Deceiving the Deceiver

Because the Bible was such a strong guiding influence on America’s Founding Fathers, elements of Judeo-Christian Scripture have long been woven into the fabric of American culture. A particular good point about this is that many Americans, including many who are neither Jew nor Christian, are familiar with concepts, quotes and even more or less whole stories from the Bible.

Biblical elements are so deeply engrained in our culture that they have become infused into our pop culture. A particular bad point about this is that many Americans – in particular very many Christians – have incomplete or inaccurate ideas about what these various elements actually mean. As these stories and ideas have been passed down over the generations, errors have crept in and built up, to the point that the modern take on these things can be wildly different from their truth and intent.

(I briefly address this, the “whisper down the lane” effect, in my study on the Christmas story.)

Case in point: the story of Jacob and Esau, and the blessing from their father Isaac. This story is generally seen this way:

Isaac, now old, poor of eyesight and supposing he hasn’t much longer to live, calls for his son Esau, the firstborn fraternal twin. He asks the young man to hunt some game and then prepare it in a savory meal, after which he, Isaac, will give Esau his blessing. Unbeknownst to either, Isaac’s wife Rebekah is listening outside. After making a separate savory meal, she has Jacob, the second fraternal twin, dress up in Esau’s clothes (along with goatskins on his hands and neck, as Esau is particularly hairy), and has him take the meal to Isaac, pretending to be his brother. Isaac is at first unsure, because he hears Jacob’s voice; yet he feels he young man’s hands, and smells his clothes, and is convinced he is Esau. Thus, he places a rich blessing upon Jacob. After Jacob leaves, Esau arrives with the requested savory meal for Isaac. Together he and Isaac discover Jacob’s deception. Esau swears to kill his brother, so Rebekah tells Jacob to go hide out with her brother Laban (his uncle) for a while.

Now, if you read Genesis chapter 27, which contains almost the whole story of this deception, you’ll likely come away with the same view as I summarized above. (By the way, I’m not wagging fingers; I’ve been reading it this same way myself for decades.) However, a Bible Study classmate of mine, who has (as I pointed out in an earlier article) a unique perception of how information is presented in Scripture, has highlighted the logical relationships among various elements of this story which led us to an interpretation almost fully the opposite: that the real deception was actually by the parents, Isaac and Rebekah, upon their two sons.

To see how my friend arrived at this conclusion, we first have to consider something Christians are rarely reminded of, much less motivated to investigate: The original writings of the Bible were not divided into chapters and verses.

For centuries, Christians have been reading Scripture which has been broken up this way. It’s obviously very convenient for study. It’s helpful to be able to isolate, as it were, particular stories such as this one about Jacob and Esau. And many sayings are readily known by their chapter and verse, such as John 3:16 or the first line of the 23rd Psalm.

However, with careful study of Scripture (and perhaps a little guidance), one can discover that a particular story flows quite differently from its more-familiar understanding.

Note that I said that Genesis chapter 27 contains almost the whole story of Jacob’s deception. I phrased it that way intentionally, because it turns out that important portions of the story can be found beyond the forty-six verses of chapter 27.

Let’s take a look at Genesis chapter 26. The overwhelming majority of its thirty-five verses concern two closely-related stories: Isaac’s deception, towards King Abimelech, regarding his wife Rebekah; and the conflict between his and Abimelech’s servants.

But notice what the last two verses of this chapter say:

And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

These lines about Esau’s wives seem quite out of context to the preceding verses. But let’s now re-read this last verse of chapter 27:

And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

Thus, if we dismiss the traditional notion of the beginning and end of this story, we can see that it is essentially bookended by Isaac and Rebekah’s concern about Esau’s pagan wives.

We can logically extend this story out further. Starting with verse one of chapter 28, we see through verse five Isaac admonishing Jacob not to take a wife from among the local Canaanite women, and Jacob obeying this. In verses six through nine, we have Esau, already stung by the loss of the blessing to Jacob, going to his half-uncle Ishmael for yet another wife. From verse ten to the end of chapter, the narrative changes to Jacob’s travel to Haran, with the initial portion being that of his having the dream now commonly referred to as “Jacob’s Ladder”. So, we can say that the full story of Jacob’s deception actually runs from verse thirty-four of chapter 26 to verse nine of chapter 28.

It is at this point I can begin laying out the case for the “reverse deception” offered by my classmate. Note that the story, running from Genesis 26:34 to 28:9, mentions issues with Esau’s wives three times. Why is this significant? Let’s go back to chapter 24. In this chapter Abraham charges his main servant with finding a wife for Isaac. Specifically, he forbids the servant from taking a wife from among the pagan Canaanite women, directing him rather to travel to Abraham’s homeland to find a wife from among his kinfolk. In my earlier article, my friend points out that Esau and Jacob knew their grandfather for their first fifteen years. It is therefore completely reasonable to posit that Abraham would have imparted this same concern about wives to Isaac in regard to the twins.

Let’s now jump into chapter 25. In verses 19 through 26, we have interesting details regarding the twins: they are struggling within Rebekah’s womb; she asks the Lord about this, and He tells her the prophecy of the two nations.

I will once again address the idea of the Bible saying something when it doesn’t say something. First, the text clearly states that Rebekah spoke to God regarding her struggling twins. That is, Abraham did not speak to God on her behalf, per the text. However, my classmate suggests that she did go “through” Abraham, for this reason: As Abraham was the one to whom God first spoke the glorious promises, he was God’s man. Not merely grandfather to the twins, more than family patriarch, Abraham effectively had the role of his family’s high priest. Thus, he would’ve interceded on Rebekah’s behalf. While I don’t know that this can be conclusively shown outside of a deep study of the original Hebrew text and of Hebrew culture of that time, I personally do consider it reasonable. Many persons in the Bible are models of Jesus, our High Priest; and Jesus Himself says that Scripture points to Him.

Second, the Bible does not say that Rebekah told Isaac of the prophecy of the two nations. Yet again, nor is stated that Abraham gave Isaac the same admonition regarding wives as he had earlier given to his servant. But just a few paragraphs back I point out that Isaac gives the same admonition to Jacob, thus implying (or at least allowing the inference) that Abraham did so caution his son. And since Rebekah is exactly the kind of godly woman Abraham wanted in the family, we can safely presume that she did not hide the “two nations” prophecy from her husband. Thus we can equally safely infer that both parents not only knew of this prophecy early in the twins’ life, but also had it in mind at the start of the “deception” in chapter 27.

Here, things get perhaps a bit humorous (if not also somewhat unfortunate, or at least unnecessary). God, being both all-knowledgeable and all-powerful, can bring about any desired result as He sees fit, in whatever way at whatever time. Yet so often – both in Scripture and in our own lives – we see man interfering to “help the miracle along”. An obvious example of this is God telling Sarah, well beyond child-bearing age, that she will give birth within the year, and Sarah then instructing Abraham to impregnate her servant Hagar, which resulted in the birth of Ishmael, which resulted in a great deal of completely avoidable trouble. And then of course, God brings about the promised miraculous birth of Isaac anyway.

So, could God have brought about the “two nations” prophecy without any help – or interference – from Isaac and Rebekah? Of course He could have. And in a way He did so later, through the “crossed” blessings of Manasseh and Ephraim. But according to my classmate, Isaac and Rebekah did interfere – with the best intentions of course – by plotting to get Esau out of the camp for a while so Jacob could then be brought in to be given the blessing which should have gone to Esau.

My classmate’s theory is thus (paraphrased, of course): Prior to the deception, Esau had already married two pagan wives against Abraham’s admonition, showing that he did not value either the family bloodline or his grandfather’s instructions. Moreover, he was a hunter, spending much of his time out in the field; in contrast Jacob “dwelt in tents”, that is, around the family and in particular around his grandfather Abraham who, again, is God’s man and the family’s de facto high priest. So we have the illustration of one young man exposed to the things of God, and the other pursuing his pastime of hunting. Additionally, Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob, quite readily dismissing its value. But Jacob, being raised among family activities, understood not only the blessing that comes along with the birthright but the responsibilities as well.

Isaac and Rebekah see Jacob as capable of maturing into a good family man, whereas Esau seems only interested in hunting and in collecting pagan wives. So they concoct this deception so that Isaac may safely place his blessing upon Jacob: Isaac sends Esau out to hunt game (as a diversion), with the promise of the family blessing upon his return. Rebekah is stationed outside the tent to specifically “overhear” this promise. She then calls in Jacob, tells him what she “overheard”, and instructs him to bring her two kids from their goat flock so she may prepare a meal for him to take to his father. When he protests that Esau is much hairier than he (Isaac was advanced in years, and perhaps his eyesight was in fact failing him, so Jacob was concerned about being discovered by Isaac’s touch), she presses him to obey her. After preparing a meal from the kids he brings, she dresses him in some of Esau’s clothes, and wraps skins from the kids on his hands and neck. When Jacob approaches Isaac with the food, Isaac plays the “doddering old man” and pretends (despite clearly recognizing Jacob’s voice) to be fooled by Jacob’s disguise. He then dispenses a rich blessing upon the younger twin.

(Let me interject here that it’s not unreasonable that Rebekah’s use of the goatskins was not necessarily a “spur of the moment” idea but rather something she and Isaac had planned for, specifically to ensure their ruse.)

Shortly after Jacob leaves his father’s presence, Esau returns with fresh kill, prepares a meal for Isaac and brings it to him. Now Isaac commences “phase two” of the deception: When Esau enters Isaac’s tent with the meal and asks for his father’s blessing, Isaac feigns surprise and asks him, “Who are you?” When Esau identifies himself, Isaac continues his “doddering old man” act by trembl[ing] very exceedingly and telling him that someone had already brought him a meal and received the blessing. Thus together they “discover” Jacob’s deception.

So we see that Isaac and Rebekah, both aware of the “two nations” prophecy, and determining Jacob to be the more deserving son, conspire to “help the miracle along” by concocting this deception which would play on Jacob’s own name, which translates as “deceiver” or “supplanter”. My classmate postulates also that the parents had this additional motive for their deception: fear of violence by Esau. He suggests that the parents were concerned, had they simply directly chosen Jacob over Esau, or had Isaac not continued his “confused old man” act upon Esau’s return with the meal, that Esau would do harm to them and perhaps to other members of the family as well. Indeed, Esau does threaten to kill Jacob in verse 41. Further, in chapter 32 we learn that Esau has gathered an army of four hundred men to go after Jacob.

Sadly, and ironically, all this was completely avoidable. When a prophecy is given in Scripture, whether by God Himself or through a prophet, it is accompanied by the implicit guarantee, This will happen. Thus, when God gave Rebekah the “two nations” prophecy, He was telling her of a future event which would occur without need of any human intervention. Of course, being omniscient, God knew that the parents would interfere, and included that in His overall plan for Jacob. Let’s quickly look at what happens to Jacob in chapter 32, verses 24-30.

This is the well-known story in which Jacob encounters the Man who wrestles with him. Many (including me) consider this Man to be Jesus in a Christophany. As day breaks, the Man attempts to leave Jacob, who holds Him back and asks Him to bless him. After asking his name, the Man changes his name from Jacob to Israel, and then blesses him. Jacob is now Israel; all his descendants will be known as the nation of Israel, thus fulfilling a portion of the prophecy.

This happened after Isaac and Rebekah intervened, and after Jacob was on the run from Esau. But consider that God simply walked into Abraham’s camp and, after enjoying a courteous meal, told Abraham that Sarah would bear a son within the year. This suggests that God (or Jesus) could similarly have walked into Jacob’s life at any time and given him his new name and blessing, without any intervention by his parents.

The point is this: Both Isaac’s birth and Jacob’s new life-direction occur despite the parents’ intervention, not because of it. Thus it occurs to me that had Isaac followed tradition and given Esau the blessing of the firstborn, this in no way would have impeded God’s will for Jacob to become the progenitor of the nation of Israel. Additionally, considering that Esau had already sold his birthright to Jacob, it’s possible that Jesus could’ve chosen to appear just as Isaac was bestowing the blessing upon Esau, to ensure that it would happen according to God’s will.

In any Bible story there are several lessons to be learned. There are two lessons here that I wish to draw out, the first being what I’ve already mentioned: the implicit guarantee, This will happen. That is, God will see to it that all things work out according to His will. I’ve said to friends – and this is an oversimplification, but I think it holds up logically – that God interacts with mankind in one of three ways: 1) He causes an event to happen; 2) He prevents an event from happening; 3) He allows an event orchestrated by human planning to play out up to the point where He chooses to show His hand.

God caused the birth of Isaac, completely separately from the birth of Ishmael. He prevented Abimelech from touching Sarah and thus spoiling the bloodline. And He allowed Isaac and Rebekah’s deception – with all its subsequent results – to play out, waiting until the moment when Jacob was without his wives and children, pursued by his brother, alone and defenseless at the Jabbok. (That’s a third lesson here: getting to the point in one’s relationship with God of no longer relying on one’s own strengths. But that’s for a later article.)

The second lesson I want to highlight is closely related to that of God seeing to it that all things work out according to His will: that of people taking God at His word, and to that end God not only keeping His promises, but also helping us see and experience Him keeping His promises.

The God of Israel delights in practicing lovingkindness towards His children. I particularly like how the New Living Translation puts it, that He “demonstrates unfailing love” towards us. God understands each of us individually, and knows what will bring each of us, individually, closer to Him. Some of us find it (relatively) easy to trust God. But some of us struggle in this. So God tailor-crafts each specific life-experience for each of us, individually, to bring us to that position of trust.

As a certain “TV preacher” points out, in the Old Testament, before Jesus, God commands man, “Thou shall not, thou shall not, thou shall not”; while in the New Testament, after Jesus, God promises man, “I will, I will, I will”. That’s where each of us needs to get to, the place of simply taking God’s “I will” promises at face value.

I like to use the analogy of turning on a light. One does not “believe” the light into working; one simply hits the switch and the light comes on. If it seems that I’m talking about expecting a result from God almost as “automatically” as one expects a light to come on, that is essentially correct. For me, this is approaching real faith: expecting, in an almost literally automatic sense, God to come through on a promise. Because as with His prophecies, God’s promises have His implicit guarantee: This will happen.

God’s demand upon man is absolute perfection in meeting each and every one of His conditions; something not one of us could ever do. Jesus did that for us. And since He has met all of God’s conditions, God’s promises to us are now literally unconditional. So relax, and let His Holy Spirit get you to the place where accepting the promises is more than second nature to you: I am always with you. I will never leave you. I will always take care of you. I will always provide for you. I will always love you. Because you and I are on the same team.

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© 2020 Zero Faith Saint

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Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Good Teaching

Picture a high school graduate who has been accepted at a particular college. By the end of the first day, this young person is now a fully-registered student at this college. Let’s presume that this student takes his or her education seriously. Thus, the newly-registered student does not view college simply as a recurring social-gathering opportunity; nor does he attend merely to have existing ideas comfortably and reassuringly reaffirmed. Indeed, she goes there expecting to gain new, deeper knowledge which may very well challenge some of those ideas.

That’s as it should be. Entering into a higher level of education should mean going deeper into that education.

And that’s how it should be with one’s Christianity. Upon becoming saved, one should seek to go deeper into what it means to be a Christian and, more importantly, to learn what the Bible is really telling us.

Sadly, this is rarely the case, particularly in American churches. Far too many Christians see church – and use church – simply as a method for socializing. This is because many of them are not receiving actual teaching in church. And they don’t even realize they’re not receiving it. Going to church makes them feel good. They get to spend time with old friends; make new friends; have some coffee and snacks afterward … and get sermons from the pulpit which reaffirm often incorrect notions about Christianity, sermons which do nothing to prepare them for what’s ahead.

I have in several lessons in this blog stressed the importance of — and I will continue to stress the importance of — joining a teaching church and/or Bible-study group. When you get saved, you are instantly and permanently made right for entrance into Heaven. Should you “just happen” to drop dead mere seconds after accepting Jesus, your eternal spirit will be forever welcomed into the presence of God. However, since that is exceedingly unlikely to happen, you must then learn what to do next, after you’ve become saved. And that is to become a student of God. As a student, what you need now is the teaching.

Contrary to the popular belief — and practice — in the typical present-day American church, this does not mean learning to “become holy”, nor learning to become a “good person” or a “better person”. It means learning specifically about the things of God. Such things as how the seven Jewish feasts actually prophecy the life of Jesus; how to see patterns of events in the Old Testament painting a picture of Jesus’ ministry; how many things in the OT illustrate our present Age of Grace despite taking place during the Age of Law; and myriad other amazing things.

Here’s a great example. You’re probably reasonably familiar with the first two verses of Psalm 91:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Now, in English, even in the traditional King James translation, this is beautiful. It says (if I may oversimplify) that one who rests in God will be protected by Him. This is wonderful. But, if our modern churches were actually teaching, as they are supposed to be doing, you’d see there’s so much more to these lines.

For instance, do you know that there are four separate titles for God in these two lines? The typical American Christian can just breeze over the words without considering that fact. But look at them again: Most High; Almighty; LORD; and God. Most Christians think of these as interchangeable, like calling your department head “boss” or “chief”.

However, if American churches were teaching properly — which in this case means delving into the original Hebrew, to regain that which was “lost in translation” — the Christian would learn that these are actually four different names (not titles) of God, each one reflecting a specific aspect of His person and personality.

The first, “Most High”, is El-Elyon. This means “owner and possessor of all things”. God Himself tells us that He owns “the cattle upon a thousand hills.” In truth, God owns everything, by sheer virtue of His authority and power. All the land; all living things; all the natural resources; everything.

“Almighty” is El-Shaddai, which means “provider of all things”. The word shaddai can mean mountain; it can also mean breast. This illustrates the nurturing aspect of God, in the concept of a mother whose breasts are full of milk for her newborn child.

“LORD”, with all the letters capitalized (and this includes those versions which use “small capitals” for the last three letters) is YHVH, or Yehovah. This means “He who makes and keeps the promises of His covenant”. This is God’s covenant name, the one by which He guarantees to keep His promises. (I briefly touch upon this in my Hebrew language lesson.)

Finally, “God” is Elohim, which means “the all-powerful Creator”. This is the name used when referring to God’s power to create our richly complex physical universe, and all physical objects within it. It also applies to such miracles as that of the loaves and fishes. For us today, it particularly means that God creates the necessary circumstances and situations for each of us so that we can both follow the path He sets for us, and receive His guidance, blessings and our own personal miracles.

When you put these together as they are in the two verses, what you read is “God, who possesses all things, desires to provide all the things that you need. He promises to do this, and He has the power to keep that promise.” So, while the English translation is a wonderfully lyrical expression of God, the original Hebrew is a far deeper telling of the fact that God desires to take care of us.

And, there’s more to it. As I was writing this post, the Holy Spirit advised me that this also shows God’s grace toward us. How so? Well, consider that Psalms is a book in the Old Testament. As I alluded to a few paragraphs ago, the Old Testament tells us of the Age of Law, while the New Testament tells us of the Age of Grace. Yet if we were being taught properly in our churches, we would see many examples of grace in the OT.

Let’s look again at these first two lines of Psalm 91. They state that God will shelter the believer under His care, and protect him like a fortress. But, let’s consider for a moment what those lines do not say. I will admit right now that, generally, it’s a dangerous game to attempt to base an interpretation of any writing on what that writing does not say; nonetheless, I have learned over the years that there are several specific instances in the Bible from which an effective and accurate lesson can be drawn from what the Bible does not say. As I said, Psalm 91 comes to us from the Age of Law. But is any of this reflected in those lines? Does Psalm 91 state that the believer will receive God’s protection only if he burns incense and offers up prayers of repentance? Do they instruct the believer to first perform ceremonial bathing and to dress in prescribed robes? Do they require the believer to make a ritual sacrifice of a ceremonially clean animal?

No. None of those things are mentioned. In the Old Testament, in the Age of Law, we see the Ten Commandments and the six hundred thirteen ordinances of the Torah. We see constantly the stressing of animal sacrifices, temple worship and other ceremonial and ritualistic practices. Yet, what does Psalm 91 ask — if it can be said to be asking at all — of the believer to receive God’s care? Only that the believer rest in God’s presence, and trust Him for — that is, openly expect — the very care He offers.

That’s it. Among all the religious and societal regulations the Children of Israel lived under in the Old Testament, we see this brilliant example of God’s grace. No laboring to become holy; no trying to earn one’s way into Heaven by one’s attempts to attain righteousness. Just the simple invitation to rest in God’s presence and to expect His care and provision.

Jesus Himself even further simplified this when He told a crowd, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” In this particular case, I think the New Living Translation* has it best: “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one He has sent.”

This actually goes back to the covenant between God and Abram. As I indicated in my inaugural post, there were actually three persons involved in the making of that covenant: God, Abram and Jesus. God defined the requirements of the Law; Jesus fulfilled all these requirements; and Abram was the “sleeping partner” or, more commonly today, the “silent partner”, who received the benefits of that fulfillment without any action on his part. An investment website defines a silent partner as “…a background role that cedes control to the general partner[s] … requir[ing] the silent partner to have full confidence in the general partners’ ability…”.

The takeaway here is that God wants us not only to rest in His desire and ability to take care of us, but also to rest from our efforts to achieve righteousness and holiness. And the way God wants us to do that is to rest in Jesus’ finished work on the cross; to accept that Jesus has fulfilled the requirements of the law for us and, in so believing, to enjoy all the wonderful benefits of His promises.

Let me give you another example, one I learned literally just a few weeks ago. If you follow a Bible reading plan, or the weekly Torah portion, eventually you’ll read Genesis chapter 25. Shortly after the beginning of that chapter, it’s stated that Abraham dies at the age of 175 years. About two-thirds in, the birth of fraternal twins Esau and Jacob (to Isaac and Rebekah) is described. Thus, it’s very easy (I could say even natural) to read this as saying that Abraham died before his grandsons were born. (Yes, I’ve been reading it this way as well.)

However, in a recent Bible-study class, it was pointed out – by someone with much better understanding than I have of how the Bible presents information – that Abraham was actually alive for about the boys’ first fifteen years of life. Back in Genesis chapter 21, it’s stated in verse 5 that Isaac was born when Abraham was one hundred years old. In chapter 25, verse 26 tells us that Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to the twins.

Let’s do the math: One hundred (Abraham’s age) plus sixty (Isaac’s age) is one hundred sixty. This number, subtracted from one hundred seventy five (Abraham’s death), leaves fifteen:

175 – (100 + 60) = 15

Now, let’s visualize the math: Here’s a timeline of Abraham’s life, subtended by those of Isaac, Esau and Jacob:

Larger image: 1000 x 165

The main line is Abraham’s life of one hundred seventy five years. At age one hundred, Isaac is born. When Isaac is sixty, and Abraham one hundred sixty, Esau and Jacob are born. After this, Abraham lives on for another fifteen years. (The dashed lines are the ongoing Isaac and Esau/Jacob timelines.) Thus, Esau and Jacob have Abraham not only as grandfather but also as the guiding family patriarch for their first fifteen years.

Now, here’s the rub: The typical American Christian does not get this level of detail in the typical American church. In the preceding paragraphs I have shared with you just some of what I learned over the years of attending both a teaching church and a teaching Bible-study group. In contrast, in the typical American church what one gets is a set pattern with little if any actual spiritual message.

Perhaps at this point the following question has formed in your head: “Why haven’t I heard these? I’ve been going to church for years! Why have I not heard these things before??” Sadly, the straightforward answer is that most American churches just do not teach. This was foretold to us in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, that the time would come when people would prefer nice stories that don’t challenge their beliefs (or that reaffirm them), instead of receiving teaching which gets into the meat and bone of Scripture. That time is now; these are the Last Days, and I think three things are happening. One, there is growing apostasy; people are just turning away from religion. Two, some people are leaving Christianity for other religions. And three, some people who profess to be Christians are looking for – and finding – churches which comfort them and tell them they’ll be fine, and are not doing anything to prepare these people for the dark times ahead. (I suppose I could include in that third example those who really are Christians – those who have honestly accepted Jesus – but who for whatever reason are not motivated to seek genuine teaching.)

So perhaps now you have another question: “How can I get caught up? Even if I find a good teaching church, could I possibly get caught up on all this?” My answer is, don’t worry about it. Just seek God’s help in finding a teaching church or Bible-study group. Once you’re there, just take the lessons as they come. What you need is quality of instruction, not quantity. If God has something specific for you down the line, He’ll get you there. Perhaps He’ll have you start a ministry (and blogs such as this are considered a type of ministry); or maybe He’ll move you into missionary work. Or fund-raising. Or support, such as in an office position. But all that is for later, and He’ll equip you for it as you need it. Your only concerns now are getting good lessons, and developing comprehension of those lessons. The focus is not how much you’re being taught, but how well you’re being taught.

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© 2019 Zero Faith Saint

*Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.