Noah R. Hess
Contemporary Worship Leader
The Best Bowl of Stew You’ll Ever Have
Have you ever claimed the rewards of a birthright? I am going to make a sweeping generalization and assume you most likely have not. Birthrights by and large are no longer a part of our culture, but their influence over more familiar ideas like that of familial inheritance is undeniable. In the ancient world, there was an intentional emphasis put on the development and empowering of the firstborn male child in a family. This included not only a double portion of the physical inheritance from their family, but also the endowment of the great responsibility of taking over as the head of the family. Leading the family came with a responsibility to provide for the family financially, care for the family physically, and guide the family spiritually.
Read: Genesis 25:27-34, Hebrews 12:14-17
Out of all the redemptive acts in the Bible, one of my favorites is that of Jacob in the book of Genesis. When Jacob is first introduced, however, he is shown to be part of a duo that contrast each other many times. Today we’ll focus on the other individual of that duo, Esau. Compared to Jacob, Esau was a “bold and brash man, and Esau made it clear that he was more interested in pleasure and satisfying his immediate needs and desires than probing into the future. Despite this, according to tradition, Esau was the worthy recipient of the physical inheritance as well as the familial responsibilities than came with the birthright he was destined to acquire. We see in Genesis 25 that, whether intentionally or carelessly, Esau deliberately trades his birthright for. . . get this. . . a bowl of stew! Now I’ve had some pretty good soup, chili, broth and stew in my day, but as of yet none has checked the “sell off my inheritance” box or caused me to neglect my responsibilities in reckless abandon. To us, this decision seems absolutely absurd! But I argue that we behave like Esau far mor frequently than we want to believe.
How often do we trade our inheritance as followers of Christ and neglect our duties as children of God in exchange for nothing more than a glorified bowl of stew? These things we trade our inheritance for are like a bowl of stew in that they fill us up and satisfy for a moment, but in a few hours will leave us hungry yet again. During this time of COVID-19, let’s not settle for the exchange of the eternal for the temporal, but rather press into our relationships with God, understanding that our position and inheritance in Him is far more satisfying than anything that this fleeting life can offer, even if that thing is the best bowl of stew you’ll ever have.