Get out of 'nice'

The story so far...

Genesis tells us that God created everything that exists. That God is both Creator and the Ruler of all creation. It tells us of humanity’s tragic fall into sin and death, and of God’s unfolding plan of redemption through his covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

Genesis: Salvation Begins Chapter 8: God Does It Again

We have heard of a good and great Creator who made the world to be a good place. We have heard of humans who seem determined not to live rightly with God, and how God has responded by justly punishing while at the same time offering undeserved mercy. The last incident we looked at—the Tower of Babel—has captured many of these themes, and sets the scene for God’s next great action in human history.

There are two main parts to Genesis… 1-11 which tells the story of God and the world and then 12-50 which focuses on one man, Abraham and his descendents. The link betweeen these two parts is the bit we are going to look at.

Let’s just look back and see what has happened so far...

God created the world - order and beauty and a world where life can flourish and he created Adam and Eve in his image:

-Reflections of God’s character out into the world

-Representatives to rule God’s world on his behalf

-Make the world a place where even more life can flourish

God blesses Adam and Eve and gives them a place, a garden, from which they can start to build this new world.

God also gives Adam and Eve free will. He places a tree in the garden which is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He tells Adam and Eve not to eat from it or they will certainly die. A serpant comes along and questions Eve “Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman said “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”

‘You will not certainly die,’ the snake said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

Interestingly, God had made Adam and Eve in his image - they were already like God. Instead of trusting God, they saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, and they ate it.

To start with it made a differrence to human relationships - Adam and Eve realised they were naked and they felt vulnerable and so they had to cover up from each other.

It also made a difference to their relationship with God - they hid from him. Their closeness was gone.

Then God addresses all 3 of them involved:

He saysto the snake that a offspring of eve will crush the serpants head and the serpant will strike his heel.

Then he says to Adam and Eve that there would be pain and hardship from now on and that they would eventually die.

Adam and Eve were banished from the garden.

Then Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel but due to jealousy, Cain murders Abel and his great, great, great grandson Lamech was more murdersome than Cain. Violence and problems took place, humans were building kingdoms that filled God’s world with violence and corruption. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. God longed to protect the goodness of his world so he washes it clean with a flood and protects Noah who was blameless among people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. After the flood, God repeats to Noah (new Adam) again: ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.’ But Noah fails too and also in a garden. He goes and plants a vinyard and gets so drunk and his son, Canaan, shames him. So again, we have the new adam naked and shamed in the garden.

Then the people started using bricks and decided to build themsevles a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

This is an image of human rebellion and arrogance - the garden rebellion again. God humbles them and scatters them.

So… there is this repeated pattern - God made a good world and gives humans a chance to live and flourish. But humans keep messing up and wanting to become like God. But there is hope - the promise that one day through the offsrping of eve, there would be someone who would be victor over the snake even as his heel is being crushed. And God’s plan is about to be unfolded.

Terah

What do we know about Terah?

Terah’s name means moon Abraham was born into the 95 - his family didn’t follow God but worshipped the god of the moon.

Terah means “Ter (the divine) brother (or protector, Heb. ‘ah), Ter being a dialectal variant of shr, a South Arabic term for the moon”

Josh 24v2: “Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River Euprates and worshipped other gods.

So Terah’s whole family were idol worshippers. He named his children after idols too.

“Sarai (Sarah) is the equivalent of sarratu“queen” an Akkadian translation of a Ningal, the female partner of the moon-god Sin. Laban means “the white one”, a poetic term for the full moon”(Key 21).

He had 3 sons - Abram, Nahor, Haran

They also had some hardships:

Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive (v30) - a catastrophe for a woman in the ancient world. Sarai’s barrenness is a symbol of where all humanity ends when it is left on its own—unable to invent its own future and crying out for God to change things. Into such helplessness comes the word of God.

Haran died - Lot was Abram’s orphaned nephew who he seems to have adopted… maybe to be the son that Abram never had?

What do we know about Ur?

Terah’s family originate in Ur

Ur = either an important centre of culture in southern Iraq or northern Ur in northern Mesopotamia, near Haran major theological centers of moon worship.

Southern Ur is one of the most sophisticated socio-political and cultural areas in the world.

Why did Terah move? Maybe because his son had died in Ur and he wanted a new start?

Where was he heading? To Canaan.

The Bible says that when Terah and his family got to Harran, they settled there.

What do we know about Harran?

An important crossroads and commercial city of Syria near the Belias River. The city was a centre of Sin worship of the moon-god Sin. The other great worship centre of this god was Ur of the Chaldeans. It’s name means road, route, caravanLocated along the major northern route across upper Mesopotamia that began at the Mediterranean coast and crossed the Euphrates River near Carchemish, continuing across the Cullab River by Harran, moving eastward through the upper Khabur River onto the Tigris and then south to Nineveh and southern Mesopotamia. It was famous for farming of grain, sheep and goat herding. Near Harran was a key trade place with a place called Ebla - the exchange included gold, silver, fabrics and daggers in return for unworked silver, gold, bronze, fabrics and cattle from Harran. Haran became very urbanised and densly populated

Harran was the land of comfort but Canaan was the land of promise.

God is quietly, secretly, undramatically working out his purpose. God’s plan for all the families of the eath is linked to his blessomg of one man, Abraham.

What do we know about Canaan?

The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia Canaan, Canaanite

CANAAN, CANAANITE. A personal name applied to the youngest son of Ham (Gen 9:18); a tribal name for peoples supposedly descended from him; and a geographical name describing the territory occupied by those descendants.

Canaan had cities such as Jericho, Beth Shean, Beth Yerah and Megiddo.

Canaan was the heart of the 'fertile crescent' linking Eurasia with Africa, and so it's a very natural trading link.