Genesis 28:1-9

God is not a racist. This should be obvious. I write this only because one commentary mentioned racial purity as a motivation for Jacob choosing a wife from among Abraham’s family. Jacob was to choose a wife from among Abraham’s family not to keep the race pure, but to keep the faith pure. Abraham’s family knew the God of Abraham.  Purity of faith is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament. Numerous times Israel would be led astray by the influence of foreign religions.

In our world today foreign religions are not the biggest threat. If we have been raised in a Christian home it is unlikely we will be led to worship a false god. A bigger threat is that we will be led to not worship at all. Living in a right relationship with God requires us to acknowledge him as Lord. Even though many reject his lordship, they very seldom replace it with the lordship of a false god.

In Jacob’s day, the God of Abraham was not well known. How were people to recognize He was the one true God? One of the ways they made these decisions was to watch religious people and see how their lives turned out. Abimelek earlier said he knew Abraham’s God was real because Abraham was prospering. As God was rising up the nation of Israel one of the ways he revealed himself as the one true God was by his mighty acts. Those days were ahead, in the beginning Jacob needed to strive for the unity of faith.

Today we have God’s work throughout history as revelation. We have the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. Today we know the God of Abraham is the one true God. The biggest threat to today’s church is not impurity of belief. Our biggest threat is an impurity of obedience.