Paul, the greatest missionary of the Christian era, once remarked that God doesn't always use the wisest, strongest and most moral people to bring his message. Instead God uses the foolish, the weak and the lowly -- just to prove a point (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). That truth certainly holds when it comes to those chosen by God as the patriarchs of ancient Israel. Consider our scripture lesson for this morning which concerns the brothers Jacob and Esau, children of Isaac.

With very little reading between the lines, we have to conclude that Isaac and his wife Rebekah from Paddan-aram had what today we call a dysfunctional family. Particularly note that their son Jacob was a mean, conniving, selfish, treacherous kid from the day he was born. In fact, Jacob was showing signs of an evil nature e…