Well, for this morning, let's advance through Genesis. So let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 29 for our time of study in God's word. this morning, As we continue in our series through the book of Genesis, we come to Genesis 29, and my goal today is to cover the entire chapter verses 1 through 35, and I can't think of any other title to give this chapter than A Complicated Love Story. And it really, really is.
What we find in Genesis 29 is one of the strangest love stories in ancient literature. It is a tale of a man and two women and a crafty brother or father-in-law. It is a story of unbelievable intrigue and the cruelest of schemes or pranks. which will lead to a man sleeping with a woman on his wedding night, whom he thinks is the bride that he wanted, but he discovers in the morning that it was the less attractive sister of the bride that he wanted.
In his commentary on this chapter, R. Kent Hughes describes this story in Genesis 29 as soap opera ugly. And we'll see that's indeed true. But it is a love story by any measure as indicated by the language of love that we find throughout the length of the chapter as you see on the screen, behind me.
In verse 11, we read that Jacob kissed Rachel. In verse 17, we read that Jacob loved Rachel. In verse 20, we read of his love for her. In verse 30, we read that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah....
