Like Father, Like Son

Today is day 5 of the second week of our "Read the Bible Through in a Year" extravaganza.

Today's scriptures are Genesis 26-27, and Mark 10.

It has been a very busy day for me today, and at 9pm, I'm just now sitting down to read these scriptures and blog about them.  If you're anything like me, then you also get behind from time to time.  But no worries--we have time to catch up.  That's what the weekend's for.  If you've gotten behind...maybe by more than a few hours...maybe by a few days' worth of reading...that's why we have a 5-day reading schedule.  I encourage you to use the next couple of days to catch up.

But what if you're so behind that you're ready to just give up on it? 

Don't even try to catch up--just catch on!  Catch on to the Bible-reading movement, and trust God to get you in line with His will through His Word.  It's not really about checking chapters off a list.  It's about letting God check your heart and bring you back to Him. 

Today's Genesis passages are all about passing things on from father to son.  Some of these are wonderful, and some of them aren't.  In chapter 26, verses 1-5, God the Father promises that He will bless Isaac just the same way that God blessed Isaac's father, Abraham.  But this promise was contingent on Isaac's obedience, just as it had depended on Abraham's faithfulness to God.

In verses 6-45, we read about Isaac inheriting not only God's blessing, but also his father Abraham's propensity for deception.  Twice (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-16), Abraham deceived a king by telling him that his wife Sarah was actually his sister, so that Abraham wouldn't be killed and his wife taken.  Actually, she was his half-sister (don't even get me started on this one!), so it wasn't really a lie, but it was deception.  Now, Isaac takes it a step further and outright lies, telling the Philistine king that his wife Rebekah is his sister.  You'd think he would have learned not to do this from his father's stories, wouldn't you?  Instead of hearing these stories and saying, "Now, that's a bad idea," he heard the stories and said, "Yeah--that sounds like something to put on my bucket list!"  Like father, like son--we have a choice whether to pass on the blessings of God, or the wickedness of man!

Chapter 27 tells about Jacob stealing Esau's blessing from their aging and blind father Isaac.  Without going into the whole story, I simply want to note that both blessings and curses may flow from the lips of parents, and that once they're spoken, they can't be taken back again.  We must be careful what we say, and careful what we pass on to the generations that come after us.

Like father, like son.

Like mother, like daughter.

What will you pass on to the generations that come after you?