Jacob was delighted at seeing how God kept in constant communication with humans.

Monday, 7/8/13

Jacob dreamt of a staircase to heaven, and this dream marked a turning point in humanity’s understanding about God.

When we go back to the legends of ancient peoples we find agreement on something having gone wrong at creation time. In Chapter Six of our Bible we read how the wickedness of men had God regretting he had ever made us, so that he moved to wipe us out in a flood. With every other people it was something else that went wrong, causing their gods to retreat from them to the highest heaven. And surprisingly all those peoples found a similar way of trying to get their gods back

The one big holiday with almost every people on earth keeps is New Years. And in place after place what ancient people do then is act out their creation myth. They believed that their gods showered the earth with blessings at creation time; and they were duplicating the creation scene to get the gods to return with their blessings.

Getting back to Jacob, he too believed that God retreated to the third heaven after men became sinners. He was convinced sure that God had ceased communicating  with humanity. His dream told him that was not so. He could see that God remained in communication with us through the angels carrying our prayers up to him, with other angels bringing down God’s answers to our prayers.  

He renamed the place Bethel, meaning “house of God.”

In the New Testament we read that God is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. With no need for them to carry messages to God and back they have been pensioned off.