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Introduction Good morning, and happy Easter. Easter is one of those days that comes with a lot of expectations. The room is fuller. The songs are louder. The story is familiar. And yet, when you slow down and actually read the resurrection story, especially in the Gospel of John, you notice something…

The Death of Rachel and Isaac The last section was a bright spot in a pretty dark tunnel up to that point. We go back into the land, the family purifies itself, Yaaqov introduces his whole family to the Elohim that has been with him all along. And they leave behind their pagan identities of old to embrace…

Introduction: The Soil Where Joy Grows Paul’s letter to the Philippians is saturated with joy, but that joy is never detached from how believers treat one another. As Paul turns to Philippians 2 , he addresses a quiet threat to the church’s joy, not persecution from outside, but self-centeredness within.…

Jacob Returns to Bethel We are wrapping things up. And interestingly, that is how all of these sections start to feel, like we're wrapping up unresolved threads from earlier in the story in really interesting ways. third and final section makes up most of what we call Genesis 35 and 36. And the first…

Introduction: One Command That Shapes the Whole Church After opening his letter with thanksgiving and prayer, Paul spends much of Philippians 1:12–26 describing his own situation. He writes from prison, uncertain whether his future holds release or death. Yet his concern is not self preservation. His…

Jacob’s Silence We've pondered how the story began. Highly disturbing. We have Shechem, the son of Hamor, who abuses his exalted position to see, take, and rape one of the daughters of a migrant family that just came into the area and bought new property. So we took a long time, and rightfully so, to…

The Oppression of Dinah We are coming to the center of the third act of the Yaaqov story. It's not a happy story. It's highly disturbing, and it's gonna repeat patterns that we have seen at the center of the other two acts. Recall that in the first act, you had the story of the twins and deceptions as…