Devotional Hours Within the Bible

Nothing is more beautiful than an ideal home. Love rules in all its life. The members are as one, in their fellowship and association. Each thinks of the comfort, the convenience, the happiness of the others. In the home of Isaac - all these conditions seem to have been reversed. The veil is lifted and the life of this chosen family is revealed as sadly divided, rent by strifes and jealousies. There is no semblance of love in the home...

Isaac was a child of old age, his father being a hundred, and his mother ninety, when he was born. His name means "laughter," thus being a constant reminder of the gladness of his mother's heart when she learned that she was to have a son. It is a good thing to be a joy, to make life a song, wherever one goes. As to character, Isaac was meek, gentle, and...

With the birth of Isaac, Abraham saw the beginning of the fulfillment of the Divine promise. He was to have a great posterity. For a long while, he had no child - but at last one was born to him. Yet Isaac was little more than a link. He had none of the greatness of Abraham. One writer thinks this was partly due to his father's greatness - he was dwarfed and weakened by growing up under the shadow of Abraham....

Abraham ended his intercession, and the two angels went on their way. In the evening they reached the gate of Sodom. There they found Lot sitting in his place, ready to show hospitality to strangers. When he saw the heavenly messengers approaching, he arose and greeted them cordially and warmly. He invited them to stop with him in his house as his guests. Lot understood the laws of hospitality and failed not in...

Three travelers came one day to Abraham's tent door. They were strangers - he did not know them. Yet he treated them with warm-hearted hospitality. That was the custom of the East. Kindness was always shown to the stranger. No man's tent was his own alone - it was his and God's, and its shelter and comfort must be shared with any other who were passing through.

Abraham rose...

Lot had made a "good deal," as men say, in getting for his own such a rich section of the land. No doubt he congratulated himself on his fine fortune. We are not told whether he showed any gratitude toward Abraham, or whether he was one of those men who take all they can get, thanking neither God nor their fellow-man for any favor. There is need for cultivating a spirit of gratitude towards those who are kind to...

Genesis 12:10-20 Genesis 12:13

The story begins in Egypt. How did it happen that Abraham was there? Why had he left his promised land? We have the account in full. There was a famine in Canaan. Even the godly, living under the Divine guidance, do not have unbroken prosperity. The child of God is not promised exemption from the trials of life...

Genesis 12:1-10

The purpose of the Bible is not to give the history of the human race - but to tell the story of redemption. In a sense, this begins with Abraham. No doubt there always were good men in the world, although the number of them at times may have been very small. The Flood left only one...

Whatever the physical cause of the Flood may have been, the moral cause was sin! This is made clear in the narrative in Genesis. It was because of the wickedness of the people - that God determined to destroy the human race! The wickedness hinted at, was startling and vile. We cannot understand the connection between the Divine judgment and

The history of the world is not told in detail in Genesis. We have only a glimpse here and there of the life of the first days. But a few names are preserved from antediluvian generations. The people seem to have lived long - but not to much purpose. All we learn of most of them - is that they lived so many hundreds of years, and...

Cain was the first child born on earth. The coming of the first baby, is always an important event in a home - but the birth of the first child in the human family, was an event of peculiar importance. Mothers have many dreams and hopes for their babies. The first mother had her dreams. She seems to have been expecting that her son would be the "seed of the woman" referred to in the...

The story of the first temptation is intensely interesting. We do not need to perplex ourselves with its form. There is enough in it that is plain and simple and of practical value, and we should not let our minds be confused by its mystery. Whatever the broader meaning of this first temptation may have been, everyone must meet a like personal experience, and hence this Genesis story has for us a most vital interest.

Everyone must be...

Genesis is the book of beginnings. The first chapter is one of the most wonderful portions of the Bible. It takes us back far beyond all beginnings. Its first words are among the sublimest ever written, "In the beginning - God." We are now in the midst of a vast universe full of life - but there was a period when there was nothing - not a grain of sand, not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a leaf, nor the...