Dear Brothers & Sisters,

The last two weeks have been weird for me, dealing with a minor dental surgery that I hadn’t planned for, and then sort of helplessly being knocked around by the healing process while trying to keep functioning in all the most important areas. I’ve been in and out of work frequently, and one of the things that happened to me was that I stopped doing my daily devotion in the TABLETALK magazine.

Now, you all know that I’ve been recommending TABLETALK for the past few months, and I’m really happy that in September we’ve arranged for every family in our church to start receiving these monthly. What you might not have known is that each work day, Brandon Belcher (who is one of our deacons) and I sit down and read the devotion together…but my little procedure messed that schedule up.

Well yesterday we began again, and wouldn’t you know it, when we opened the book to the devotion of the day the title that was staring back at us was, “COVETOUSNESS”….

Dear Friends,

As I am on vacation this week with my family, I found myself sitting on the beach this morning thinking of you.  This was not deliberate, but quite natural.  Nearly seven years of pastoring has changed me – indeed, it would change anyone.  I thought to write to you that I might settle my mind.

Dear Friends,

Last night our Wednesday Night Bible Study looked at the passage from Genesis 16 about Abram, Sarai, and Hagar.  As I’ve considered the passage throughout the evening and into this morning, I wanted to take a few minutes and review it on our website.  I hope it will be a blessing to you.

Verses 1-2:  Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.  And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.”  And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.

In this passage Sarai is imagining a world where sexual behavior can be somehow disconnected from the spiritual reality of sexual union.  She wants Abram to take her servant, but not as a wife, only as a vessel for bearing children.  She imagines that the child from this relationship will belong to her instead of Hagar, saying, “I shall obtain children by her.”  She imagines that Hagar will remain a lowly servant even after bearing an heir to Abram’s great household.  Central to her plan is the assumption that Abram and Hagar can lay down with each other without any impact to the actual relationships the three of them have with one another.

This is madness.