Virginia. Today I stumbled across an unexpected entry in the Courtenay line at generation ten: “Cherokee Indian Usaan,” DOB 1700.

[2] (The Bible, an Eastern text, is not nearly as individualistic, independence-oriented, or Western as many of its readers.)

[3] Ezra 2:59-62 records the same account word-for-word.

[4] Having mentioned my own family tree, I should note that I benefited from a tremendous amount of work done by many other people, including people on the internet that I do not know.

MONEY! Finance, Bankruptcy Protection, and the Economy. Nehemiah 5:1-11.

THESIS: Nations hoping to bless people and grow the economy should draft laws that (1) help small businesses thrive, create jobs, and earn a profit for shareholders, (2) protect the nation from war and protect its citizens from crime, (3) use courts to protect the sanctity of contract and resolve conflicts between people and businesses, and that (4) provide some features of a safety net for the downtrodden.

You see it in the newspaper headlines. Every day people protest that the rich are not paying their fair share, that the “wealth gap” between the rich and poor is widening, that taxes are too high for the middle class and too low for the rich, that the capitalist system is corrupt and unfair. While these complaints are not entirely false, they often indicate a poor understanding of economics.

One of history’s great economic experiments took place when Canada and the United States were settled largely by the English, and Mexico and the nations of Central and South America were settled by the Spanish and the Portuguese. “Impose British rule on North America, and Spanish and Portuguese rule on South America, and see which one does better economically.”[1] Who would win the proverbial race to riches? “The early British colonies faced continual risk of starvation, while the Spanish to the south were planting tropical gardens and mining mountains of silver.”[2]

Yet, it is hardly controversial to state that the heirs of the British economy won the economic experiment. Why? A big part of the answer lies in the nature of Anglo-American law.

A nation’s economy is shaped less by its natural resources than it is by the environment the nation’s laws create around those resources.

“The north had [private] property rights, representative government, religious pluralism, and the rule of law. The south had none of these things.”[3]

As an example of the impact of the law on the economy, consider lending laws. Those who have money can increase it by lending to those in need and charging interest. If the borrower does not repay both the principal and the interest, the creditor may take from the borrower the agreed collateral, often the borrower’s house, farm, or the tools of his trade. And until it was outlawed in 1833, another option in the U.S. was to lock the borrower in a debtor’s prison and leave him there until the debt was paid. Individual lenders may have profited from such arrangements, but they were bad for society because they removed able-bodied workers from their families and from the economy.

The man who could be providing for his family and adding to the wealth of the nation through his labor was doing nothing, his energy and talents wasted in a prison cell. To cure this societal ill, we used the law to create bankruptcy protection, a system that allows most creditors to be paid a portion of what they are owed, while the defaulting borrower retains enough assets that he can enjoy what the law calls a “fresh start.” Legal arrangements such as this are one of the reasons our economy continues to thrive.[4]

When the King of Persia appointed Nehemiah the governor of Israel during a famine, the people came to Nehemiah in protest with complaints that sound a lot like today’s headlines:

“Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews. Some were saying, ‘We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.’ Others were saying, ‘We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain during the famine.’ Still others were saying, ‘We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others’” Nehemiah 5:1-5.

Nehemiah learns wealthy Jews have been lending to poorer Jews. And when the borrowers missed payments, lenders foreclosed, leading to circumstances so dire, borrowers sometimes sold their own children into slavery just hoping for enough money to be able to eat and keep everyone alive.

Such predatory lending practices are bad for the nation. But they also show a deep disregard for people and families. Where was the compassion?

Charging interest on a loan is not wrong. A man expects to pay for the privilege of borrowing another man’s money.

But unreasonably high interest or usury is wrong. And when lending to a countryman in need, even interest is not to be charged.

“If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest” Exodus 22:25.

Governor Nehemiah is outraged to see Hebrews taking advantage of each other during a famine.

“I was very angry … I told them, ‘You exact usury! … You are selling your own people … What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of God? … I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging them interest! Give them back immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses, and also the interest you are charging them” Nehemiah 5:6-11.

I disagree with some of the most conservative financial advisors. Borrowing money is not wrong in every situation. As my father once told me, “if we didn’t borrow money, you would have been grown before we could have gotten into this house. And if the church did not borrow money, we would have been stuck downtown for twenty years in a crumbling building.”

Borrowing has its place.

But lending laws should help people prosper, buy a modest home, and flourish. Lending laws should not result in defaulted loans, foreclosures, and people and businesses going bankrupt because of usurious interest rates. Remember the economic collapse of 2008? That happened because lending laws had been pushed to a point where borrowers were defaulting on far more loans than normal.

Although foreclosures and the Re-Po Man are a part of a working credit/collateral system, the best loans—and the best laws—are designed to allow both parties to gain. Both parties should benefit from the transaction.

That is what real compassion looks like. That is what Nehemiah wanted: we must have a system of finance. But we must also take care of our citizens and their businesses. High interest loans (in a system without bankruptcy protection)* are dangerous and hurt the society because they hurt so many of its borrowers. Loans that result in financial ruin should be extremely rare.

When a nation takes care of its poorest citizens, God will bless that nation.

“He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack” Proverbs 28:27.

God promises blessings on the nation that obeys Him:

“The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heavens to give the rain unto thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thine hand. And thou shalt lend to many nations, and thou shalt not borrow” Deuteronomy 28:12.

“There should be no poor among you [if you obey], for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to inherit” Deuteronomy 15:4.

AΩ.

[1] See Andrew Wilson’s discussion of Adam Smith’s THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, in Wilson’s book, REMAKING THE WORLD: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] The economy also benefits from a strong national defense (fear of invasion has a chilling effect on business!), the enforcement of contracts in court, the prosecution of financial crimes including fraud, burglary, and robbery, laws that encourage small businesses, laws protecting inventions and other intellectual property, a tax regime that does not overly-burden businesses or their employees, and so on. Do I over-state the case? I guess I’m enthusiastic, having taught college students the “Legal Environment of Business” for years!

*Some argue high-interest loans have their place, because they allow those who are the worst credit risk to nevertheless borrow money. Pawn shop loans (200% APR), car title loans (300% APR), and payday loans (400% APR) do charge excessive interest but are allowed because the total amount loaned is small, the collateral lost in the event of default is not that significant, and the repayment term is short enough it should not become a burden, and again–it allows a person in need to get their hands on cash during desperate times.