Transcript of Introduction to the Patriarchs (with Jeff Cavins) (2025)

Hi. My name is father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Bible in the Year podcast where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in the Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the great adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. This is at the next page of the next stage, next time period in the Bible.

We had talked with Jeff Cabins earlier about, the early world, and he gave us an incredible opportunity to see, like, the context in which Genesis 1 to Genesis 11 were placed in scripture. How that was Hebrew poetry, but in Genesis 12 through 50, we have what's called the patriarchs. It's the 2nd time period in the scripture when it comes to following the great adventure bible timeline, and it introduces us to a number of incredible characters. This is where we meet Abram and Sarai, whose names change. We meet Isaac, we meet Jacob, we meet their wives, we meet their kids, and, we get we get to know basically, the patriarchs.

The father our father in faith, Abraham, as well as his kids. The beginning of the people of Israel, we get to encounter. And so, in order for us to get an opportunity to have some context for the patriarchs this time period, once again, we have are honored to have Jeff Cabins back. Jeff Cabins is the individual who created the Great Adventure Bible timeline, as well as the Great Adventure Bible study. Which again, as I've said many times, but I will not stop saying it, because it was so important to me, so influential for me, that when I finally heard Jeff teaching about the great adventure bible timeline.

So we have all the these narrative books, these 14 narrative books, and understanding these time periods, and how the other books fit into the context. It changed everything for me, because I went from knowing the stories to knowing the story. And I'm so grateful. That's 1 of the reasons why every time we hit these new time periods, what we're gonna do, we're gonna have Jeff back as he gives us some context and tells us what to look out for as we journey through the time period. Right now, we are in the time period of the patriarchs and once again, that means we're welcoming back Jeff Cavins.

Jeff, thank you so much again to being here and giving us this direction.

Oh, thanks for allowing me to come and go for the ride. This is exciting, you know.

Yeah.

Just came through the early world, and and that is turquoise. And now we're gonna enter a burgundy period, and burgundy reminds us of, a blood, blood covenant, big thing that's gonna happen in this, in this period. You know, as I've been listening to you over the last number of days, I'm just reminded of the encouragement of the word of God, and and, just wanna extend encouragement to to everybody that this is a story that you can get, and we're here to help you to navigate some of the the time periods where it it could be a little confusing, you know, if you don't have somebody guiding you. So that's that's good, and it's good to have someone that can kind of help you. And this is, chapter 12 of Genesis all the way to chapter 50.

And, we we just came off of 11 chapters that really established kind of the early world. Now we're looking at the history that we're really familiar with, you know. And Yeah.

Because the the the he changes now. Right? He changes from the that Hebrew poetry

Mhmm.

Into that that from that prehistory into, like, these are characters that we know their names, we know their, their stories, their families, and it's God interacting with them in a really new way. Right?

Right. Yeah. And God has a plan to redeem mankind, which we saw the the fall and original sin. They lost original justice back in the in the garden. And what we're gonna pick up on now in this period, which you're gonna be going through, I think it's even the day after Christmas, you're gonna be reading quite a bit

Big chunk. Yeah.

During this patriarchal period, which is gonna cover Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, you're you're really going to get a look at how God works with with mankind. And Abraham is gonna become very important to us, because how God deals with Abram is gonna come into Paul's explanation in the New Testament, for example, in Galatians, dealing with faith and what it means to to believe. And so we pick up in chapter 12 with, God speaking to a man by the name of Abram. As you said, his name is gonna get changed, and he is in modern day Iraq. And he's in Ur of the Chaldeans, and and God calls him, and you might notice in chapter 11, you get this so and so begot so and so begot so and so, which is a lot of people's favorite part of the Bible.

I understand.

It's our favorite part. As as you mentioned, it's the most marked up part of most people's Bibles.

Yeah. Right. Well, you know what it's called actually. It's called a it's a Hebrew tool called a toledot. A toledot is a literary tool that takes you from the wide angle down to narrow.

In other words, the the writer is forcing you to go from all of mankind to 1 guy, and that's Abram. And Abram's gonna be key because, he's gonna walk with God, and God is gonna make, God is gonna make a people of Abram. And so you pick up in, in chapter 12, and there are 3 key promises that God makes to Abram, which are going to be very important. 3 promises that are gonna be very important in your reading plan. And, and I'm sure you'll bring them up when we when we reach that point.

We start off in chapter 12. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse, and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. And so you have 3 promises to Abram at the beginning of this period, and that is land, a royal dynasty, gonna make make his name great, and worldwide blessing. 3 major promises, but we have a major problem, and that is Abram doesn't have any kids. He doesn't have any kids, and, in this just beautiful how God, deals with this problem and gives him a son, Isaac.

And people are gonna be reading that, with you, and, he ends up with, with Isaac as a son. But it's so interesting in chapter 15, which, you're gonna be coming upon pretty quick in your reading.

Pretty quick, yeah.

In chapter 15, we're going to see that Abram struggles with God. How do I know that you're gonna give me these things? How I don't even have a son, and God is going to make a covenant with Abram. You're gonna read about it in chapter 15. I won't read it now, but this is a beautiful, beautiful situation where God makes a covenant with Abram, and and as a result of that, we're going to have Isaac, and then Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, have Jacob and Esau, or I should say Esau and Jacob.

Right. And then after that, we're going to have, through Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel through 4 different ladies. It's gonna be Leah and Rachel, true, but it's also gonna be their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah, and you're gonna end up with all of the tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob, which eventually is gonna lead them into Egypt where things again go south.

And goes south.

And they become they become the really servants of the Egyptians, and it doesn't end well for them.

You know, Jeff, 1 of the things you mentioned here is, like, I I'm so grateful for that. Like, the overview again, we have Abraham and Sarah. We have Isaac and Rebecca. We have Esau, you know, on the side there. And Jacob, and then the 4 2 wives, 2 handmaids.

And you also have some some kinda I remember I was talking with my sister about this because she's been, studying the great adventure bible timeline. She started a little while back, not too long back, and she's like, oh my gosh. I'm going through Genesis still. She got to the end, and she said, I didn't realize how, like, messed up some stuff is or, like, you know, how much there's family members, you know, whether hurting each other, murdering each other, or incest. And, like, some of the things she's like, I didn't realize how much there was how much brokenness, you know, to use 1 word to just kinda sum up all this stuff.

Some of the people who will be journeying with us, this will be maybe maybe 1 of the first times that they've actually heard. They've heard the story, maybe the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, maybe the names of Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Leah. I don't know if they've all heard about kind of the, the weakness or the sins of these people. How do we navigate that?

Well, I think people are a little alarmed sometimes when they're reading the Bible and they hear these, you know, wild stories that people get into Yeah. And they take offense, like, oh, I don't that shouldn't be in the Bible, or I didn't expect that from the from the Bible. Well, just turn the Bible around and look at it like a mirror. I didn't expect that in your life either. You know, and you didn't expect that like in your life either.

You didn't, you know, you didn't think you would think like you're thinking. And so it really does paint a picture of the brokenness of of humanity, and it speaks of the great patience and the loving kindness that God demonstrates in bringing us all back together into his family, which is gonna culminate in in Jesus. I would not be alarmed at all of these stories in the Bible. I think I think anytime you read about sin, sure, it's it's alarming, but it really does echo where mankind is at today. Right.

And and, and also the love of God and the great lengths he goes to to save us and to bring us to bring us to himself. This period of the patriarchs is so rich in the stories about God's faithfulness, about our brokenness. You know, when you get to, you know, go from Abraham and Sarah, and then you get into Isaac and Rebekah, you will see Rebekah working with her son, Jacob, to try to right wrongs. Right. And and then Jacob fooling his brother, And we wonder if when he fools his brother Esau, and he he gets from him the blessing, but also the birthright.

Also the birthright. Yeah.

When he when he gets that, you're thinking, now this isn't right. There's gotta be consequences to it. Right. And there are consequences.

You keep reading. Yeah. Keep reading.

As you've read, yeah. And in Hebrew writing, father, it's really interesting because in Hebrew writing, we we want the story to be Jacob fooled Esau. We want punishment in the next chapter.

Right.

But Right. The Hebrew writers don't do that. They don't tell you the results, they show you.

They show you.

And that's why you gotta read it carefully and start seeing patterns, develop. But the whole book the whole book, or the whole period in in Genesis ends with Jacob giving blessings to all of his sons, and 1 tribe is gonna rise above all of them Yep. As a tribe to pay attention to for the rest of the story. Mhmm.

Yeah. And it's so interesting that you're I I remember when you had revealed that to me that, yes, there's brokenness in all these stories because it's brokenness in our lives. Like that, when it comes to Bible stories, again, our sometimes our first introduction to the Bible is Bible stories for children. And so we don't necessarily get the, like, wow. This is more about my life.

You mentioned at the very beginning of this, like, you can get the Bible. Like, you can understand this. I think we can really understand it when we realize this is not a book of tales. You know, this is not a Hallmark, movie. This is this is real life.

Yeah. And also what you had had revealed to me that just pay attention because more often scriptures will show you, the consequences of an action or or the right or wrongness of an action more quickly than they'll tell you. Specifically, when it comes to some of these early narrative books, where they're talking about the patriarchs and talking about some of the the actions of those who are our fathers and mothers in the faith.

Yeah. And another thing to pay attention to is how the church reads scripture. You know, we we we know that there are there are 3 different levels that we need to pay attention to when you're reading it. Number 1 is you need to read this, all of this, the patriarchs in Genesis, knowing that Christ fulfills all of this. Mhmm.

He fulfills all of it, and from time to time that will become evident. But second of all, we need to read it in light of what does this mean to me? Do I see myself in this story? Am am I Jacob? Right.

Right. Or am I Esau?

Am I the deceiver? Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And so you you you read it, you know, knowing that this relates to my life as well. And the third is the future, heaven. How does this find fulfillment eventually in heaven?

And those are the 3 things that we pay attention to, you know, as Catholics when we read the Bible, but it is, it is a love letter written to you where God is revealing his heart and his plan to you. And don't be discouraged if you don't get it all right now. Yeah. You know, there there was a very famous word from 1 of the saints who said that reading the Bible is like drinking from a a drinking fountain. Do you remember that 1?

Yeah. I do. It's saying that from the Syrian, I think. Syrian, I think it was. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can finish it. I mean, it's great. No.

They they they drinking from a fountain where you shouldn't be discouraged by the fact that you can't drain the spring. You can't drain the fountain. But be encouraged by the fact that every time you return to it, there's more and more and more.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't go to a drinking fountain and start crying saying, look at all of that went on the ground. Be happy with what you got.

Exactly. I drank it all. And you rec recognize that I'll take in a little bit. Whatever I can take in. And that's the thing that I I've learned over the course of these years too is, I take in what I can, and then I'm not gonna be overly bothered with what I can't take in.

That's 1 of the reasons why actually, kind of confession, why I really like the audio versions of books. And actually, why we're do 1 of the reasons we're doing the podcast, is that sometimes I know for myself that when I'm reading with my eyes, I can get stuck. And like, wait, what does this mean? What exactly is this? And if I just kept on reading, I would get a bigger picture of it.

I would start understanding because the the text itself would would tell me things. As well as the fact that just because again, I can't mine all of the the gold out of the scriptures in 1 reading, doesn't mean I can't go back. Yeah. And I can always keep going back. And that's what it sounds like you're saying, when it comes to the whole Bible, but especially here we're getting these stories of the patriarchs.

Well, this period is gonna be an exciting period. I know that, it's gonna be fun to go through it with you. It's really the story of Abraham, and and now we are following the seed line all the way from Eve. We're gonna follow that line all the way to Jesus. And so 1 of the ways we navigate through this complex bible is we stay on task.

We are

Yeah.

Following the seed line that was introduced with Adam and Eve, and, you can read about these genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Mhmm. And, and so it's not just willy nilly, there's actually a prescribed way of telling this entire story. So we've got Abram, and that great covenant that God makes with Abram is going to be a bedrock for the rest of the entire Bible. We're gonna be looking for when do they get land?

When do they when is there a royal kingdom established? When is worldwide blessing available to the world? And so that acts as a foundation for us to read going forward. But then, you know, who can forget the great stories of Isaac and Jacob, and then the longest portion of Genesis goes to goes to a Joseph. Joseph.

Yeah. And and, just a just a key when you get to that point when you get to that point, remember, it's not just about Joseph. There's 1 other character that you're gonna be getting into. I won't I won't let the cat out the bag.

Spoiler.

But you're gonna you're gonna be talking about that, and it's going to end with all the blessings to these sons, which are really really important, and they end in Egypt, and then there's gonna be a 400 year break after that, and then you're gonna be picking up with exodus and moving on. So we're right on schedule here.

This is so good, and and I'm so grateful for you, highlighting well, everything you've highlighted, but here's the the the promises to Abraham and they don't die with him. They don't die with his, son. They don't die with his grandson. But, as you said, they're fulfilled in a remarkable way that actually has something to do with you and with me right now. And to see, like, this was where God promised our great great great great great, you know, ancestor, in because we're, you know, spiritually, we're grafted onto the tree.

That be able to say like that's remarkable and we get to be brought into this actually that fulfillment of the worldwide blessing is 1 of the reasons why you and I have access to the scripture right now. I have access Yeah. To the gift of faith and what a gift. What an incredible gift. Jeff, is there any 1 last thing that you would say, okay, for context as you walk through, the age of the patriarchs, period of the patriarchs, keep this in mind?

Yeah. I think it's faith, you know. And what is faith and and, and trusting in God. This idea of faith is not simply believism. Oh, yeah.

You know, God did not say to Abraham, do you just believe what I'm telling you? Right. But faith, you know, to quote, Pope Benedict, faith is really divided into 2 things. 1 is a mental acknowledgement. Abram says, yes, I believe that God is calling me to leave this land and go to a new land of promised land.

That's why we call it the promised land, it was promised to Abram and his descendants. But the second aspect of that, the first is mental ascent. Yes. I I I concur. I believe.

The second is a personal entrusting of yourself to God. Now as we continue to read in the patriarchs and beyond, you're going to you're going to encounter people who made mental ascent, but they never entrusted themselves.

Yeah.

And that's where the story gets really interesting. But what we see in Abram is he not only believed God, but it was counted for him as righteousness because he stepped out and he walked in it. Right. He showed that he trusted God. And so there's a remarkable demonstration here of what it means to walk with God, with Abram, and you can kinda measure Isaac and Jacob and beyond with the walk that Abraham had with God.

Yeah. That's so good. Thank you for that. And especially, we get to see Abram's faith grow.

Mhmm.

Abram's faith get tested, and so at that sense of, like, so when we look at our own lives and realize, okay, so that, when it comes to faith, like, it gets it gets to grow. It doesn't just have to be static. And so, wow. I'm so grateful, Jeff, once again, not only for the Creative Inter Bible timeline as a gift, from the Lord through you, I really believe, to us, but also for your time, to be able to give us a context as we march through these next, you know, number of days, 20 or so days of going through the the age of the patriarchs, keeping in mind, that God is working with real people. That's a it's got a mirror.

Scripture gets to be a mirror in this way, and, we get to see through the lens of faith, the actions, the decisions, and the real lives of these people who are our fathers in faith. So thank you once again.

Well, I'm finding it so exciting so far just to, you know, just to listen Yes. And to, you know, scripture says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Yes. And as you're reading scripture, father, and I'm listening, that word is going deep into my heart, and and God is having his way with my heart via his word. And so you're a gift and that you're lending your voice

Right.

To God to speak, but then we also get some great commentary. So I I appreciate it. You're it's just a it's a wonderful opportunity.

Thank you so much. Awesome. So if you got all want to continue following us, following this podcast, following this journey, and you wanna see it in front of you. Sometimes they have the reading plan in front of you is like having a map. You can kinda see, like, here's where we've been, here's where we are, and here's where we're going.

That can be really really helpful. So if you want that, you can download that Bible in a year reading plan by going to ascensionpress.com/bibleinayer. You can also can sign up for the email list by texting the word Catholic Bible to the number 33777. And finally, please subscribe. If you haven't yet subscribed to the the podcast, you can at any given moment.

But when you do, 1 of the things that you're doing is you are giving, an yourself an opportunity to every time that 1 of these episodes drops, it drops into your phone or wherever you get your podcast. So, please do that. Once again, we are always praying for you as you're journeying through the scripture, journeying through the bible. I'm praying for you. My invitation is that you pray for each other because, I I have the sense that as we journey through the early world already, and we're going into the patriarchs and and beyond, that, just like during Egypt and the Exodus and Desert Wanderings, they had each other.

Just like in the early church, they had each other. Right now, I think to be able to sustain this journey, we need to have each other. So please keep praying for, our fellow travelers as we are brought through, the age of the early world, through the patriarchs, and beyond to the ultimately, to the messianic fulfillment of all of God's promises. Once again, my name is father Mike Schmitz, and I cannot wait to join you on the continue to join you on this journey, and God bless.