160316 Lesson 11 Meeting God in the Old Testament as Restorer

Genesis 33:18, 20 reads:  “Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped before the city. . .  Then he erected an altar there and called it El-Elohe-Israel.”Translated, the name of Jacob’s altar is “God, the God of Israel.”  When Jacob chooses this name for his new altar, he probably doesn’t intend to make a statement of huge Scriptural significance.  His new name is Israel, God is his God, and he’s quite happy about that.  However, the name that Jacob applies to his altar can  be  applied  equally  well  to  the  entire  Old  Testament.    Those  thirty-nine  books  of  the  Bible  are  about God and how He is defined by His relationship with His chosen people.  God is the hero of the story.Often,  when  we  study  the  Old  Law,  we  do  so  on  a  small  scale  as  we  become  entranced  by  the  stories  of godly  men  ranging  from Abraham  to  Nehemiah.    Although  these  stories  are  instructive  and  important, sometimes they distract us from understanding God.  This textbook aims to correct that mistaken focus.  It divides  the  history  of  God’s  ancient  dealings  with  mankind  into  twelve  segments and  describes  each segment in terms of the aspect of God’s cha