Us And Them

'There are two types of people. Those who break everything into two types and those who don't.' -Unknown

I firmly believe there is only one type of person. Us. But there are polarizing forces and roads fork to go into different directions. The Bible gives us twelves tribes to examine in the Hebrew scriptures and they show us twelve personalities each derived from one of the twelve sons of Jacob. All the sons had one father but there were two different wives:

- Leah (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah and later Issachar and Zebulun)
- Rachel (Joseph and she died after giving birth to Benjamin)

But the competition between the women to have children caused the wive's servants to get into the mix (and you think your family is strange).

- Bilhah, Rachel's servant, (Dan and Naphtali)
- Zilpah, Leah's servant (Gad and Asher)

The house was a two party system... team Leah and team Rachel. This verse gives a foundation for their relationship to Jacob.

"Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured." - Genesis 29:17 KJV

Kind and matronly versus va va va voom.

Human beings seem to gravitate towards party systems. Us and them. These and those. God gave a blanket promise that applied to all of Jacob's children.

"That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;" - Genesis 22:17 KJV

"And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake." - Genesis 26:24 KJV

Don't get me wrong. If I must label myself I would say that I am an evangelical. I believe in two eternal destinations. Heaven and Hell. You are either on the ark or in the flood. Up or down. I just don't believe that the people in the ark are different then the people outside of it. The thing that separates them is a choice.

When I am tempted to say, 'them' I check myself. We might have different mothers but every personality has the same father. I have an ark to run to and I want to be a person who runs out and brings people to the the only person who saves. There are no polarizing forces inside that boat everyone in there is riding out the storm with hope that they are all going to make it to the other side.

If I want to to understand and relate to a person then I must understand who their mother is. Knowing the forces that formed a person is part of caring for them but it doesn't stop there. Everyone who chooses Christ has a birth that completes them as a person.

Ultimately the seed of Abraham that was blessed is Jesus. Jesus brought blessing to that whole house retroactively. Jesus does the same for us... and them.

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