Over the last month or so, I have been listening to the Bible Project’s podcast series called Firstborn: The Last Will Be First. They do really great work if you’re not familiar with them – making layered scholarly studied of the Bible approachable and understandable for us regular folks. In this series, they’ve been talking through the biblical theme of The Firstborn, which, when closely examined, plays itself out differently than I would’ve thought.

Culturally in Old Testament times (and still today in some sense), the firstborn son was to be the one who was blessed with an extra portion of inheritance and was to take on the responsibilities of the family leader after their father died or lost the capacity to fulfill those roles. While this may be the cultural norm, God often operates outside this birth order rule when choosing who to annoint, bless, or carry out His plans.

In the very beginning, God creates those who will rule over creation last, not first.

God favors Abel’s offering over his older brother Cain’s.

God chooses a people through the family line of Shem, the middle of Noah’s sons, not Japheth, the oldest brother, or Ham, the youngest brother.

God blesses the world through Abraham’s second child Isaac, instead of Ishmael, his oldest son.

God turns Jacob (or Israel) into a great nation, not his older brother Esau.

The list goes on and on and on.

While God is doing this, we see struggle from those not initially blessed by God:

Cain kills his brother Abel.

Ham seeks to establish himself as the family alpha.

Sarah struggles with Abraham’s second wife Hagar providing a son first.

Jacob and Esau struggle over Isaac’s blessing for the firstborn.

In all of these stories, there is an underlying human myth that is causing these conflicts: That there is not enough of God’s blessing for everyone. If we don’t get it first, we might get left out. This lack of trust that they will be taken care of causes people to do evil in the world: take life and deceive, jostling for position to receive blessing first.

This myth of scarcity: That there will not be enough for everyone, permeates our culture still today. Even in our Christian communities. We draw lines explicitly and implicitly communicating who is in and who is out. It is completely draining to me how much of what I see online is Christians debating who will receive blessing from God and who will not.

Jesus entered our world proclaiming a new Kingdom, one devoid of cultural lines separating those who are blessed from those who are cursed. Jesus was spreading the news that whoever believes in Him would be blessed. There is enough for all, just believe and come into the light (John 3:14-21). We don’t need to jostle for position, in fact, like Jesus we can put others above ourselves. In this new Kingdom, the first will be last.

Somewhere along the way, we have begun to follow people besides Jesus. We have been convinced that there is not enough, so we have to decide who is outside the blessing of God. Now we spend way too much time arguing, debating, and condemning the world that God sent Jesus to save.

Jesus came proclaiming good news to the poor and the outcast. Let’s do more of that. There is enough.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.“
John 3:16-21

LINK: Here’s a great 5 minute video resource on the theme of The Firstborn in Scripture!