GENESIS: The Call and the Covenant

Humanity as a whole has not learned to trust God and is choosing to force others to love and serve them instead of offering the love and service to God and others. Now God’s plan moves from all of humanity to two people who will form a nation that will be God’s ambassadors to the world

Genesis 12:1 - 9 (NRSVA)
1 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and invoked the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Genesis 13:14 - 18 (NRSVA) 14The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. 16I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. 17Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” 18So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD.

THE PROMISE of God is to provide offspring and land to form a nation. The role of the nation is to be representatives of God’s love (God’s Blessing) to all the nations.

Flaws: All the people God chooses to bring the plan to fulfillment are inherently flawed
Genesis 3:1+ Adam, Eve and Serpent
Genesis 4:1+ Cain and Abel
Genesis 9 18+ Noah’s drunk
Genesis 12:10+ Abram and Sarah in Egypt
Genesis 21:1 + Ishmael
Genesis 25:29+ Esau and Birthright
Genesis 27:1 + Jacob gets blessing
Genesis 37:11+ Joseph sold

Abraham
Isaac and Ishmael (Israel and Arab)
Jacob and Esau (Esau marries a daughter of Ishmael)

Jacob Narrative Genesis 23 – 36
Jacob, the Grandson of Abraham, through a long epic journey transforms and becomes “Israel”

Joseph Narrative Genesis 37 – 50
Joseph gets sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. This begins another epic journey where he becomes the second in command of Egypt opening the way for his family (Israel) to move into the safety of Egypt during a time of famine.