Day 23: Genesis 32-34

Welcome to 5 -Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today's January the 23rd and we'll be covering

Genesis 32 -34. Now today's reading brings

Jacob back to the Promised Land, but not back to any kind of peace. And this is because Genesis 32 -34 records

Jacob's return home after decades of exile. And it shows us that changing locations is usually easier than changing your life.

Now Jacob is stepping back into the land God promised, but he must also step back into unresolved conflict, fear, guilt, and the long shadow of his past sin.

Now Genesis 32 opens with terror. Jacob is afraid and his family, as they're traveling, learn that his brother

Esau is coming out to meet him. Yeah, the one he previously defrauded. And as soon as he learns about this, he begins to panic.

And to mitigate the damages, Jacob divides his family into multiple groups so that if one of them is attacked, the others could get away free, or at least that was his plan.

Now in addition, he sends large amounts of gifts ahead to win over his brother and to assuage the, maybe the anger that he still has over all these years.

And then Jacob does something that he does for the first time in the narrative. He prays. You see, the entire time

Jacob has said, the God of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, but now he's saying, my

God, and now he's turning to the Lord for the first time and initiating communication with God on his own.

He prays. Now, the prayer is not a model of boldness, but it is a desperate plea to the almighty that God will answer.

Later that night, Jacob is left alone and he ends up wrestling with this mysterious man until the break of dawn.

The struggle leaves him wounded and humbled and the owner of a brand new title. At that very wrestling match,

God gives Jacob a new name, Israel, which means the one who wrestles with God, marking a permanent change in Jacob's life and the continuation of the promises

God is fulfilling for Abraham, but now through his people, Israel. What is striking is that Jacob, the schemer and the hill grabber is now defined by dependence on God rather than manipulation.

Then in Genesis 33, we get the long awaited reunion with Esau. But what

Jacob expects to be violent ends actually in tender mercy. Esau runs out to meet him, embraces him, and the reconciliation between the two men replace any fears that Jacob has.

Now, Genesis 34 jolts the story into a horrifying scene. Dinah, the daughter of Israel, is violated by one of the local princes who was living in the land.

And just like their father, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, respond with a calculating manipulation and vicious bloodshed.

Though Jacob has been changed, his household remains deeply broken and after his own image.

Now, the chapter closes by refusing to let us pretend that transformation instantly repairs every relationship and lifts every consequence.

It doesn't, which is such an important truth for us to remember. Now, as you read today, I want you to ask the following question.

What does it mean to be truly changed by God in a world that still bears the consequences of your sin?

Jacob is renamed and blessed, yet much of his pain continues. And that's because these chapters teach us that real transformation is not the same thing as immediate resolution.

And we do well, again, to understand that. The central tension in Genesis 32 -34 is the permanent identity change on the one hand and yet the lingering consequences on the other.

Jacob receives a new name that alters who he is forever. He's no longer merely

Jacob, the supplanter. He's Israel, the one who wrestles with God. And yet he still limps, his family still struggles, new crises are still arriving, which is so relevant to our own

Christian experience because many of us were changed. We were given a new name with a new identity that reshapes everything about who we are at the deepest and most fundamental level.

But receiving a new name does not mean that life becomes simple.

And it doesn't mean that all of the consequences from our former life of sin go away automatically.

They linger on. But what it does mean is that now we get to walk through all of those things no longer alone but we get to walk with the one who marked us with his grace.

Even while living in a broken world, we get to walk with Christ. Now these chapters point powerfully to Jesus because Jacob prevails by clinging to God and weakness.

And Christ fulfills this pattern completely. He doesn't wrestle in order to avoid suffering. He enters into the suffering willingly.

Where Jacob walks away limping yet blessed, Christ walks out of the tomb bearing the wounds that will become the means of our healing.

Jacob receives a new name after his encounter with this mysterious figure. And in Christ, we receive a new name and a new identity that can never be taken away.

And while Jacob's household reveals how incomplete transformation can be in this life,

Christ promises a future where renewal will be total and every fracture will be healed.

So as you read Genesis 32 through 34 today, notice that God doesn't wait for Jacob to be fearless, flawless, or fully healed before blessing him.

God himself in the flesh meets him and renames him and sends him forward changed forever.

And then tomorrow, the story will begin to move forward with greater stability as God continues shaping this imperfect family that's one day going to become an imperfect nation.

But until then, read your Bible carefully, devotionally and joyfully, and may the Lord use his word to sanctify you completely.