A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to talk about the biblical character of Jacob (you can find that sermon here) whose story is in the book of Genesis from Chapter 25 on until the end of the book. Jacob is an interesting character in the Bible, much like his parents are (Isaac and Rebekah), and his grandparents, (Abraham and Sarah) as well.

Jacob is an interesting character for a number of reasons. He is crafty and smart. He is resourceful and resilient. He is passionate and in many ways quite relatable. But for the history of the Church, when it came to how to teach the story of Jacob, again like his parents and paternal grandparents as well, there has been a debate as to how the lessons of Jacob’s life should be relayed. The reason for this being that Jacob is a highly morally questionable character.

One of the first times Jacob plays a major role in the biblical story, we see him giving his brother an ultimatum. Either you starve to death, or you sell me your birthright (Gen 26). The next major arc involving Jacob was the topic of the sermon mentioned before, where Jacob, together with his mother, schemed to trick Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob in place of his brother. Following this, Jacob has a prolonged run-in with his father-in-law father, in which he, Jacob, found himself tricked (beginning in Gen 29). So, using methods not entirely understandable today outside of saying, “God was at work”, he tricked his father-in-law right back (Gen 30). Following this, we also see that Jacob played extreme favouritism among his immediate family and children, to the point that they grow up to lash out against their sibling in an extreme way (Gen 37).

None of this is to say that Jacob is purely a scoundrel, either. In Jacob’s story, we are also met with a character who is blessed by God on multiple occasions (Gen 28 for one of such). Who looks out for his family and who works hard to build a legacy for his children (Gen 49). A man who cares deeply for the legacy he will leave to the world. Jacob is a man who when met with great peril, chooses to put his faith in God (Gen 32), a prized trait, to be sure.

So how do you teach the stories of a man like Jacob? A man who shows such positive and negative qualities. By my thinking, the right approach should require us to look at the rest of the Bible for clues, in particular the book that his story is found in, the books surrounding it, and then by also looking at the story of Christ for clues as well.

As mentioned, if we look at the rest of the book of Genesis, we are met with the stories of Jacob’s parents and grandparents, and it doesn’t take much reading about their lives to see that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. These are also characters who have a long list of both good and bad actions, enough to make anyone reading about them wonder thoroughly, ‘why of all people, did God choose this family to be through whom he would reach out to the world?’ However, saying that, each of these characters does have another trait in common as well. When God talks to them, they listen. There is a relationship there that defines these characters, and that should, as such, be a part of how we think of the character of Jacob as well.

Next, by looking at the books of the Bible surrounding the story of Jacob, we see quickly that his life takes place before the introduction of the Law of Moses, the main subject of the four books following Genesis. It is from the Law that most of our understanding of what good and bad behaviour in the Old Testament comes from, and so while this does not mean we should blindly accept all the things that Jacob did as perfectly acceptable, it does mean that to a certain extent we also can’t hold all of his bad action against him either. This is not to say we should emulate Jacob’s behaviour, we after all do know better as we know both the Law of Moses, but more importantly the teachings of Jesus Christ. Just instead this is to point out that Jacob had no reason to know that most of the stuff he did was morally questionable, so we should keep that in mind when we think about his life.

Finally, as Christians, when we read the Bible our minds are always to keep drifting back to the main event, per se, Jesus Christ. Over and over we are told in the New Testament, that it is Christ and no one else who we as his followers are to model our lives after. Not Moses, or Paul, Sarah, or Abraham, Isaac, or even Jacob. In this is where, I suspect, a lot of the tension surrounding the teaching of morally questionable Jacob has historically come from. If Jacob did so many bad things, mixed in with the good, it is tempting to ask, ‘is it right to hold Jacob up to any extent? Isn’t that just inviting us believers to look up to someone who should not be looked up to?’ To this question, I would say, ‘no.’

In the Bible, we are told many stories of characters living in many situations. All of them, save one have their failings. And this is fine because it is only that one, Jesus Christ, that we as Christians should be looking to emulate. We can learn from the others, failed as they may be, taking away from their lives good ways to live as well as bad, but never should we think of any of these characters in Scripture, save the one who died on the Cross, as a person worth modelling our lives after.

And so, with this context laid out, how should we teach the life of someone like Jacob? Someone whose story makes it clear that he is both good and bad. Well, I would say when we look at the story of Jacob, we should be quick to see a man who valued his relationship with God, and who when things were tough, chose to rely on God. From this, we should take that God wants us to be like this too. After all, this is how one of the founding fathers of the faith acted and God blesses him for doing just that. Next, we should readily identify that Jacob is someone who did many things that we should find morally reprehensible today, but in noticing that, we should also see that he didn’t necessarily understand his actions in that same light as he did not know of the Law and Christ as we do. From this knowledge, we should be thankful that God has worked so much more in the world since that time that we have the benefit of understanding this wonderful truth. Finally, I would also say, that when we look at Jacob’s life, we should do so keeping in mind that what we are trying to learn from his life not so that we can be more like Jacob, but instead so that we can grow closer to God; to be more like Christ.

When we look at morally questionable characters in the Bible, it can be difficult to know just how we should teach and learn about their lives. However, by how I see it, if we keep these three approaches in mind, to look at the context of the book the story is in, to look at the context of the books surrounding, and then by always looking back to Christ, we can have a pretty good understanding of how we should proceed.