In You All the Families of the Earth Shall Be Blessed

Daily Scripture

Genesis 12:1-3

1 The Lord said to Abram, "Exit your land, your family unit, and your begetter's household for the land that I volition show you. two I will make of you lot a cracking nation and will bless y'all. I will make your name respected, and you will be a approval.

three I volition bless those who anoint yous,
those who curse you I will curse;
all the families of the earth
will be blessed because of you."

Jeremiah 29:one-7

1 The prophet Jeremiah sent a alphabetic character from Jerusalem to the few surviving elders among the exiles, to the priests and the prophets, and to all the people Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon from Jerusalem. ii The letter was sent later Male monarch Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the authorities leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen and smiths had left Jerusalem. three It was delivered to Babylon by Elasah, Shaphan's son, and Gemariah, Hilkiah'south son—two men dispatched to Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar by Male monarch Zedekiah.

4 The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: five Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. six Become married and have children; then help your sons observe wives and your daughters discover husbands in social club that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that yous don't dwindle abroad. 7 Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.

Reflection Questions

God made peachy promises to Abraham, including "a land I volition show yous" and "I will bless you." Such promises tempt human nature to call back, "God likes me more than anyone else!" Merely God blessed Abraham so that he and his descendants would share the blessing: "All the families of earth volition be blessed considering of yous." And after Babylon'due south brutal capture of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah urged the Israelite exiles to pray for the prosperity and peace—of Babylon! Even as defeated exiles, he urged them to honey their neighbors.

• Only before Abraham's story, Genesis xi:1-ix told the story of the Tower of Babel. Scholar Theodore Hiebert wrote, "The text itself emphasizes the human wish to preserve one common culture (11:ane-4). This wish comes into conflict with God's aim to create a new globe with different cultures (11:v-9)."* Too frequently people see difference as a threat, something to hate and resist. What (if annihilation) has helped you learn to value the diverse human family God created?
• Jeremiah was calling Israel'due south exiles to be both smart and generous. "People aren't being urged to seek the welfare of their own city but to commit themselves to a urban center where they don't belong and that they think they'll soon exit. They're to seek the welfare of the city where they're forced to live because their own welfare is tied up with that urban center."** How does the prophet's message point to why information technology'due south important for you and your church building family to better honey your neighbors?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, you wanted Abraham to care about blessing "all the families of earth." Constitute that kind of heart in me, as well, equally one of Abraham's spiritual descendants. Amen.

---

* Theodore Hiebert, study note on Genesis 11:1-9 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 20OT. Explored in depth in his book The Beginning of Difference: Discovering Identity in God's Various Earth. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2019.

** John Goldingay, Jeremiah for Everyone. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, p. 145.

GPS Guide

Whether you're merely starting to explore the Christian faith, or you're a long-time Christian, we want to exercise everything we tin can to help y'all on your journey to know, love and serve God. The GPS (Grow, Pray, Report) Guide provides Scripture and insights to enhance your journey. If you accept a question or comment nigh the GPS Guide, delight send it to GPS@cor.org.

Randy Greene

Randy Greene is a part of the Resurrection Experience squad at the church and helps shape all of our online tools for connection. He is also a graduate of Primal Seminary in Shawnee and loves to write stories about faithfulness.

It's really really like shooting fish in a barrel for me to dear my neighbors in the abstract – to care about people who wait dissimilar than me, and grew upward different than me, and have dissimilar religions or life experiences than me.

What'due south hard for me is to dear the people who, in my head, ought to believe the aforementioned as me just don't. After all, the people who look like me and were raised similar me and who claim the same faith equally me ought to be at the same identify equally me in their journey, right? Shouldn't they see things the same way I exercise and care about the same things I practise and alive their lives the same way I practice?

For a little context, I was raised in a devout Christian home. My granddaddy was a long-time Southern Baptist preacher (that's what we called pastors), and my mom probably should've been one, too, except that Southern Baptists don't support women in ministry. I attended evangelical Christian schools from Kindergarten all the way through high school, and I'd read the Bible straight through, forepart to back, by the time I turned 12.

Nowadays, it is really difficult for me to embody honey toward those who claim the same deep Christian religion I exercise just cull to live it out differently. We use the same sacred text equally the guide for our lives, but come up to drastically different conclusions most what that text ways for us.

Over the past decade, information technology has go increasingly painful for me to see the growing divide between how I see my religion and how my family and some of my oldest friends see their religion. It'due south hard – peradventure impossible – for me to experience dear toward a person when I believe they are the cause of my pain.

Nonetheless somehow that'south what God calls me to practise anyways. God doesn't inquire me to ignore our differences, or to overlook the injustices they embody to which they are blind – just every bit God doesn't inquire them to overlook the injustices I embody to which I am blind. And it's true that I am probable bullheaded to something as as egregious every bit they are. In twenty years, I will probably await dorsum on my life today and wonder how I could take maybe supported some of the platforms I enthusiastically cheer for today.

Merely throughout those impossible conversations, I am learning to lead with grace. Each individual is, to some extent, a product of their own circumstances. We are shaped past our unique experiences of the world, from the moment we are conceived until our final breaths.

This is not to excuse the problems, just to recognize that nosotros are all people and, as incorrect as we and so ofttimes are, nosotros all all the same carry the image of God.

etheridgediespithe.blogspot.com

Source: https://cor.org/leawood/gps-guide/blessing-all-the-families-of-the-earth

Share this post