Following the text of Genesis 25 on Esau and Jacob, this meditation connects the ‘birthright’ and the decision of faith emphasized in Pastor David Jang’s preaching with today’s choices and spirituality, reflecting deeply on the inheritance of the covenant and the shaping of life through what we value most."> <meta name="keywords" content="Pastor David Jang, David Jang sermon, Esau and Jacob, Genesis 25, birthright, right of the firstborn, red stew, Isaac and Rebekah, inheritance of the covenant, decision of faith, no fatalism, Hebrews 12, Jacob’s blessing, spiritual legacy, Christian spirituality
When Pastor David Jang
(Olivet University) preaches on Genesis 25—especially the narrative from verses
27 through 34 that centers on Esau and Jacob—his message does not stop at
reenacting a human drama of “siblings in conflict.” Rather, the passage becomes
a spiritual mirror that exposes, with startling clarity, what human beings
truly regard as valuable, and how that valuation can reconfigure a person’s
life and the future of an entire community. Following the trajectory of Pastor
David Jang’s preaching, we are led to relearn that the birthright is not merely
an inheritance right or a social privilege. It is a “spiritual legacy” that
includes the weight of covenantal succession and responsibility. Therefore, the
Bible’s brief assessment—that Esau “despised” or treated the birthright
lightly—reads not only as moral criticism, but as a warning about spiritual
numbness. And Jacob’s relentless persistence, though at times uncomfortably
mixed with very human calculation, forces us to ask what he ultimately refused
to let go of. In the end the question becomes unmistakably clear: What are we
living for today, and what “invisible value” do we have that we would choose to
keep, even at a cost?
Within the broader context
of Genesis, the birthright is not simply the entrenched privilege of “the one
born first.” It is the burden of a name that represents the family, the channel
through which promise must flow to the next generation, and above all a
symbolic device that reveals how the covenant given to Abraham is preserved and
expanded in history through a particular vessel. Pastor David Jang often
underscores this point in his sermons. God’s history does not move like an
automatic gear system, turning forward like fate. It takes on the texture of
reality through the choices and decisions of those who treasure the promise. In
other words, the shift from “being given” to “being genuinely possessed and
lived” always involves a matter of posture. This is why the story of Esau and
Jacob simultaneously presses two questions: the theological question—“Whom did
God choose?”—and the existential question—“How do I carry the weight of that
choosing?”
The passage begins by
contrasting Esau and Jacob from the outset. Esau is described as a man of the
field, a skillful hunter; Jacob is portrayed as a quiet man dwelling in tents
(Gen. 25:27). If we consider the practical realities of ancient life, Esau’s
dynamism seems well-suited to the role of the firstborn: going out to secure
food for the family, confronting harsh conditions, fighting to survive.
Moreover, he is the one who was born first, and Isaac favors Esau because he
enjoys the game Esau brings home (Gen. 25:28). Appearance, function, social
order, even emotional preference—everything seems to tilt toward Esau. And yet
Genesis introduces a fracture line: the word already given to Rebekah, “the
older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). This statement is not a license
that automatically justifies Jacob’s ambition; rather, it is a mysterious sign
that God weaves history beyond the surface logic of appearances. The crucial
issue is how that sign becomes concrete in the events of real life—how human choices
and attitudes become entangled and revealed.
That entanglement reaches
its most concentrated form in the scene of “the red stuff,” a single bowl of
stew offered in exchange for the birthright. Esau returns from the hunt
exhausted and hungry, feeling the immediate demands of his body as the most urgent
good. He says to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff” (Gen. 25:30), and
Jacob responds—almost as if he has been waiting for this moment—“Sell me your
birthright today” (Gen. 25:31). What Pastor David Jang persistently holds onto
at this point is not merely the “moment,” but what has been “accumulating”
beneath it. If we interpret the story as though Esau sold the birthright
because of one instance of hunger, we can easily drift into emotional sympathy
and excuse-making. But Scripture concludes with a far sharper verdict: “Thus
Esau despised his birthright” (Gen. 25:34). This reads less like the record of
a single blunder and more like a disclosure of a long-formed inner orientation
that finally surfaced in one instant. What a person truly values tends to
appear when they are in crisis, when they are tired, when thirst and appetite
are maximized. Esau says, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to
me?” (Gen. 25:32), translating spiritual legacy into the language of raw
survival. Whether he was literally at the point of death is not the main issue;
what is decisive is that he judged the birthright by the criterion, “Is it
useful to me right now?” Covenant and eternity are not meant to be handled in
the units of a calculator; they belong to the language of reverence and
responsibility.
Jacob, on the other hand,
is also an unsettling figure. He exploits his brother’s weakness, and in
Genesis 27 he goes further, deceiving his father Isaac to seize the final
declaration of blessing. One compelling feature of Pastor David Jang’s
preaching is that he does not try to whitewash Jacob ethically, but invites us
to see how human flaws can be turned—within God’s history—into a “training
ground of responsibility.” Jacob is not a flawless believer. He is afraid; he
trembles at the thought of being found out (Gen. 27:12), and without his mother
Rebekah’s counsel and intervention he may not have moved at all. And yet, in
one respect he is remarkably consistent: he refuses to treat the covenant
blessing as something trivial. This posture becomes the spiritual dividing line
between Esau and Jacob—not a simple comparison of “moral scores,” but a
comparison of what each makes into an ultimate value.
There is a visual aid that
helps us see this scene more vividly. The Dutch painter Jan Victors, in 1653,
produced an oil painting titled Esau Selling His Birthright to Jacob
for a Pottage of Lentils, capturing the very instant of the transaction on
the canvas. The work is recorded as a 1653 piece, painted in oil on canvas, and
commonly introduced with dimensions of 109 × 137 cm. The impression it gives is
not merely that of a Bible illustration. The lighting and texture draw our eyes
naturally to hands, to the bowl, to facial expressions—making it feel as though
“hunger in the here-and-now” and “inheritance beyond the moment” sit on the
same table at once. In the faces and gestures we are pressed to ask: What kind
of moment was it, that one person exchanged spiritual responsibility for a
dish, while another used that dish almost like a “doorway” to step toward the
threshold of the covenant? This is where the core of Pastor David Jang’s
message touches down: faith is not an abstraction. It takes shape in concrete
scenes of choice. Every day we stand before small “transactions,” and the
repetition of those transactions can one day decide our future.
Yet we must not
misunderstand the passage. If we immediately label Jacob’s fixation as “holy
zeal,” the tension Scripture intends is lost. The Bible does not package Jacob
as a saint. In fact, the long and rugged stretch of his later life proves
otherwise. After receiving the blessing, he does not enter a comfortable
success story. He becomes a fugitive, fleeing Esau’s anger, and in a foreign
land he lives with his uncle Laban, enduring many years in a maze of deception
and counter-deception (Genesis 29–31). He must pass through events such as the
experience at Bethel (Gen. 28) and the wrestling at the Jabbok (Gen. 32), where
he is reshaped from “a person who obtains blessing” into “a person who can bear
blessing.” Here Pastor David Jang’s notion of “decision” deepens. Decision is
not needed only at the moment we grasp a goal; it is also required when that
goal shakes, breaks, and reorganizes our lives. It is the courage to
persist—refusing to let go—even when what we sought begins to demand that our
character be refitted to match its true nature. Jacob had to learn that
courage, and God formed him through that process.
Then what about Esau? Does
he remain only as “a numb person”? Scripture records that when he realizes he
has lost the blessing, he cries out with a great and bitter cry (Gen. 27:34).
The pain of loss was real, and his tears of regret may well have been sincere.
And yet Hebrews warns the church by pointing to Esau as an example—calling him
“ungodly” or “profane”—and cautions against the weight of irreversible choice
(Heb. 12:16). When Pastor David Jang applies this part in preaching, he often
reminds listeners that within the life of faith there can be points that cannot
be “undone.” This does not mean God lacks mercy; it is closer to this: what we
ourselves repeatedly treat as trivial eventually becomes trivial inside us.
Spiritual sensitivity does not appear through one dramatic decision. It is
shaped by daily habits, daily priorities, daily language—moving us slowly
toward Esau or slowly toward Jacob. When a decisive moment finally arrives, we
are likely to choose in the manner we have already trained ourselves to choose.
That is why Genesis 25
feels uncomfortably close to modern life. We live in the age of “the red
stuff”—instant gratification content, one-click consumption, same-day delivery
desire, algorithms that continuously shake our emotions and judgments through comparison
and display. In this environment, the question Pastor David Jang’s preaching
presses is simple but almost cruelly realistic: “What do you reach for first?”
Hunger itself is not sin. The problem begins when hunger becomes the soul’s
compass. Fatigue itself is not evil. The problem begins when fatigue becomes
the reason we reappraise covenant value. Human beings can always sell the
essence under the banner of “survival”—for family, for success, for security,
for recognition. But Genesis asks: Is that truly the way to live, or is it a
subtler form of death?
If we read the birthright
as “the responsibility to inherit and carry forward God’s covenant,” the scope
of application becomes even wider. The succession of faith does not occur only
through bloodline genealogy. In the church, when the transmission of the Word,
the culture of prayer, the patience that protects community, and the love that
refuses to abandon the weak are passed on “normally” to the next generation,
that community survives beyond a single era. Pastor David Jang often recalls
Rebekah from this vantage point. Rebekah is a complex figure—she bears the
problem of favoritism, yet she also acts while holding onto the direction of
the promise. She does not merely teach Jacob a tactic; she passes down, without
words, a conviction: “Do not treat this blessing as something light.” Faith
today is similar. Someone must teach us the language of faith; someone must
help us return to the center when we wobble. But in the end, the final choice
belongs to the individual. Rebekah could assist Jacob, but she could not plant
in him, in his place, the inner longing to desire the blessing. She could not
desire it for him.
Here Pastor David Jang’s
preaching moves beyond moral lessons into what might be called a kind of
“spiritual economics.” Our energy is limited, our time is finite, and even our
attention has boundaries. Therefore we are always choosing something, and that
choice is an investment. More precisely: every choice is a confession of what
we regard as most valuable. Esau, facing hunger, evaluated the birthright at
near zero. Jacob, conversely, evaluated it as so high that his desire bordered
on obsession. Then the question turns to us: What have we been making into
“zero”? Have we turned worship into an option we do only “if time remains”?
Have we made Scripture meditation a hobby we do only “if we feel like it”? Have
we reduced community into a network we join only “when it benefits me”? The
things that become cheapened in this way will not hold us in a decisive
hour—because we have already declared, again and again, that they are cheap.
And yet the gospel does
not present Jacob’s method as the final model. Rather, the gospel reveals a
greater way of grace that surpasses Jacob’s anxiety and calculation. From the
New Testament perspective, “the blessing of the firstborn” is no longer a competition
for inheritance within one household. In Christ, it becomes an open inheritance
for all who believe—and at the same time, a costly responsibility. That is, we
are not living in an age where we must steal someone else’s portion to be
blessed; we are living in an age where we fight not to treat the grace already
given as something light. Therefore the application today is not a command to
become cunning like Jacob, but a call to become earnest like Jacob—while
training that earnestness to be reshaped into the character of Christ. When
Pastor David Jang’s message is summarized in the phrase “There is no fatalism,”
it ultimately descends into this question: “What am I choosing today, and
through those choices, what kind of person am I becoming?”
That question sounds even
sharper to those carrying many “urgent problems.” Under economic pressure,
relational fracture, workplace competition, and health anxiety, we easily
borrow Esau’s language: “I’m about to die—what use is this?” But faith is not escapism;
it is the capacity to interpret reality’s weight in a new way. What Pastor
David Jang’s preaching shows through Esau and Jacob is this: no matter how
harsh reality feels, reality must not become the final standard. Covenant does
not ignore reality, but it does not surrender to it either. Covenant reorders
priorities—showing what must be guarded and what must be laid down. The truly
dangerous moment in life is not when we lack bread, but when we sell promise
because of bread. The truly empty moment is not when we lack achievements, but
when achievements dry out the soul.
So “the red stuff” still
sits before us today. It may be money. It may be saving face. It may be
promotion. It may be a compromise for relational stability. It may be one of
countless choices that look comfortable in the short term if we quietly fold
our convictions and move on. Yet when we read with the grammar of Pastor David
Jang’s preaching, those choices always come with a question: “How does this
choice reshape my birthright within—my spiritual legacy?” The spiritual legacy
here is not an abstract feeling. It is concrete habits: keeping worship,
refusing to abandon honesty, not turning away from the weak, sustaining prayer
as breathing rather than ritual, translating the Word into the language of
life, serving community rather than using it, repenting instead of hiding when
we fail. As these things accumulate, we gain an inner strength that can refuse
cheap transactions when the decisive moment comes.
Finally, the story of Esau
and Jacob does not lead us into despair, but into both warning and hope. The
warning is clear: when we treat something precious as cheap, it can return to
us as something truly cheapened—so cheapened that even tears cannot restore it.
The reality that there are choices we cannot reverse is a caution not to treat
today’s small decisions lightly. But the hope is equally clear: even if we
appear lacking and fragile, God does not abandon those whose longing for true
value refuses to die. Jacob was not a finished saint, but he did not let go of
his hunger for the covenant—and God led that hunger through a path of training
until he received the name “Israel.” The conclusion Pastor David Jang draws
from Genesis 25 ultimately touches this point: no matter where we begin, we can
choose what we will esteem most, and through that choice we can stand in the
place where God reshapes us anew. So today, let us stand not merely as people
who soothe hunger, but as people who keep covenant. Whatever bowl we hold in
our hands, let it not become the token of a trade that alters our soul’s
inheritance. Instead, let us realign the center of our hearts toward a deeper
and greater value. What Pastor David Jang’s preaching asks of us through
Genesis 25 finally converges into a single sentence: “Choose the eternal
promise, not the convenience of the moment.”
davidjang.org
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