Welcome to the One Great Story!. George B. Thompson
central “players” in the journey to a fulfilled promise—and beyond. Not only the people, but place holds striking theological significance along the way. Every episode in the Genesis narrative leads to a moment or two that leaves the listener hanging. Characters display lapses of judgment, wily calculations, and sometimes ill intentions; even the righteous Noah got drunk and passed out (Gen 9:20–21)! As more chapters are added to The Story, however, many of these characters dominate. They will become part of The Story’s appeal to later generations, in their own particular chapters.
In spite of all the questionable behavior from less-than-perfect men and women, The Story presses ahead. How? Through the unremitting persistence of the one character whose presence and purpose shadows every scene. The One Great Story contains a dizzying host of actors, but none is as central or as significant as God. That for which the Creator unceasingly hopes and adjusts impels The Story all along the way. We leave the Book of Genesis with a clan of folks whose tales of danger and exploitation remind us of a cat always landing on its feet. God has not given up on them.
The One Great Story contains a dizzying host of characters, but none is as central or as significant as God.
For the Reader
1.Have you ever sat around a campfire at night and listened to someone tell stories? What was it like? How does that experience help you imagine the effect of these episodes of The One Great Story in Genesis on its early audiences?
2.What is a question or two that you wish you could ask the final editor of Genesis concerning details in one of its episodes? Why do you think your questions are not addressed there?
3.The chapters in Genesis about Joseph do not show him performing any religious acts or even praying. Yet at key points in several episodes, Joseph refers to God and God’s purposes. What might this absorbing account be suggesting about how Joseph’s faith developed?
Suggested Activities
•Select one of the characters from Genesis who is mentioned in this chapter and read all the sections in which he or she plays a part. In what ways is his or her trust in God (or apparent lack thereof) portrayed?
•Find a map displaying locations mentioned in Genesis; these would include areas around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, northwest to Haran, then roughly south, parallel to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, down to the Nile River in Egypt. What do you know about this region of the world? What questions come to mind as you look at the map? How do the places where you have lived and traveled affect who you are and what is important to you?
Chapter 3
The Story Builds
Toward a Land and a Renewal
“ . . . go and take possession of the land that I swore to your ancestors, . . . ”
—Deut 1:8b
Good storytellers know how to keep an audience on the edge of its seat. As the Book of Genesis illustrates so clearly, The One Great Story begins like a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs, twists and turns that can leave riders breathless—and perhaps even screaming now and then, with surprise and anxiety. Just when we think that things actually might settle down, something else happens—someone new appears on the scene, or someone important to the story line dies, or circumstances change. At any given point in This Story, things can look great. More often, however, they are dire and heading toward seemingly hopeless.
The One Great Story begins like a roller-coaster ride.
Yo-Yo Goes Up—and Then Down!
Joseph’s achievement in bringing his family to the security of Egypt is presented in grand terms: the most powerful empire of the day made room for a tiny band of wandering animal herders. The picture of patriarch Jacob being returned for burial near his grandfather Abraham’s burial site—with a Pharaoh’s escort, no less (Gen 50:7–14)—must have been, for Jacob’s descendants, a tremendously dramatic symbol of divine irony. Their God, the One who called them, turned the world’s political and economic powerhouse on its head! I can imagine that many descendants of Jacob might have wished that those circumstances would have stayed in place for a long, long time.
Well, as The Story goes, the good life in Egypt did last for a time. The Hebrews—descendants of Jacob—grew in number and strength in those years (Exod 1:7), but an era eventually passed, too. A new administration took over the empire: a new monarch ascended, one who did not know the story of Joseph’s life-saving service to Egypt. This pharaoh was afraid that the Israelites would turn against Egypt under pressure, so he did what many imperial rulers have done over the centuries: he made the Hebrews’ lives miserable. First, he made them construct cities and buildings for him and work on his crops; they were now his slaves. Then he told midwives to kill all boys born to Hebrew women. Although not all midwives obeyed this command, still the threat of male genocide hung over the now-enslaved community (Exod 1:8–22).
Within these ominous circumstances, a new episode is introduced—one that leads to another remarkable series of events, that becomes among The Story’s most vivid and memorable. Like so many of the episodes that will follow it, this one consists of unlikely interplay between people of low regard and those of high estate. Even more, the wildly vacillating fortunes of its main character display classic literary power. Some of you already remember bits and pieces of this part of The Story, and certainly its central figure is no stranger. Enter Moses.
Unlikely
If you are like me, you can recall something of Moses’ birth and early life from stories that you heard in Sunday school. When we were young, these accounts might have seemed cute, perhaps a little like a Shirley Temple movie. Make no mistake, however: the political ramifications of this baby’s eventual status would not have been lost on the episode’s early audiences.
How preposterous and delightful to hear that one of the Hebrew baby boys is saved from slaughter by a wily mother, who floated him down “the river” in a papyrus basket and sent his older sister to provide a report of his fate! How brave and clever of his sister to stay close enough to speak to the Pharaoh’s daughter who saw the floating basket while bathing there! How so like an absorbing story that the baby boy returns to his own mother, to be nursed and raised—and paid by Pharaoh’s daughter for the duty! How typical of an ancient story that the child becomes named because of the circumstances that led him to live in Pharaoh’s court (“Mosheh”—Moses; mashah—draw out [of the water]) (Exod 2:1–10).
The adopted heir to the great empire now lived as a fugitive.
The early years of Moses’ life are treated quickly and concisely; once again, his status changed radically. At this point, The Story leaves listeners a little unclear. By the time he was a young man, did Moses know that he was born a Hebrew? Details in The Story at this point suggest so but do not come right out and say it. When he saw the Egyptian man walloping one of the Hebrew workers, was Moses’ response driven by ethnic loyalty? Murder is a serious offense, and Moses’ attempt to hide his crime against the Egyptian guard did not succeed. He got scared the next day when another Hebrew worker mentioned the killing to his face, so Moses took off—and none too soon, for now Pharaoh knew of his crime and wanted his adopted son dead (Exod 2:11–15).
The adopted heir to the great empire now lived as a fugitive. After many days of travel, he ended up in a region known as Midian, southeast of Egypt, far away from Pharaoh’s grip. Moses still looked like an Egyptian when he helped some sisters get water for their father’s flock, after they had been harassed by some shepherds. This act of kindness led to Moses’ marriage to one of the man’s daughters, Zipporah. The man’s name was Jethro, and he was known as a priest (Exod 2:16–22). Moses then named his first child, a son, “Gershom,” a play on the Hebrew word ger, or “alien”—as though he still identified with his previous life in Egypt (Exod 2:22).
It looked like Moses could have settled into the nomadic, herding life, a safe distance from Egypt, raising a family, but The Story rarely allows its characters to sit still. Years went