In Genesis 27:30-45 Jacob swindled from Isaac the birthright rightfully belonging to Esau. Jacob used guile and dishonesty, urged on by his mother, to attain what was not his to have.
Isaac was skeptical that the person before him was his eldest son. But Jacob sounded so convincing that Isaac made his decision to give the inheritance to whom he thought was Esau.
I am forever losing things – keys, wallets, shoes – you name it, I can lose it. So prone am I to losing things that one year for Christmas, my wife bought me a chip that attached to my key fob that would show the location of my keys on a map on my smartphone. Great idea, but I lose things at home and the mapping feature was not that precise.
There is an old news story that has been imprinted on my mind since I was a 4-year-old child. In July of 1960, a 7-year-old boy named Roger Woodward was swept over the edge of Niagara Falls and dropped nearly 200 feet into the roiling waters below. He survived.
I had a short career in the animated film industry as an animator of such popular cartoons as Scooby Doo and The Flintstones. Every Saturday morning, I not only watched the cartoons I had animated, but also the credits that ran at the end just to see my name in them.
The congregation I serve as pastor, is a church plant of the Evangelical Free Church of America. Yes, we are as advertised, evangelicals, though these days with gluten-free, sugar-free, and caffeine-free products, a person might surmise we are not.
What do the following two sets of names have in common?
The first group of names: Moses, Jonah, and Jeremiah.
The second group: Noah, Abraham, and Mary.
I frequently hear that our society has become more and more selfish when it comes to personal matters. It seems to have become every person for himself or herself.
