Living Uprightly

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

LIVING UPRIGHTLY

Gen 30:31-36

31 "What shall I give you?" he asked. "Don't give me anything," Jacob replied. "But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: 32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen." 34 "Agreed," said Laban. "Let it be as you have said." 35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban's flocks.

NIV

From the text, we see that Laban was, once again, dishonest in his dealings with Jacob. The agreement was that all the sheep and goats spotted, dark-colored, or speckled were to be Jacob’s wages for nearly twenty years of service, after the fourteen years he served for his two wives. We already considered that Jacob now wanted something to take care of his own household. But we see the deception of Laban as after the agreement he takes all those spotted, dark-colored, and speckled sheep and goats and puts them in the care of his sons and has them journey three days from the flocks that Jacob was to care for. Our understanding is then when Jacob goes to care for the flocks of Laban to separate out the spotted, dark-colored, and speckled there is not a single one in the flock. We cannot be sure if Jacob fled ripped off, but we wonder how we would have responded to that type of situation from our employer. Although we will see next how Jacob handled the problem and after some years of breeding the flocks he became a very wealthy man, we have this truth about dealing with honesty with all people in our lives and never looking to find some advantage for ourselves at the cost of others as Laben did to Jacob. We know that God was with Jacob and he was to prosper so that he would become the nation of Israel through all his descendants. We also know that God is with us and knowing that we can have the confidence God will either guard us from those who would take advantage of us, or cause us to prosper despite our being deceived in some way. We know that we should be as wise or shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves per the instructions of Jesus. When we look into the Greek we see this instruction of Jesus as telling his disciples to be mindful of their interests, being prudent, wise, like a serpent, and innocent, without admixture of evil, that is not mixing pure with anything else, or to be free of guile. When we truly live like this we would be in perfect harmony within the church and within our dealings of whatever sort outside the church. The innocence of being a dove is not meant for us to be trampled on, but not to have any evil in our hearts, while we are dealing wisely, and thoughtfully in our dealings with others, however not taking advantage of them for our personal gain. We are told in Paul’s letter to the Philippians that we should do nothing out of selfish gain or vain conceit. However, we are to be humble and thus consider others better than ourselves. We are also told that we should not just look to our own benefit but also look to the benefit of others. It just makes sense to live uprightly before men and let God sort it all out.