Older brothers get bad press in the Bible. Cain was the first, and the first fratricide. There’s Ishmael and Esau and the older brothers of Joseph. Aaron was older than Moses; he wasn’t a villain, but he did make a calf at Sinai. The prodigal had an older brother too.
It’s all typological, of course, for Adam is the older of the two Adams. In the fairy tale of the Bible, it’s the unpromising younger brother who makes good.
But it’s not just typology; or, better, typology is not fiction. Older brothers do have peculiar temptations. They have something to protect, turf to defend marked with I-got-here-first. How dare this little other, this upstart, slip in between my ambition and its realization?
Older is dangerous. Which is why Jesus can’t repeat it enough: You must become as little children.
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