Bible Study - Dene's Blog

Read the Buttons

10/16/2025 0 Comments

Buttons! Buttons! Read the buttons!” and so for the fortieth time that week I sit down with my two year old grandson Judah and read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. And every time we reach the page where Pete loses his last button but doesn’t let it get him down because “buttons come and buttons go,” and where Pete looks down at his buttonless shirt hanging open and the author asks, “what does he see?” Judah springs up, holds his little arms high over his head with a big grin on his face and says, “His bel-ly but-ton!” with exactly the same amount of glee and excitement as the first time he ever heard the book read.

He loves that book and the other two Pete the Cat books he has, as well as the one called Click, Clack, Boo, plus the one based on Ezekiel 37 called Dem Bones. That week we babysat we learned by the third day to be careful what we said or it would remind him of one of those books and he would toddle off to find it and ask for it to be read not once again, but three, four, five times again.

Yet here we sit with a shelf full of Bibles, every version you can imagine, amplified and not, written in and bare, paragraphed and versed, and now even some in large print, and do we ever have the same amount of desire to read it as a two year old who can’t even read it to himself yet? He knows those “Pete” books so well you can leave off a word and he will fill it in. You can say the wrong word and he will shout, “No! No! It’s ______!” You can mention one word completely out of context and he will immediately think of that book and go looking for it.

Yet we seem loathe to pick up what is supposed to be our spiritual food and drink, the lamp that lights our way in the dark, and the weapon to fight our spiritual battles. We moan over daily reading programs, especially when we get to Leviticus or the genealogies. We complain when the scripture reading at church is longer than 5 verses, especially if we are one of those congregations that, like the people in Nehemiah, stand at the reading of God’s Word. We gripe when the Bible class teacher asks us to read more than one chapter before next week’s class. What in the world is wrong with us?

This little two-year-old puts us to shame. Just from hearing it read, he can quote practically a whole book, several of them, in fact. His whole face lights up when you read it to him yet again. I have to admit, Keith and I would occasionally try to hide those books by the end of a day. We may not do that with God’s Word, at least not literally, but leaving it to sit on the shelf and gather dust isn’t much different.

I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble, Psalms 119:162-165.

Dene Ward

School Days

10/2/2025 0 Comments

I could hardly believe it when Silas reached kindergarten age. How in the world had that happened so quickly? When he found out he had to go back the second week, he said, “You mean I have to go again?!”

“Yes,” his mother told him, “there is a lot to learn.”

“But I already learned,” he said, sure that now he would get to stay home with her and his little brother. Of course, he found out otherwise quickly.

I know that no one would say it out loud, but sometimes I get the feeling some of my brothers and sisters have the same attitude. “I already learned!” which is supposed to justify their never studying for a Bible class, never attending an extra Bible study, never darkening the meetinghouse doors for anything but the Lord’s Supper, as if it were a magic potion that would save them that week regardless of anything else they did. What they have “learned” are usually the pet scriptures, the catchphrases, the simplistic theories that try to explain away the profound depth of the Scriptures—all those things that smack so much of a denominational mindset.

I have amazing women in my Bible classes, and let me tell you, most of them are neither young nor new Christians. These are women of a certain age, as we often say, who have sat on pews for longer than many others have been alive, yet they see the value in learning still more.

And that does not necessarily mean learning something new. Sometimes the learning has more to do with a deeper comprehension, uncovering another level of wisdom, or an additional way of applying a fact to one’s life, leading to a changed behavior or attitude. When I see someone in their later years actually change their lives because of a discovery made in Bible class, I am reminded yet again of the power of the Word. The most amazing thing about this living and active Word, is that if you are not blinded by self-satisfaction, every time you study it you can see something new. It’s like peeling an onion—you keep finding another layer underneath.

You may have “already learned” a great many things, but if that is your attitude, you will never grow beyond the boundaries you have placed upon yourself with that notion. Like a kindergartner who has learned his letters and numbers, you will be stuck in the basics, the “first principles,” and never come to a fuller comprehension of the magnitude of God’s wisdom and His plan for you. If you are still deciding how long to keep a preacher based upon how much you “enjoy” his preaching and how many times he visited you in the hospital, if you are mouthing things like “I never heard of such a thing” or “I am (or am not) comfortable with that,” with not a scripture reference in sight, you still have a long way to go.

God wants meat-eaters at His banquet. That means you need to chew a little harder and longer. Yes, it takes time away from recess to sit in class and learn some more. Yes, you have to process some new information which may not be as comfortable as you are used to. Your brain may even ache a little, but that is how you learn, by stretching those mental muscles instead of vegetating on the pew.

You may think you have “already learned,” but I bet you even my kindergartner grandson figured out very shortly that there was a whole lot more he needed to know. He’s a pretty smart kid. How about you?

Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk…Isa 28:9.

Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto perfection…Heb 6:1.

Bacon Grease

8/5/2025 0 Comments

I was reading the Q and A column in a cooking magazine based in Boston. “You’re kidding,” I spoke aloud when a reader asked how to dispose of bacon grease without clogging her sink. Dispose of bacon grease? Keith was equally appalled, but on a whim he asked a friend, who is originally from New England, what he did with his bacon grease.

              “Why?’ he asked with a suspicious look on his face. “What’s it good for?”

              What’s it good for? I guess this is one of those cultural things. Bacon grease to a Northerner must mean “garbage.” Bacon grease to a Southerner means “gold.”

              My mother kept a coffee can of it in her refrigerator. I do the same. My grandmothers both kept a tin of it on their stoves. They used it every day, just as their mothers had. In the South bacon grease is the fat of choice. In the old days only better-off farmers had cows and butter. The poorer families had a pig, and they used every square inch of that animal. Even the bones were put into a pot of beans and many times the few flecks of meat that fell off of them into the pot were all the meat they had for a week. In a time when people needed fat in their diets (imagine that!), the lard was used as shortening in everything from biscuits to pie crust. And the grease? A big spoonful for seasoning every pot of peas, beans, and greens, more to fry okra, potatoes, and squash in, a few spoonfuls stirred into a pan of cornbread batter, and sometimes it was spread on bread in place of butter.

              I use it to shorten cornbread, flavor vegetables, and even to pop popcorn. Forget that microwave stuff. If you have never popped real popcorn in bacon grease, you haven’t lived. I am more health-conscious than my predecessors—in fact, we don’t even eat that much bacon anymore. But when we do, I save the drippings, scraping every drop from the pan, and while most of the time I use a mere teaspoon of olive oil to sauté my squash from the summer garden, once a year we get it with dollop of bacon grease. Any artery can stand once a year, right?

              As I said, it’s a cultural thing. Things that are precious to Southerners may not be so to Northerners, and vice versa. Don’t you think the same should be true with Christians? What’s garbage to the world should be gold to Christians.

              One thing that comes to mind is the Word of God. In a day when it is labeled a book of myths, when it is belittled and its integrity challenged, that Word should be precious to God’s people. David wrote a psalm in which at least seven times he speaks of loving God’s word, Psalm 119.

              We often speak of “loving God” or “loving Jesus,” but you cannot do either without a love of the Word, a love shown in obedience. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the words that you hear are not mine, but the Father’s who sent me, John 14:24. Jesus even defined family, the people you love more than anyone or anything else, as “those who hear my word and do it,” Luke 8:21. Surely the ultimate love was shown by the martyrs depicted in Rev 6:9 who were slain “for the Word of God.”

              Do we love God’s Word that much? Then why isn’t it in our hands several times a day? Why aren’t we reading more than a quota chapter a day? Why can’t we cite more than one or two proof-texts, memorized only to show our neighbors they are wrong?

              Bacon grease may be gold to a Southern cook, but it is hardly in the same category. Yet I think I may have heard Christians arguing more about when to use bacon grease than when to read the Bible. Maybe we are showing the effects of a culture other than a Christian’s.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. John 14:21

Dene Ward

Ping Pong Balls

7/31/2025 0 Comments

Four year old Silas and I were visiting one of the rooms depicting the ten plagues during Vacation Bible School. Number seven was hail with thunder and lightning and fire running along the ground, the robed narrator told us as he stood before drawn curtains. The lights were dimmed, one of the curtains pulled open, and suddenly white hail fell from the sky, and glowing fire ran along the floor. The children oohed and aahed and squealed with delight. Then the curtain was drawn again, but not quite before the lights came up and I saw white ping-pong balls scattered all over the floor. The narrator quickly continued the tale, moving onto the plague of locusts depicted behind the other curtain in the room.
            Several minutes later we left for the next stop on our “journey” and, as we did, I leaned over and whispered to Silas, “Wow! Did you see that hail?”
            “Yes,” he said, and then added, “Hail looks a lot like ping-pong balls, doesn’t it?”
            I wasn’t about to ruin the magic of the evening for him. The point of the week was to learn that God was the only God and He protected His people, and the church was doing an admirable job of it. Me? I never would have even thought of using ping-pong balls.
            But sometime in the future it will be time to teach Silas this lesson: if someone tells you it’s hail, but it looks like ping-pong balls, check it out yourself! Do you know how many people have been deceived by false teaching, even though the truth was plainly in front of them, just because they wouldn’t question their “pastor,” their “elder,” their “reverend,” or their “priest?” Keith and I each have held studies where the student said, “Yes, I can see that, but that’s not what my _______ says.” Before much longer, the studies stopped. Why do we think our leaders are infallible?
            Look at Acts 6:7. So the word of God continued to spread, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem continued to grow rapidly. Even a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. The priests were teachers of the Jewish faith. Yet even they could see when they were wrong and convert to the Truth. Why not your leader, whatever it is you call him? Instead, Keith was told one time, “How dare you argue with a priest!”
            Paul was a man well-educated in Judaism, a man who lived “in all good conscience,” yet even he was convinced that he needed to change. He was also a Pharisee, one who respected the Law and knew it inside out. Many others Pharisees were also converted to Christianity (Acts 15:5). Despite their advanced knowledge, they discovered they were wrong about something and had the honesty to change.
            God will hold you accountable for your decisions, for your beliefs, and for your actions. Anyone who taught you error will also pay a price, but their mistake won’t save you. Jesus said, If the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit, Matt 15:14.
            Don’t believe everything you hear. If it looks like ping-pong balls instead of hail, check it out yourself. Don’t fall for a lie because of who told you that lie. Doing so means you love that person more than you love God and His Truth.

With all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thes 2:10-12.

A Thirty Second Devo

7/14/2025 0 Comments

This is why you should invest in a numberless Bible.

Segmenting [the Bible into chapters and verses] may have been a boon for checking references, but it was otherwise a disaster. It encouraged proof-texting, obscured the integrity of narratives, and dismembered cohesive discourses under the control of inspired authors into fragments manipulated by uninspired readers.

Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

My Best Students 4 Making Comments

6/26/2025 0 Comments

I have had some wonderful comments come up in my classes. Women who were not too embarrassed to share a moment of vulnerability, a mistake in judgment, or a light bulb moment have all had great impacts on their listeners. I have come to love these women who have faced adversity in many ways and kept their faith, who have handled doubt and come out stronger. Without these students, my classes would have been ho-hum at best.
            I haven’t much to add to this after the last subject we discussed. Comments can be motivated by practically all the things that questions can be, both good and bad. As we said last week, we won’t discuss the negative attitudes. No one who cares enough to read these things is likely to have bad attitudes. The same guideline goes for this topic as that one: think of your classmates when you make your comments. I honestly believe that love is what has made my best students so willing to share—to keep others from the same painful mistakes or help them through similar experiences.
            I especially appreciate a student who sees that I have not communicated well and has a simpler way to say what she has understood. More than once it has instantly cleared confusion from the other faces. When you do this, though, please make it brief. Too many times we spoil what would have been wonderful by adding too many unnecessary words, words that dilute the effect of the simple explanation and make it once again muddled.
            “Muddled” is the perfect word. When you put fresh mint, for example, in the bottom of the pitcher and pound on it with a wooden spoon, you are “muddling” the drink you are making. Instead of being plain tea, it will now be mint tea, or peach, or raspberry, or whatever else you “muddled.” It will no longer be plain and simple tea. In fact, you might not be able to tell what the initial beverage was before you “muddled” all those flavors in it. The simpler the comment, the fewer the words, the better.
            And may I say this as kindly as I know how? Class is not the place to show everyone how much you know. I have been in mixed Bible classes where people in the class practically took over and taught it from their seats. I call these “preacher comments.” I’m sorry, dear brothers. I have the utmost respect for what you do, but you are definitely the worst offenders. Then there are the ones who seem to think no one can say it as well as they can. As in the first instance, comments should be brief and to the point.
            Comments should also be on the subject. Any time I hear, “I know this is off topic, but...” I groan inwardly. We are supposed to be learning what the teacher is supposed to be teaching us, not some other lesson someone in the pew decided on. The elders have a reason for the classes they choose—at least they should—and no one else should decide what needs to be taught. The shepherds are feeding the flock the things the flock needs, from careful observation and thought. The man in the pew may be feeding them what he thinks they need, and in reality, what he wants them to hear, usurping authority in the process.
            And we should make this clear too—just because a class was full of comments does not mean it was a good class. It may very well mean the teacher completely lost control. If you remember nothing else, remember this: anything anyone can come up with off the cuff is far less beneficial than the things the teacher has spent hours preparing—at least it had better be.
            So, comments? Yes, please. Brief, on topic, clear and helpful. Always think before you speak—but then that is perfect advice any time.
            My students excel in all the areas we have discussed. They are excited learners who work hard and consider one another before themselves. Together we make a safe place to discuss the things we have all wondered about or that trouble us, without having to worry about anyone judging us or spreading our comments and private experiences beyond the classroom doors. What is said in class, stays in class—that is our rule. If every Bible class followed their examples, the church would be more knowledgeable and more loving, just as these women are becoming week after week.

Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me, Rom 15:2,3.

Dene Ward

My Best Students 3 Asking Questions

6/25/2025 0 Comments

I love students who ask questions, and most of mine do.   Please ask your questions. Many times when one of my students asks a question, someone speaks up and says, “I was wondering that too.” A teacher who doesn’t welcome questions ought to have a seat and stay there. Questions show you have been listening, and even better, thinking about what you have heard, the answer to every good teacher’s prayer.
            My classes are peppered with questions. I am thrilled that these ladies are not too embarrassed to ask, and confident in how I will accept those questions. Yes, there are unwelcome questions, but the difference between them and the good questions should be obvious to anyone.
            This guideline takes care of almost everything: don’t be selfish in your questions. Consider the effects on the other class members. Consider who might be listening to you, including babes in Christ and outsiders from the community. Remember that there may be visitors passing through or people moving in, “shopping” for a new church home. Consideration for others should be the main characteristic of a Christian, even in Bible classes. I seldom have a problem with questions like that, unlike my brothers who teach auditorium classes, and my wonderful students deserve all the credit for that. Here are some other guidelines, most of which I have never had to deal with.
            Questions that are so far off the subject they give everyone mental whiplash are not appropriate. One wonders, in fact, if the student has been listening and considering the class material at all, or simply letting his mind wander. A good teacher arrives with a goal and a plan to reach it. When you dig a pothole in the road with an unrelated question, you can seriously hinder progress in the journey to that goal.
            Recently a teacher I know was asked, “Would you please comment on…” and because the subject was totally removed from the point of the lesson and not one he could have intelligently answered without study, he simply said, “No, that’s not something I am prepared to talk about.” Some might criticize him, but I won’t. He had the best interests of the class at heart. As their leader, it was up to him to reach the goal of the lesson, not be sidetracked by something that didn’t even have a black and white answer in the scriptures. It’s time we supported our teachers and the risks they take to their reputation, when anything they say can be misconstrued and often is, instead of sitting back taking the easy, judgmental way out and joining the bandwagon in criticizing them. If you have one of those questions, please save it for private conversations with the teacher. Do not disrupt the learning of others because you have a private problem.
            This is especially true in the Sunday morning adult class where you never know who may be there. A smaller class with a defined sub-purpose of encouragement may stop for a moment if someone is in need. Many of my women’s classes have done exactly that, but even then, we were conscious of who was present. If I deemed it inappropriate at that particular moment, I gently suggested a private moment after class. Usually several others, mature women who made it a point to be aware of what was going on, stayed with me and the one in need received the attention she required. I learned this the hard way, after allowing classes to continue on a distracting course, which ultimately led to damaged relationships because I was too afraid of hurting feelings. Tell me which is worse, a permanently injured bond between sisters in the Lord or a momentarily bruised ego that was soothed as soon as possible? We have said this before—teachers must sometimes make hard, spur-of-the-moment decisions. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t teach.
            Then there are those who seek to mask an agenda with their questions, or who have a major hobby they wish to broach at every opportunity, or who have a vendetta against the teacher. I would assume that none of those even care to be reading this, so we won’t deal with them here. Let me just add this: I have seen young teachers in adult classes discouraged to the point of never teaching again because no one but him was brave enough to take on a sinner. Shame on the leadership of a church when that happens.
            As I said, the wrong questions are usually obvious. Sometimes, though, an honest person simply needs a little direction. It is easy when you are in the middle of a personal problem, to forget one’s obligations to others.
            A class full of questioners is a teacher’s dream, a dream I have fulfilled every week by some wonderful women. Don’t be embarrassed to ask the questions that need asking.

After three days they found [Jesus] sitting in the Temple, listening to them and asking them questions, Luke 2:46.

Dene Ward

My Best Students 2 Preparation

6/24/2025 0 Comments

One thing I seldom have is an unprepared student. I don’t think it’s because my lessons are so interesting. I don’t think it’s because they are so much fun to do. Most of the time they take a good hour, and often more. Yet my students show up again and again with something written down. It may not always be what I am after, and usually that is my fault, but at least they tried and I am grateful to them for the effort.
            Every teacher appreciates a prepared student. If you are given something to read, then read it. If you are given an outline, then go over it. Make a few notes, look up the scriptures cited, and list any questions that might have risen in your mind. The teacher may answer them in the class, but then again, s/he may not.
            I usually write my own Bible class material, including scriptures to read and questions to answer. I try to design questions that will lead the students to their own discoveries. I know it has worked when they arrive excited, hardly able to contain themselves over the things they have learned and the ideas they have unearthed in all that digging. Usually those ideas are what I am aimed at, but we cannot get there if the preparation wasn’t done beforehand, and these women usually have. If we had to spend the time on the fundamentals for the unprepared, the excitement would die in those who have done the work. In fact, I usually continue on for the sake of the prepared. If someone is left behind because of their own laziness, why should the others suffer? Maybe they will do better the next time. Sometimes being a teacher means you must make hard decisions, and sometimes it means a little discipline toward the student. But I seldom have that problem due to these dedicated students.
            As to those who do prepare but feel like they must have missed something: it may very well be the fault of the person who wrote the material—in this case, me. Sometimes a question is poorly worded. I know that despite copious and careful editing, I still cannot see every way that a question might be interpreted. So answer to the best of your ability—that’s what my ladies do. Why should you be embarrassed if it’s the questioner’s fault and not yours? I can guarantee you that even if you missed the point, you still learned something from reading the Word of God and thinking about it.
            But there is an even more important preparation—an open mind. An openly skeptical student usually thinks he is keeping a teacher humble, or being careful with the truth, either of which excuses his behavior, to him anyway. What he’s really doing is hurting himself because he is refusing to consider anything he hasn’t already learned. Certainly a student should “beware of false teachers,” but everyone deserves a fair hearing. Skepticism has already judged and convicted before hearing a word. Any teacher who has spent hours preparing and dares to put himself in front of a group deserves better than that.
            Especially in an ongoing class of busy women, teachers understand when preparation time is sometimes impossible. As a teacher whose lessons are more complicated than most, I understand better than most. So should the student stay away if she is not prepared?
            Absolutely not. Many have come on anyway, and for that I thank them. If you have that open mindset, you can still learn. They always bring a pen and listen and write. If you have done this and still find yourself hopelessly lost, rather than delay the rest of the class, ask for a private session. I have held those more than once, and teachers should be happy to do it. But don’t ever deprive yourself of an hour of encouragement and exhortation with your sisters because you feel embarrassed. Have you caught onto this yet? Embarrassment will get in the way of your being a good student more than practically anything else. Don’t let the Devil have his way with you. You can still learn something, even if you have not prepared the lesson. Your mind will be stimulated to greater understanding and insights.
            So here is your first lesson, care of my wonderful students: Prepare your lesson as well as you are able; prepare your mind every time.

…and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, Eph 6:15.

Dene Ward

My Best Students 1

6/23/2025 2 Comments

I taught my first Bible class when I was sixteen and an elder pulled me out of the high school class because the third grade teacher hadn’t shown up. I had no material and no prep time. Why he chose me when there were plenty of able-bodied adults in a congregation of 150, I still don’t know, but the children and I got through the ten plagues with a combination of raucous laughter and wide-eyed amazement—them at God’s power, and me at having survived those forty-five minutes.
            I’ve been teaching ever since, from the baby class when mine were that size—and don’t let anyone tell you a one year old can’t learn anything—all the way up to middle school—another place we seriously underestimate the capabilities of our children. I wrote a workbook for them called “Did You Ever Wonder?” exploring all those things you wonder about in Bible class but are afraid to ask. It was given to someone else to teach once, who said, “There’s no way these kids will get this,” even after I had taught it twice myself. So the book came back to me and I taught it yet again to a group who “got” every bit of it.
            I’ve taught at least one women’s class everywhere I have been. That’s a group not only underestimated, but which often underestimates itself. Most of the material for women, a sister I recently met said, is “spun sugar.” In some places women’s studies are limited to being a good wife and mother, which leaves a lot of women out. Yes, those things ought to be taught, and recently have not been. It has become too popular to follow the mainstream media and disparage the men, which is exactly why I have written a study for wives. It, too, is deeper than the standard work on the subject, because women can dig just as deeply as the men. Their minds are just as capable of complex reasoning. They must be or they couldn’t run their homes. That’s exactly who I cater to in my classes—meat eaters who are tired of milk, or even the glorified milk called custard. Women are not spiritual invalids.
            I have had to drop my children’s classes since 2005. Children need dependable continuity, and with my health issues and increasing disability, I cannot be counted on. Adults can understand if an emergency arises, if a weak body just cannot manage on a particular day, or if a medication wreaks havoc instead of comfort. Children can’t. I nearly cried when a recent group graduated that I had never taught. But such is life; things change, and most of the time people get along just fine without you.
            Along the way I have had some wonderful students, and it seemed good to tell you about them, so they will get the thanks they deserve, but also so you can learn from them how to be a good Bible class student yourselves. Don’t think that this is self-serving. By emulating these women, you will get far more out of your classes, and so will your classmates. People who disrupt classes, even accidentally, are hindering others, not helping, and we all know how Jesus felt about people who cast stumbling blocks in front of others, particularly the babes.
            So please join me this week. I hope that what you learn from these remarkable women will help far beyond these few weeks.

Help me to understand what your precepts mean. Then I can meditate on your marvelous teachings, Psalm 119:27, NET.

Dene Ward

Figure It Out!

5/26/2025 0 Comments

Today I am giving you a list of passages. You may look at them and say, "So what?" It may look like a bunch of useless information to you. But first, should we automatically discard anything in the Bible and label it useless? And second, wait till you see what I can do with these.

All of these passages are in the book of Genesis:
11:26 Terah was 70 when he had his first son.
11:32 Terah died at 205.
12:4 Abram was 75 when Terah died and he left Haran.
16:16 Abram was 86 when Ishmael was born.
17:1ff Abraham was 99 when circumcision was instituted and his name was changed.
17:17; 21:5 Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90 when Isaac was born.
23:1 Sarah was 127 when she died.
25:7 Abraham was 175 when he died.
25:20 Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah.
25:26 Isaac was 60 when Jacob and Esau were born.
26:34,35 Esau was 40 when he married to the two Hittite women.
30:25,26 Joseph was born at the end of Jacob's 14 years of labor.
31:41 Jacob was in Haran 20 years altogether.
35:16 Benjamin was born on Jacob's trip home.
35:28 Isaac was 180 when he died.
37:2 Joseph was 17 when his brothers sold him.
41:46 Joseph was 30 when he interpreted Pharaoh's dream.
45:6 Joseph was 39 when the family moved to Egypt.
47:9 Jacob was 130 when the family moved to Egypt.
47:28 Jacob died at 147.
50:26 Joseph died at 110.

               So what is the point? I imagine that you are just like me and have mental pictures of the stories in Genesis because of the way they were told to you as a child. Some of those mental pictures are completely wrong. Here are just a few things you can figure out using the list above.
               Abraham could not possibly have been the eldest son and if Haran, who died in Ur, was the oldest, then nephew Lot, Haran's son, could have been older than Uncle Abraham!
               When Pharaoh thought Sarah was so beautiful that he whisked her into his harem, she was 65 years old!
               When Isaac said, "I am old," in 27:2, he was indeed 137, but was certainly not on his deathbed because he lived another 43 years.
               Jacob was 77 when he fled to Haran and 84 when he married Leah and Rachel. He had been in Haran a month before he fell for Rachel and bargained his labor to marry her. So much for sweet young "love at first sight."
               Jacob and Esau were 15 when their grandfather Abraham died. That means they had plenty of time to hear the old stories, including how their grandfather had felt so strongly about finding the woman who became their mother that he wouldn't even let Isaac leave the land. Yet, Esau still married Hittite women, a tribe of Canaanite, whom they should also have known were cursed since the flood.
               Isaac was alive when Joseph "disappeared," but died 12 years before he was found in Egypt.
               Joseph was 56 when Jacob died.
               Depending upon how much time you want to put into it, you can figure out a lot of other things too. In fact, you should probably print this list out and then keep it tucked into your Bible in the book of Genesis. It will not only give you a more accurate picture of these events, but it might help you see them as real people, people you can learn from in far more ways than you ever thought possible.

These things happened to them as examples and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come 1Cor10:11.

Dene Ward