It’s fun reading through the Bible! It’s been a few years since I’ve read through the Bible in a year, and I’m enjoying renewing my friendship with the early guys: Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc., and I’m seeing two common themes, which go along with our observations of how the crowds change and how people can be restored. Here are the themes:

God chose them.
They started to mess up right away!

Think about it:

• Adam: placed in the garden and given a fabulous job and a wife in Genesis 2, and you know what happens in Genesis 3!
• Noah: three chapters on the flood, very exciting, and what happens in Genesis 9? He’s passed out drunk.
• Abraham: surely things will get better. God chooses Abraham: “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed,” Genesis 12.3. We don’t even get out of the chapter before we read this:

Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” (Genesis 12.10 – 13, ESV)

There’s a role model for you! He lies and endangers his wife to save himself, not once, but twice (see Genesis 19), and, like father, like son, Isaac does the same thing in Genesis 26.

But God’s plan goes on, worked out through VERY imperfect people. I’m not advocating we mess up on purpose (see Romans 6.1, 2)! But when we do, it’s OK. We’re not the first.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2.1, ESV)

Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One. (The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, 1 Timothy 1.15, MSG)