Some call her a deceiver, but she is a memorialized in the tomb of the matriarchs as a mighty woman of faith.
This series of Bible studies seeks to retell the stories of women who were divinely called and empowered to do great things. Many of them rose to the occasion, and a few very famously did not. Often, the tragedies and triumphs in their lives are missed, and their stories are told from perspectives other than with the honor and dignity they deserve.
After excavating their narratives from millennia of obfuscation, now meet the freshly restored, valiant, vivid (and sometimes villainous) women of the Bible.
Love God with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind
Rebekah is most remembered for her elaborate—and successful—plan to fool Isaac into giving Jacob both the birthright blessing and the Abrahamic blessings, the promises of God. Her intelligence, persevering faith, and costly sacrifice are often forgotten in the negative reading of her account. Lessons about consequences and family dysfunction are drawn from her story, but seldom is her single-hearted devotion to God and to God’s word highlighted.
This thirty-page book includes the retelling of Rebekah’s story, a fifteen-question Bible study, and link to a twenty-minute multi-media presentation of Rebekah’s narrative, examining the fruit of her actions. There, we find Jacob embarked on a journey to marry a godly woman, come into his own as a man of God, grow into a wealthy herdsman, and finally, to found the nation of Israel. Rebekah is honored to this day by the many pilgrims who visit her grave marker in the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, located nineteen miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank.
Why Do We Do What We Do?
Why do we do what we do?
We would like to think—because this is what our culture tells us is the most valued—that we make rational decisions based on the logical analysis of data, of facts. But the truth is, we far more often make decisions that have an emotional and relational motivation, and when that decision emerges, our rational intellect has two choices: veto or agree with explanation.
Of course, once we have come up with what sounds like a rational reason, we stick by it. It is so reasonable! But the truth is, by finding a rational cover story for our emotional decision, the rationale we use becomes unassailable. There is nothing that can dent logic that was constructed out of an emotional decision—because it is not actually logical. It is emotion draped in reason to avoid the humiliation of our western culture disdaining emotion.
Even more fundamentally, however, we are spiritual beings, and the divine power of the Spirit is at work among all people. As our spirits are stirred, so our hearts are stirred. From our perspective, we are freely choosing what our hearts desire, what we will.
From the divine perspective, God’s purposes are at work.
And so we come to the many decisions, moral choices, and actions of Rebekah, relative of Abraham and worshipper of God Most High, beginning with her courage in leaving her homeland to marry a man she never met. Whatever her own reasons may have been, you and I also know her willingness was God’s answer to the prayer of Abraham’s servant.
Nearly forty free Bible studies on a woman in the scriptures are available through signing up to the newsletter below. What’s included:
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