The Basis of Decision Making.

Genesis 46: 27-30

I have spent many years studying the Bible as a matter of fact. This year marks the 47th year since I became a Christian. But even before I made a personal decision to make the Lord the center of my life even as a young child I grew up in a tradition where Bible study was what was expected as a norm and having been seeped in it as a child, I then began to study it systematically well over 35 years ago, attempting to go through every book of the Bible. I haven’t made it all the way through. I’ve read through the complete Bible 7 times now and given it a limited devotional study each time. However, as far as in-depth study, I haven’t covered the whole Bible, I’m close, but I haven’t looked at it all in detail I’m a shy of about 10 books but I’m working on those now and can’t wait to address the shortfalls by completing this podcast over the next 5 years or so,

The reason I bring all that up is this has been my passion for virtually all of my adult life. And I have bumped into the kind of problem that I just brought in that I’m aware that some people like to point out so-called contradictions are in the Bible. But I’m here to tell you that I’ve looked at virtually all of them, and in every case, I found there to be a reasonable explanation. Matter of fact, this gets really interesting for me because I’m so interested in the scripture, I love trying to figure out what the answer might be. Now I haven’t discovered these answers myself, in fact, often there are more than one probable answers to the problem and some of those queries where answered long ago by some of history’s great Bible teachers it’s just that knowledge sometimes got lost as a society we lost our Biblical literacy. So that when somebody says to you there’s a contradiction, and I’ve had many people say this to me, it’s a very common thing for people to church out the statement, the Bible contradicts itself. My standard answer is, what contradiction are you talking about? And I recommend you simply ask them the same question, tell me the contradictions you are talking about. 

You may feel nervous in asking such a question, but I can confidently tell you that 9 time out of 10 they don’t have one, they just heard that said sometime and they are just repeating it. On the very rare occasion they do come up with something, you can probably answer it, just say, I get back to you, and I promise you a few minutes research online and you will find that their supposed contradiction has a very straight-forward answer Every once in a while, they bring one up.

The most common one I’ve ever heard is, where did Cain get his wife? Have you ever heard that, anybody ever said that to you where did Cain get his wife. You see, the appears to be a problem but only because most people know the bare bones of the creation story and they think like Adam and Eve only had two children, Cain and Abel, and Cain killed able. So how did get his wife. Well let me give you the answer to that one for free.

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

(Genesis 5: 4)

Adam had a daughter, and it stands to reason at the beginning of the human race he could and would have married his sister, Now you might say, that’s a problem, that’s incest. You can’t marry you sister, We know today that if two close siblings marry each other and have children the mathematical possibilities of a genetic weakness coming out in their children is greater if their close relatives, so that is forbidden today. But suppose you had perfect parents physically, unaffected by sin and there weren’t any weaknesses in the genetic line at that point. If your mother and father was Adam and Eve, well that aspect wouldn’t have been a problem would it.

It took thousand of years for the effect of sin to affect the physical deterioration of the family line of Adam demonstrated by the slow decline in life expectancy demonstrated through the various family trees depicted as one progresses through the book of Genesis. The prohibition against it came many, many years later, over a 1000 years later, in the Mosaic law, so that’s not a contradiction. I bring it up because it’s the most common contradiction, the one I hear the most,

But that doesn’t answer the fact that in the Book of Acts in the New Testament Stephen gives his account of these events and he says.

Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.

(Acts 7: 11-14)

So how do you reconcile 70? Versus 75 well. Look again at verse 14 it actually says Joseph called his father Jacob, and all of his relatives to him, 75 people.  Do you see that? What does it say? Does it say that 75 people went to Egypt? No, it says he called 75 people to go to Egypt. It doesn’t say that 75 people actually went. So, there is technically not a contradiction between Acts 7:14 and Genesis 46:27, because Genesis. 46 verse 27 says all the persons of the House of Jacob went to Egypt were 70 in number. Therefore, Joseph called 75 people and 70 showed up.

Right, let’s go back to Genesis 46 and let me finish the chapter and try to summarize what’s going on here. We’ve gone all the way down to verse 27. Let’s pick it up in verse 28.

Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen.

(Genesis 46: 28)

What happens here is they get close to Egypt, and they send Judah one of Jacob’s sons, to go see Joseph and say we’re here, where do we go now?  And it tells us Joseph sent them to the land of Goshen.

Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father, Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.”

(Genesis 46: 29-30)

Alright, Jacob says I’ve gotten my long-lost son back, I am happy to die now. So, all this is telling us is that they got to Egypt, and Jacob is at peace in finding his long-lost son. 

However, I want to pause here because this is this is a unit, it’s the end of an episode in this story, in spite of the lack of a chapter break it is actually then end of this part of the story. 

The point of this story so far, is they left Canaan and they have finally made it to Egypt, and they brought a total of 70 people with them and there is this fantastic reunion between Jacob and his son Joseph. They had not seen each other in 23 years [so Bible experts say], so you can imagine the absolute joy and ecstatic experience they had when they met each other. I think it’s a very simple story that tells us that 70 people went from Canaan to Egypt, I mean, that’s basically the narrative of the story. The only significant part of this is the first part of the story, which I pointed out is when Jacob left, he paused and made a sacrifice and then he got word from God that he was doing was OK. Please note, God didn’t appear to him before he decided to go, he confirmed it when he was on his way, that and I think that’s probably one of the significant things about this passage. The fact that Jacob based his decision on common sense. He made a decision that was not only in the will of God but furthered the will of God because God said I’m going to use this to get you down to Egypt, and I’m going to make you a great nation in Egypt. So, his commonsense decision was not against the will of God, it was in the will of God and yet furthered the will of God.

I’d like to make that a simple basis for making a decision is common sense. Let me clarify my position on what we can learn here, assuming there is no scripture to the contrary, proceed according to your best judgment, whilst at the same time continue with prayer for guidance, we can have confidence that the Lord will either bless the decision or else overrule and redirect. Isn’t that an amazing comfort to know that. So, here’s the point. I want to make today. It’s an incredibly simple point, but it needs to be made when there is no clear statement, principle, or example in the scripture for making a decision use common sense.

Now, the reason I think this is important is because in the past I have been a pastor and, in my experience, people seeking the will of God in their decision making usually fell into to one of two camps.

Those who were paralyzed in their decision making because they were waiting for God to move supernaturally in revealing the next steps for them or those who just didn’t know how to use there God given common sense Of all the people that I’ve ever come to talk to me or ask me questions about their future decisions in my role as Pastor, I would say that most time the answer to their question is nothing more than common sense. 

Recently a pastor I know contacted me because he had need for advice, now I couldn’t imagine why he wanted advice from me. He was highly intelligent ordained minister, with a theology degree and had a great knowledge of the scripture and had been in church leadership for much longer than me. What does he need to come to talk to me about advice? Well, I came to find out the church that he had been pastoring had been surviving on past financial resources and in spite of some growth was running out of money. So, by mutual consent, he agreed to resign. Now without a job he lived for a while on his severance, but the bottom line is that he had ran run out of money and was fearful of having to move back with to live with his parents and at the age of 40.

As I listened to him, described the details of his dilemma, I learned that because he had lived in church provided house with all the bills paid since leaving university and for long a long time he had an extremely low outgoings and no house bill to pay for nearly 20 years, but he had saved no money. He had expected to stay in a manse and maybe even be allowed to retire into one when he finished his time as a minister. Now he could pray that the Lord would open a door for some other kind of ministry that I said was a good thing to do, but I also said you should not wait for the Lord to open the door for ministry and do nothing. He was planning to retrain as a teacher so in my opinion, he should move home for that period back into his family home and during his training set aside his grants and save to have a deposit for a house in 2 years’ time.

What he was suggesting to me was just common sense? Maybe he could get a part time job to save a more or a couple of years. I would have done that and heartbeat, when I was young, even at 40. That just seems to me to be common sense. I’m amazed at how many people have asked me for advice and the advice needed is nothing more than common sense. However, what I’m saying is common sense isn’t common anymore. I’m amazed at how uncommon common sense is, so let me repeat again. 

This is the point, when there’s no clear indication in Scripture as what you should do, then try applying some sanctified common sense. The scripture says there’s safety in a multitude of counselors, so if you don’t think you’re qualified with knowledge in a particular area go talk like handful of other people. Wise people, spiritually minded people and get some common sense from them. If you don’t have good understanding about a subject, go get it, don’t feel like you’ve done something wrong. If God hasn’t spoken, he expects you to use your common sense.  

In reading this we can be thankful for the fact that through his words in the bible he has given us plenty of wisdom that can give us advise and direction in so many areas of our life. We can also be thankful for people who have studied this word before us, so that if we are new to it we can go to people who are experienced and have walked the path we need to walk and can give us advice. I hope you can be thankful that you have a sound mind. A sound mind that can think through situations and make common sense decisions and not be overly influenced by materialism and thereby not only stay in Gods will but go further into his will in the future.