Word is Bond
Today, we start a new series on the themes and imagery found in Scripture which help us understand more deeply what God is teaching. We start with the theme of covenant -- God's bond with his people.
For the past several months, Kia and I have hosted a group of young adults (18-24) for a small group Bible study. We start each session with a meal, then break for a short Bible study, and finally finish with dessert and fellowship. Over the course of these months, we’ve studied books of the Bible (we read through the book of Galatians), gone through a series of teachings from The Bible Project on How to Read the Bible, and done a few one-off studies.
Through most of these studies, we’ve read and discussed a short passage of Scripture (usually a medium-sized chapter). Each discussion went through three simple questions:
What does this tell me about God?
What does it speak about myself?
How do I apply this to my world today?
These discussions have been so good. These young men and women are critical thinkers who have developed a deep and rich view of God. They’ve asked difficult questions that aren’t easily answered…if they can be answered at all.
In meeting with this rotating group of people, I’ve found a common thread. Most of them have grown up in a church setting, so they know many of the Bible stories. Others were more occasional members of their church, but they still had a good grasp of different parts of Scripture. However, while their general understanding of the Bible is great, they don’t see the intricate threads woven throughout it. And to be fair, I haven’t seen them either until more recently.
So, I’ve reverted to teaching them.
These threads appear early in Scripture and run through its entirety. If you have the eyes to see them, these themes and imagery appear repeatedly. Over the next few weeks, I will teach you what I’ve been teaching them.
Going WAY Back
Just a few weeks ago, we started in Genesis 12, which begins the story of Abraham. We started here because Abraham represents one of the most important figures in Scripture outside of Jesus. God began a plan through Abraham, reaching through thousands of years to redeem humanity. You are reading this newsletter today because of Abraham.
Genesis 12 is chock full of themes and threads that begin earlier in the book but continue throughout the rest of the Bible. In this chapter, which contains two simple stories and 20 verses, I identified at least five different themes found throughout the Bible.
Covenant | Promises | Faith
Egypt | Mistrust, Disobedience, Death
Men + Women
See + Take
Trees
Over the next few weeks, we’ll examine these themes—where they begin and why they are important for us to recognize as we read through Scripture.
Covenant, Promises, and Faith
Let’s start with the beginning. Genesis 1-3 is the story of creation, Adam and Eve, and the Fall. In Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother Able, which truly begins to ramp up the spread of sin in the world. This leads to the story of Noah in Genesis 6-10. God reboots the world through a worldwide flood, but as we see in the next chapter of Genesis, the world continues to spiral down.
Genesis 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel, which sets up the story of Abraham — God’s redemption plan put into action. In the first half of Genesis 12, God calls Abraham to leave all he knew to an unknown destination. This is where we are introduced to a covenant between God and Abraham. This is what that passage says:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev. -Genesis 12:1-9
This is the second of five major covenants found in the Old Testament. These are those five covenants, and where in the Old Testament you can find them:
Noah — a promise to never flood the earth again.1
Abraham — a promise to bless all of humanity through Abraham.2
Moses — a promise to protect and bless the nation of Israel with a series of laws for Israel to obey.3
David — a promise of David for his lineage to always rule over Israel.4
New Covenant — a promise of redemption to exiled Judah, fulfilled through Jesus’ death and resurrection.5
Reading through Genesis 12 and studying the other covenants made in Scripture reveals three important truths about covenants.
1. A covenant with God is an unbreakable bond.
I grew up on 80s and 90s hip-hop. A phrase I heard over and over within the bars and lyrics of these artists was “word is bond.” It meant they would keep their word as promised. You could trust what they said.6
God’s covenant (or word) is bond.
The call of God on Abraham is simple, “Go.” The response of God is more in-depth. As I searched for a good working definition of covenant, I found, in essence, what those hip-hop artists of the 80s and 90s spoke of:
“The preferred meaning of this Old Testament word is bond; a covenant refers to two or more parties bound together.”
-Baker’s Bible Dictionary
Abraham and his family were now connected to God…forever through this covenant. There was nothing they could do to break this bond. In fact, when we look at the renewal of this covenant between God and Abraham in Genesis 15, we see an interesting detail that highlights the strength of this bond. God had Abraham prepare an offering of sorts by cutting a cow, goat, and ram in half. It is a bloody picture, and it was meant for the two covenant partners to walk between the halves of the butchered animals as a sign of their bond.
However, in this story, God alone walks through the cut animals.
It’s as if God understood humanity's propensity to fail. God knew we would not keep up our end of the bargain, but God would…always. The covenant bond between God and humanity is unbreakable because God will always keep his promises, even when we won’t.
2. A covenant includes a promise(s) from God.
When God creates a covenant with Abraham, he leads with a requirement from Abraham but spends most of the contractual language describing what he will do for Abraham and his descendants.
This is the unbreakable part.
God promised blessing on Abraham. He promised to curse those who cursed Abraham. God promised to bless the entire world through Abraham. And we don’t even have to move past chapter 12 to see the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham — even when Abraham is unfaithful to God!
If you read on to the end of the chapter, you’ll see Abraham flee to Egypt to escape a famine. Rather than staying in Canaan and trusting in God’s provision, Abraham turns to a foreign nation and lies to protect himself (at the expense of his wife). We’ll explore this theme later, but I want to highlight how God honors his promises even though Abraham doesn’t.
Abraham eventually leaves Egypt with more wealth (sheep, goats, gold, silver, servants) than when he arrived. He was financially blessed, and his nephew Lot was blessed, too. It was not perfect (again, as we’ll see in the coming weeks), but God keeps up his end of the bargain.
Abraham was blessed by God.
It started almost immediately for Abraham and continued through his life and his descendants.
3. Covenant requires action from both sides.
A covenant is a bond between two or more parties. In this case, it is between God and Abraham. God's action is blessing. Most important to Abraham was making him into a great nation…beginning with a son of his own. The action required of Abraham was simple but difficult to follow through on consistently.
Go where God leads.
God was clear that this direction included a lack of specifics. He would lead Abraham so Abraham would only know when he knew and no sooner. Compared to what was required of God, this was a simple action, but it was more than difficult to follow through on. Again, this chapter shows Abraham trusting his instincts rather than God’s provision during famine. Abraham fled from God’s promised land to Egypt.
There’s a lot packed into Abraham's lack of faith, but for now, take note of the negative consequences of this decision (broken trust with both his wife and a foreign power).
Bonus Point: We are included in the Abrahamic Covenant
To open this post, I shared with you three questions I ask every week in our small group:
What does this say about me?
What does this say about God?
How does this impact the world around me?
I’ll close today by clarifying how I would answer these questions based on what we just learned about the covenant between God and Abraham.
Most importantly, we are included in this covenant between God and Abraham. Initially, the covenant was passed down to Abraham and his direct descendants—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Then, it was passed onto the nation of Israel—Abraham’s much-extended family. The Mosaic and Davidic covenants extended the original covenant with God and Abraham to all of Israel. Finally, the New Covenant, which Jesus put into action, includes his followers in this original covenant between God and Abraham.
I want to make sure you see and feel the weight of what this means. EVERYTHING promised to Abraham is now promised to you. God promises to bless you so you will bless others. But action is required of you. You are called to go where God leads, which will sometimes be unclear.
And the unknown can be scary.
A Ride into the Unknown
One of my first roller coaster experiences as a kid was Space Mountain in Disney World. If you’ve never been on this particular roller coaster, the thrill isn’t in height, loops, or even speed. The thrill is the unknown. The Space Mountain coasters race through the darkness. You never know when the next twist or turn is coming. This was simultaneously the scariest and most amazing thing I’d ever experienced as a kid.
The unknown can be scary.
But here’s a funny thing about the unknown: The more you walk in it, the more you crave it. I begged my dad to go back to ride Space Mountain again, and had the line not been hours long, I would have rode it over and over and over. This has been my experience with God, too. I am on edge as I follow him into the darkness, but there is a thrill in completely relying on him. It becomes addictive.
As you follow God into the unknown, you’ll be blessed to bless others.
That is what makes it so addictive—blessing others. You’ll never want to stop.
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Genesis 9
Genesis 12
Exodus 19-24
2 Samuel 7
Jeremiah 31
If you want to read more on this, THIS is a good place to start.