Leah and Rachel

Jacob was a man who gave and got more than he bargained for. His original plan was to work for seven years for one wife, Rachel. Instead, he ended up working fourteen years and got two wives, first Leah, then her younger sister Rachel. So instead of one wife, Jacob got two wives. These two sisters continually competed with each other for Jacob’s attention and affection.

Leah gave birth to four sons in a row, but Rachel was barren. “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die” (Gen. 30:1).

This only kindled Jacob’s anger against Rachel, and he said to her, “Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?”

Rachel told Jacob to take her handmaid Bilhah as a concubine, so Bilhah could bear children on Rachel’s behalf, like a surrogate mother. Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah bore Jacob two sons. Following Rachel’s example, Leah gave her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob to bear children on Leah’s behalf, and Zilpah bore two sons.

Then came the mandrake incident. Reuben, Leah’s firstborn, found some mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother. Rachel, perhaps thinking that mandrakes could help her infertility, said to Leah, “Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes.”

Leah replied, “Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? And wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also?”

Rachel said she would let Leah sleep with Jacob that night in exchange for some mandrakes. Leah agreed to the deal. When Jacob came home from work that evening, Leah said to him, “Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son’s mandrakes.”

Apparently a man cannot argue with his wife when mandrakes are involved, so Jacob slept with Leah that night, and she conceived and bore a fifth son. Later Leah bore a sixth son, then a daughter.

As a husband to four women, Jacob had to live in the middle of a tug-of-war. With all the demands for his time and attention and affection, Jacob was probably a very busy (and frustrated) man. Yet out of this dysfunctional family came the twelve sons who would grow into the twelve tribes of Israel. After many years of slavery in Egypt, these twelve tribes would receive the revelation of God’s Torah and eventually bring forth Yeshua (Jesus), the Savior of the world. Revelation 21:12 says the names of Jacob’s twelve sons will be written on the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem.

There are a few lessons we can learn from the lives of Leah and Rachel. The most obvious lesson is this: If you are a man, don’t have more than one wife at a time. It doesn’t work very well.

Joseph Smith, the polygamist founder of Mormonism, was a contemporary of Mark Twain, and lived just a short distance up the Mississippi River from Hannibal, Missouri, Twain’s hometown. One time the two men met and were discussing polygamy.

Smith said to Twain, “I challenge you to tell me just one Bible verse that says a man can’t have two wives at the same time.”

“That’s easy,” Twain replied. “‘No man can serve two masters.’”

Even though Twain’s verse was quoted out of context, I think Jacob probably could have related to Twain’s remark.

In addition to the obvious anti-polygamy lesson, there is an allegorical lesson for us in this story, a lesson that requires looking at Leah and Rachel as a picture of two contrasting types of congregations. That might sound a bit odd to you, but consider the following facts. These two sisters, though different, were both brides of Jacob. They were “sister wives” in a very literal sense. In the Bible, the corporate body of believers in Yeshua is collectively called the Bride of Messiah. Even though Yeshua has only one Bride, each local congregation, as part of that Bride, is also portrayed as His Bride. We see this in Paul’s words to the local congregation in Corinth:

“I have espoused you [Corinthian congregation] to one husband, that I may present you [Corinthian congregation] as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2).

Even though Yeshua has only one Bride, each local congregation is also to be viewed as His Bride. Just as Leah and Rachel were “sister wives,” we speak of “sister congregations” when one local congregation has a familial-like relationship with another local congregation. Therefore it should not seem odd to look at Leah and Rachel as a picture of two contrasting kinds of congregations. If you still think it sounds odd, read on.

Every local congregation of true believers is espoused to one husband, the Messiah. Some local congregations are like Leah and some are like Rachel. Leah was not outwardly beautiful, but she was faithful, fertile, and fruitful. Rachel was outwardly beautiful but she was barren. True, she eventually gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin after many years, but not until after Leah had given birth to six sons and a daughter. Compared to her plain-looking sister Leah, Rachel was barren.

Some local congregations are like Leah. They are rather plain looking. They do not have a big fancy building nor a lot of money. They do not have a professionally trained musician to lead a choir dressed in beautiful robes. The pastor is just an ordinary-looking guy and may not have much formal education.

Even though this Leah-like congregation consists of ordinary people, they do an extraordinary job of making disciples. Like Leah, they are faithful, fertile, and fruitful. As disciples are made, they see new life coming forth. This newness of life is the result of their love for the Lord, just as the new life that came forth from Leah’s womb was the result of her love for her lord Jacob.

This freshness and newness of life should be the norm in every congregation. A young bride is expected to bring forth new life, as Leah did. Leah was the norm. Rachel in her barrenness was the aberration, the abnormal.

Some local congregations are like Rachel. Outwardly they are beautiful to behold. They have a big fancy building and plenty of money to maintain it. They have professionally trained musicians and a big orchestra and choir. The pastor is tall and handsome and has big hair, unlike the short, balding, ordinary-looking guy who pastors the Leah-like congregation.

The Rachel-like congregation looks like it has a lot going for it, and maybe it does. But if disciples are not being made, any growth in the size of the congregation is not spiritual growth, it is spiritual barrenness.

Every local congregation should ask itself: “Are we making disciples, or are we just adding more congregants?”

I would rather be part of a congregation of five true disciples than be in a mega-church with 500 congregants who are not disciples and have no intention of being or making disciples.

Some Rachel-like congregations are like a river that is a mile wide and an inch deep, like the Illinois River that separates East Peoria from Peoria. This river at its widest point is literally a mile wide. At this mile-wide location, the river looks very big and impressive. It looks like a lot of water. However, the water is very shallow there, so shallow that you can wade almost halfway across before it gets very deep. I know, because I have baptized people there, and we had to wade out a very far distance before it was deep enough to immerse. Other parts of the Illinois River are narrow but deep. The coolest and swiftest and most powerful waters are found in the deep, narrow places of the river. The world admires and rewards shallowness but despises and shuns narrowness. But it is the narrow way that leads to life, and few there be that find it, Yeshua said.

It is not wrong for a congregation to have a nice building, lots of money, professional musicians, and a tall, handsome pastor. It’s not even wrong for a pastor to have big hair if that’s the hair-do he wants. However, if a church has all these things but fails to make disciples, it is a barren failure, even if a lot of people attend the meetings.

Every local assembly, whether large or small, should seek to transform every congregant into a disciple, and every disciple into a disciple maker. This was the pattern Paul gave to Timothy. “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

For many believers, their only involvement in making disciples is sending donations to ministries and organizations that evangelize sinners and disciple new converts. If that is the only thing a person can do to help make disciples, that’s fine. But if a believer is not disabled by sickness or by other difficult circumstances, and has the opportunity to get personally involved in helping to make disciples face to face, in person, that is far better and more fulfilling.

Paying others to do the work of disciple making is fine, but it is no substitute for face-to-face personal involvement. Consider Rachel and her use of her handmaid Bilhah as a surrogate mother. Rachel rejoiced at the birth of Bilhah’s two sons, but Rachel was still unfulfilled, because she was missing out on the full experience of motherhood. Rachel rejoiced at the birth of Bilhah’s sons, yet her reproach of barrenness was not fully taken away until she gave birth to a son from her own body. It was not until after the birth of Joseph that Rachel would say, “God hath taken away my reproach.”

Many years ago I was a member of a church. We had a church directory with the names of everyone who regularly attended our meetings. There were around seventy names. I used the directory for a prayer list, and prayed for each person on the list every day during my prayer time.

After doing this for around a year and a half, it occurred to me one day that we had not needed to update our directory for a year and a half, because we had not acquired any new people since the directory had been put together a year and a half earlier. We had had occasional visitors, but for a year and a half we had not had a single new person who wanted to come regularly. We were barren.

It also occurred to me that we were doing what Rachel did when she used Bilhah as a surrogate mother to produce her children. Instead of getting our own people personally involved in making disciples, our congregation was sending monthly donations to five other Christian organizations that evangelized sinners and made disciples. In effect, we were supporting someone else’s babies, like Rachel did, and not making any babies from our own body. Rachel at least had the benefit of being personally involved in the care of Bilhah’s children. Our only personal involvement was sending monthly checks and getting monthly receipts. It was very impersonal.

The five organizations we supported were doing good work, but just supporting other organizations did not satisfy the “maternal instinct” of my spirit. I felt like Rachel when she cried out, “Give me children, or else I die!”

I suggested to our church board that instead of sending so much money to other ministries, we consider using some of our money to get some of our own people involved in fulltime ministry, either locally or on the foreign mission field.

The church board was not interested. It was too risky.

Yes, it is risky to reproduce. Every pregnancy carries risks. Letting Bilhah bear her children carried no risk for Rachel, but Rachel wanted to take the risk and reproduce from her own body. She was not fully satisfied until she reproduced from her own body.

I believe this is one reason there is so much dissatisfaction in many local church bodies. They do not reproduce from their own local body, and the maternal instinct of the spirit is not satisfied.

It is risky to reproduce. It killed Rachel. But reproducing is what we are called to do, even if it kills us. “Go ye into all the world and make disciples.”

Even though reproducing killed Rachel, the two sons she bore, Joseph and Benjamin, fathered three of the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, fathered the two tribes that bore their names, and Benjamin fathered the tribe that bore his name.

The tribe of Ephraim became the largest of Israel’s tribes and produced Joshua, who brought the people of Israel into the Promised Land. The tribe of Benjamin became the smallest of Israel’s tribes but produced the Apostle Paul, who brought people from the nations into the commonwealth of Israel.

Both Leah and Rachel had sadness and suffering in their lives. Leah was unattractive and unwanted. Rachel was barren most of her life and she died young. But from these two suffering sisters and their two handmaids came the twelve sons who would father the nation of Israel, a nation that would produce prophets, priests, and kings, and finally produce Yeshua, the Prophet of prophets, the Priest of priests, the Lord of lords, and the King of kings.

As Leah and Rachel labored to give birth, neither of them fully foresaw what their labor was ultimately going to produce in the future. In like manner, we cannot fully foresee what our labor for the Lord will ultimately produce in eternity. But we can be sure it will be glorious, because the Bible says “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). And we can be sure that we will someday see that glory, because the Bible says “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). With these promises, we can endure the labor pains as we reproduce and make disciples.

| DB

Image: Leah and Rachel in Blue by Daniel Botkin from his Monochromatic Monotheistic art gallery. See this and all of Daniel’s art pieces on his art website, DanielBotkin.com.