Daily reflections

One of the shocking things about some of the Old Testament stories is how routinely women are treated as property. This was normal in the ancient world, but implicit in the way these stories are told in the Bible is God's...

It should be party time. We’ve journeyed with Abraham and Sarah through the rough path of infertility, seemingly unfulfilled promises and a very long wait -- by anyone’s standards. But after 25 years, Isaac is now born...

If there’s anything you’ve picked up in the story of Abraham, it’s likely to be the significance of his role as a father of great nations, and that of his son Isaac through which this promise will come to pass. You don...

Today we say goodbye to Sarah, with whom you've perhaps had a rollercoaster relationship as you've read the text. We've seen her good moments and her bad moments. She's a very human person caught up here in the purposes of...

Tension is building as the scene is set: Abraham is old, God has blessed him and he's wrapping things up. He’s about to complete his final act: finding a wife for his son and thereby securing his family line. The formality...

There are a few surprises in today’s reading – if not to us, who may be very familiar with it, then certainly to its characters, and its first hearers.

As famine pushes Isaac out of the land he loved, we head into two mini-narratives that feel strangely familiar. The first is the promise of God to Isaac. Isaac hears God for himself, receiving a similar promise to that of...

If you've tracked the stories and reflections this week, you might share my amazement at how often things go wrong as God's will is brought about. The human side of things is messy! Echoes of Genesis 3 are evident in this...

This story takes place as tensions between Jacob and Esau are rising. It's becoming clearer that Jacob is the son through whom God will make a nation and bless the world. His dream of a ladder up to heaven with angels going...