An overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders of Genesis 35:1-15, Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson for Sunday April 21, 2024, with the title, “Renewed.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
Another title for this session might be something like: “The blessings of obedience.” So you might open the lesson with an illustration about obedience like this one by former presidential advisor J.K. Galbraith:
“One day long after the great 1964 victory over Goldwater, I arrived home from an exceptionally long day at the university. We had an evening engagement. I asked Emily Gloria Wilson … for forty years our loyal housekeeper with a strong commitment to our children, to hold off any telephone calls; I needed rest. Shortly thereafter L.B.J. called. As was often his custom, he was on the line himself.
“Lyndon Johnson here. Get me Ken Galbraith. I want to talk to him.”
“He’s resting, Mr. President.”
“Well, get him up. I need to talk to him.”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I work for him, not for you, Mr. President.”
Later, when I was awake and heard the details, I was not amused. I promptly called back to make amends. L.B.J. came on the line; it was pure Johnson: “Who is that woman who works for you? I want her down here in the White House.”
(John Kenneth Galbraith, Name-Dropping, pp. 149-150)
President Johnson valued someone who knew how to obey.
GOD is looking today for people who will be obedient to Him as well — and He has a lot of blessings for the person who will. In our lesson for today, God asks Jacob to obey Him — and promises him some great blessings as a result.
CONTEXT
We’re continuing the story of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, who stole the blessing from his older brother Esau, then fled to Haran when Esau said he’d kill him; how he got rich and blessed by God serving his father-in-law Laban there — and has now returned to the Promised Land. In the interval between the chapters of our study, he’s made peace with his brother Esau.
In Chapter 34 his sons get revenge on the Canaanite city of Shechem, killing every male there for dishonoring their sister Dinah. So yet AGAIN Jacob finds himself in the position of being unsettled and afraid, thinking that all the peoples of the land of Canaan will gather together and destroy him and his family (34:30).
OUTLINE
I. God’s Call to Obedience: (“Back to Bethel”) (35:1)
II. Jacob’s Response of Obedience (:2-8)
III. God’s Blessing of His Obedience (:9-15)
TEXT
I. God’s Call to Obedience: (:1)
So Chapter 35:1 opens: “Then God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”
Jacob was sitting there worrying about whether the people around Shechem might attack him. So what did God say?
“Arise, go up to Bethel.”
The Hebrew word “alah” = “go up, ascend, climb” — Bethel was about 30 miles south of Shechem, and it was also UPHILL from there, hence “go up.”
You might use a MAP to show where Bethel was from Shechem: about 30 miles south.
So God told Jacob, don’t just sit there, MOVE!
There are some times in scripture when God tells people that they need to MOVE:
— We just saw a few weeks ago where God sent His angels to tell Lot to move out of Sodom, because His judgment was about to fall on the city.
— In the New Testament, in Matthew 2:12, God warns Joseph in a dream not to return to return to Herod, and then in :13 he tells him to flee to Egypt, which they did. Their future life and safety depended upon them listening to the Lord when He told them to move.
There are a number of instances like that. So there is an important point here: when God tells you to move, you need to obey! Had Jacob stayed there by Shechem, he and his family may have been killed. Same thing with Joseph in the New Testament. When God warns us to move, He has a reason for it, and we need to do it!
INSTANT OBEDIENCE IS IMPORTANT! Especially in our children.
I remember hearing a parent share her testimony about how her toddler child was walking toward an electrical outlet, and they had a fork in their hand. She was across the room and could not physically stop them before they stuck the fork in that outlet, so so she just cried out: “NO! HOT!” And she said thankfully her child obeyed. But she had taken the time over the first months of that child’s active life, to build the importance of obedience into them. They knew that when they crossed a line, there was always punishment for it.
So that’s a good lesson for many of US as parents: one of the most important things you can do for your child is to establish boundaries, that they know they will be punished if they cross — we need to build instant obedience into them; it’s one of the most important lessons of life.
AND we need to see that this is not only for our kids, it’s also something that WE need too, in our relationship with the Lord. When God says go, we need to go. When God says stop, we need to stop. As important as our instructions to our children might be, God’s commands to us are even more vital. So we need to learn to listen to God’s commands, like Jacob did here.
There’s something else important here too: why was God telling Jacob to go to BETHEL?
Do you remember a few weeks ago, in Genesis 28, when Jacob was fleeing from Esau, and going back to Haran, he had that dream, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on the ladder? That was Bethel. He called that place “the house of God”/“Beth-El”.
And do you remember what he promised God?
— that if He’d bring him safely back, He would be his God, that he’d make a house of worship there, and that he would give him 1/10 of his possessions (tithe).
So now God’s basically saying: Hey, do you remember what you promised if I brought you safely through? Well I HAVE! So fulfill your promise to Me. Go back to Bethel. DO what you said you would do.
??? Did you ever promise God you’d do something, if He helped you in a certain situation???
— Jacob did here
— David talked about this in Psalm 116: “I shall fulfill my vows to the LORD, O may it be in the presence of all His people.”
Sometimes we get in a “tight spot” and we’ll say something like, “Lord, if You’ll get me out of this, I’ll never do it again …”, or
“Lord, if You’ll help me, I’ll really start going to church again,” or something like that.
We need to take those things seriously.
Maybe you have never made a specific “vow” like that to God.
But in a very real sense, EVERY Christian has made a vow to the Lord: a vow to follow Him as our Lord & Savior. When we make Jesus our Lord & Savior, “Lord” means “Master,” “boss.” It means HE is our God, and no one else, and we are going to obey HIM. If we haven’t made any other specific vows, we’ve made that one — and we need to take it seriously.
So God calls Jacob to take seriously the vow that he made to him back at Bethel in Genesis 28. He holds him to his commitment, to his promise.
He tells him to “LIVE there, and “make an altar there to God”
— this is what he said he would do: (28:22) “This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house.” He’s saying, go down there and DO what you said. Really make Me your God. Really start serving Me like you said you would.
A good challenge for your group from this lesson today would be:
??? Is there anything you know that God has previously told you to do, that you are not doing??? (Or something He told you to STOP doing, that you have not stopped?)
The point is, if you have any “unfinished business” with God, anything He’s told you that you have not done; anything He told you that you have not stopped, you need to leave this meeting and act on that TODAY!
One of the most convicting verses in the New Testament is Luke 6:46, where Jesus said, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I say?” If He is really our Lord, we need to obey Him.
He may put on your mind/and on some of your class members’ minds, some specific thing He wants you/them to do. Be ready to respond to Him, just like Jacob did here.
Another point worth considering here: Jacob may have been in the situation he was in, in Shechem, and in great fear, because he had not obedient to God. Disobedience can lead to all kinds of fears, hurts, in the way of fellowship with God, etc.
Do you not feel right? Consider: is there some area of disobedience to God in your life? That thing you feel, may be a symptom, of some lack of obedience to God in your walk with Him. It was with Jacob here.
But God calls him back to Bethel, back to obedience, here in Genesis 35.
II. Jacob’s Response of Obedience (:2-8)
So in :2-8 we see Jacob’s response to that:
— :2 “So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments, (:3) and let us arise and go to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”
So he says, hey family: here’s what we are going to do.
This is important for each husband, for every head of a household, for every matriarch/patriarch of a family group to do: Be the spiritual leader of your home. Set the tone. Just like Jacob, say, Hey, everyone, here is what God has shown me that we should do; here is what we are going to do.
??? What might be some ways that we could challenge our families spiritually today?? What are some things we might challenge them to do?
— Make it a priority to be in church every Sunday. It’s like the father I heard of years ago who told his family: STOP asking me “if” we’re going to church on Sunday morning. We ARE going. That is our commitment. Set the tone. Lead your family.
— Challenge everyone to spend time in God’s word & prayer daily
— Help everyone to monitor their tv/movie watching: are these good shows? Jacob said, let’s put away our false gods — maybe some “ungodly” shows/movies/websites we/our families have gotten into, and we can say, Hey, let’s clean this up; this is not pleasing to God.
You/your group can talk about some ways that YOUR families might be challenged to follow God more closely today. Hopefully this will be a good way to help your group APPLY this scripture to their lives/families today.
So :4 says they DID it: “So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.”
So they listened to him, they gave him all their false gods.
(??? Does it sound odd that they had all these false gods???
Genesis 31:19 says Rachel stole the “household idols” (Hebrew “teraphim” from Laban’s house when they left Haran. So we know they had those — and maybe a number of others as well.
Serving Yahweh was relatively new to a lot of these people — Jacob had really just nailed it down for himself not long ago — so they had some to get rid of.
I assume that not many of us have little idols like that (I hope not!) But we should ask: ??? What might be some “gods” that we need to purify OUR lives from today??? Things we shouldn’t have in OUR homes? Things we need to clean up?
— ungodly books, magazines, movies
— drugs/alcohol —
— sometimes some reminder of a past life that we are holding on to, which is unhealthy/reminds us/tempts us to go back to an ungodly lifestyle.
THE POINT IS: IS THERE ANYTHING IN YOUR HOUSE THAT OUGHT NOT BE THERE? Is there anything in your LIFE that God would say ought not be there? Anything that hinders your walk with God. Maybe it’s something that someone else might not even think was “bad” — but it’s something that we have made into a “god” and it is hurting us/and especially our relationship with the Lord.
There is a great C.S. Lewis quote that applies here. You could share it at this point in the lesson, or maybe post it, and use it as a discussion question:
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
The point he’s making is that, “good” and “bad” things can sometimes be different for some of us. If something is taking you farther away from God, that is a “bad” thing for you, even if it is not “bad” in and of itself. And you need to get it out of your life.
Just like Jacob and his family, anything that takes us away from fellowship with God, we need to get out of our lives. Challenge your group: Is there something in your home/in your life that is hindering your walk with God/keeping you from Him/taking you farther from Him? If so, like Jacob and his family, you need to give that up, and get it out of your life.
So :4 says Jacob took these idols, etc. and “hid them under the oak which was near Shechem” — he buried them there. So they were still at Shechem when this happened.
Verse 5 says “As they journeyed, there was a great terror (literally, “a terror of God”) upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.”
So God protected them as they obeyed Him and made their way towards Bethel.
??? You could either share this quote, or maybe use it for some class discussion. The old Puritan Matthew Henry wrote in his commentary about this incident: “The way of duty is the way of safety.” Ask your group what they think about that quote.
(I believe there is some truth in that. God will protect you while you do His will. Corrie Ten Boom said “the safest place you can be is in the center of God’s will.” But as we saw last week, we should keep that in balance. Sometimes following the Lord leads us into harm’s way, like it did Jesus, and James the brother of John, and Jim Eliot, and countless others. But if it does, we can know that God will use it in some way for His purposes. So you could have some interesting discussion here.)
But the Bible says God did protect Jacob here as he went to Bethel to obey Him.
Verse 6 says “So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.
:7 “He built an altar there, and called the place El-Bethel (“God of Bethel” and remember “Beth-El” itself means “house of God.”) because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother.
And :8 says Rebekah’s nurse Deborah died and was buried near Bethel.
But the important thing in this section is that Jacob heard God’s call, and he went and DID what God told him to do: he followed through on his earlier promises to God, and he led his family to consecrate themselves and serve the Lord.
III. God’s Blessing of His Obedience (:9-15)
In this final section we see God’s promise to Jacob after he does all that:
:9 “Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddam-aram, and He blessed him, (:10) God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob; You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.’ Thus He called him Israel.
Then (:11) “God also said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you. (:12) The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.” (:13) Then God went up from him in the place where He had spoken with him.”
So God basically reiterated some key things He had said to Jacob before:
— He’s changing his name from Jacob to Israel
— He’s going to bless his family and multiply them
— and He’s giving this Promised Land to him and his descendants.
He re-iterates the promises He’d given before.
:14-15 close the section, “Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering on it he also poured oil on it.” (:15) So Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel.”
So Jacob obeyed God. He DID what He told him to do. Significantly, this story begins with Jacob all afraid that they would be killed — but it ends with him being blessed, as he follows through and OBEYS God. “The Blessings of Obedience” I might call this lesson.
There is a great verse of an old hymn that is very applicable to the lesson this week. It says, “For the favor He shows, and the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
That’s the sentiment that runs all through our text for this week.
Jacob was afraid, unsettled — but he had not fully obeyed God. God called him to full obedience, and he was blessed as he did.
The same thing will be true in our lives today too. “The favor He shows, and the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey.”
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