Out of Context God

Genesis 20:1

Genesis 20:1

Now Abraham moved on from there 

I love Abraham's thinking here...sometimes it is just best to move on.

Genesis 19:36

Genesis 19:36

So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 

Alright, I'm gonna say it. Chapter 19 is weird.

We started with the Village People surrounding Lot's house and end with drunk Lot sleeping with his daughter's two nights in a row.

There is so much wrong with the story, but I think the most interesting/depressing part is the desperation shown by Lot's daughters.

After they escape the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah they find themselves with their dad in a cave up in the mountains and the older daughter gets (what she thinks) is a great idea.

She tells the younger sister. "Hey...let's get dad drunk, sleep with him and have baby's What do you think? Brilliant huh?"

And this is where I expect the younger daughter to say "WHAT ???? Are you some crazy wack job? That is the grossest, weirdest, nastiest thing I have ever heard."

But nooooooooo......the younger daughter says "sure, not sure why I didn't think of that first."

Flash Forward 48 hours, we have Lot waking up from hangover number two, a pair of pregnant daughters, and the God of the Universe shaking his head thinking these were the good people that Abraham was talking about.

Back to the daughter's desperation....it is amazing to me that they got so desperate so fast that they were willing to compromise every bit of dignity, common sense, and understanding of right and wrong they had ever known.

It's crazy how crazy people can be.

Genesis 19:5

Genesis 19:5

They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." 

Say what?????????????????????????????????????????

Here I am reading along....Abraham, Sarah, babies, future of the world, everything seems OK.

Then we fast forward a bit and find Lot sitting in the front yard of Sodom chatting it up with a couple of Angels. After some small talk he invites them over to the house for dinner. They gather round the table to eat and as they get up Lot looks out the window and sees a crowd of men from all around town standing outside his house.

So he sticks his head out the window to see that is going on and the next thing he hears is "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we can have sex with them."

Say what?????????????????????????????????????????

Not "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we can watch Monday NIght Football with them." Or "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we can drink beer and play cards."

No it was "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we can have sex with them."

Yikes....I though this was a "family-friendly" book.

(Christian bookstores are filled with Children's Bible Story Books - I would bet you ONE ZILLION DOLLARS that this verse is not in any of them.)

Genesis 18:32

Genesis 18:32

Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?" He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it. 

If I ever get the chance to write the little chapter headers for the Bible (i.e. Noah floats a boat or David and Goliath - Cage Match Mania) I think it would be a really cool job. I already have the one for this part of Genesis. I think the header for this part of Chapter 18 would be "Abraham - World's First Garage Sale Bickerer."

Cause in this passage God is up to his eyeballs in frustration with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and has said, "That's it, I am done with these people" and is getting ready say game over."

 But just as God is laying His game plan, Abraham pipes up with a suggestion. 

"So God...I know you're really mad and that these guys have really messed up, but seriously, I mean really, don't you have a just a little bit of kindness tucked in the back pocket of flowing white gown. Here's what I'm thinking, surely in those two big cities there are fifty people who have not made a complete train wreck of their lives. How's about we say of there are fifty 'good guys' you call the whole thing off. OK?"

And God takes him up. "Ok...if there's fifty we're good."

At which point Abraham gets his inner garage sale bickerer on...."Alright then....maybe fifty is a bit high. I have another number in mind. Surely wouldn't dust the place for five teensy weensy people, say about, just between us forty five?"

And God says "okie dokie...you show me forty five straight shooters and we are good to go."

And so it goes, like a shopper and a seller leaning across the 18-year-old kitchen table at the tail end of a July summer garage sale, "forty....thirty...twenty..."

Then Abraham plays the "I have just one more thought card" and says "Ten."

I think if I were God I would have said "enough" reached down into the lightening bolt storage bin, grabbed ahandful of XXL bolts and let them fly.

But He didn't...

He just said, "ok...for ten righteous people I will not destroy it."

And Abraham went home.  Forty people to the good in a garage sale argument with God.

And I wonder why Abraham did this, and then I think of the thousand times I have said 'God...if you just let me pass algebra...if you just let me get a job...if you just make Madison's seizures stop....then I will....(fill in the blank."

And I realize that I am a garage sale bickerer with God. But unlike Abraham who seemed to have someone else's interest in mind, I tend to be focused on my needs and my wants when I try to rip God off.

Genesis 18:14

Genesis 18:14

Is anything too hard for the LORD ? 

And I guess the implied answer to this rhetorical question is “No.” This is a question that is easy to answer on the surface, but a little harder in reality.

 

We have three daughters at our house. Suzie is the oldest, Mabel is the baby, and Kenzo is the bridge in between the two.

 

When Suzie was six months old she got horribly, terribly sick. Life support sick. The doctors pulling us into a small room and saying "You need to understand that there is a fair chance that she will not live” sick.

 

Heartbreaking sick. Soul crushing sick. God questioning sick.

 

And so I read that God told Abraham (he changed his name in the midst of all his experiences. I think that maybe it was related to the whole ‘Hagar’ episode, but that is pure speculation. I am pretty sure that Sarai called him some names other than Abram/Abraham, etc.)

 

And then in the midst of the whole Sarai and Abram no kids adventure…oh excuse me Sarai and Abraham’s great Adventure…they began to question God and whether his promises were really going to happen.

 

And the Lord said to them, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”

 

The question just hung in the air.

 

And so while I suppose we are all supposed to, in Christian lock step scream at the top of our lungs "NO THERE IS NOTHING TOO HARD FOR GOD." I have to be honest when I say that if God had spoken to me back when Suzie was on a ventilator and having seizures and her brain was swelling and her temperature was rising and He asked me that question I think I would have said, “YES. Since she seems to be dying, I would say ‘yes, this is too hard for the Lord.”

My answer would be different now, but in that season 12 years ago, I would have had to say all this stuff going on with Madison may be beyond his pay grade...

 

I’m just being honest here.

 

 

Genesis 17:11

Genesis 17:11

You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

Was there not a different way to signify this covenant? Just sign a contract, give a High-Five, anything except, well…you know…

I'm just asking...

Genesis 16:1-2

Genesis 16:1-2

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

I think that the famous Nike advertising slogan "Just Do It" was born out of this scene… However in this case it would have been "JUST SAY NO!!!!!"

Abram and Sarai have been through a lot. What with the whole "say you'e my sister" episode, and so they are no doubt at their end of their rope.

But even so this is the point where Abram needed to just take a deep breath and say, “uhm Sarai honey…are you still mad about that whole ‘she’s my sister thing? Cause if you are this is not really a good solution. Because while yes, your servant Hagar is, how do the young people say it, “HOT....”

 

Note to Abram…shut up!

 

But no....Abram does not hush up...I imagine he continues “…and yes all the guys do check her out…but I am not sure that this is such a good idea because you remember that God said that “I would have all the descendants….dust of the earth…grains of sand stuff…remember that. I do not remember him saying anything  about ‘you Abram…why don’t you go hook up with Hagar…cause I am pretty sure I would remember something like that…”

 

Note to Abram….put your Big Boy panties on and “Just Say NO!”

 

"He slept with Hagar, and she conceived."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will you never listen to me?

Amazing how a few thousand years of hindsight gives light to crazy impulsive decisions. This makes me doubly glad that my life is not immortalized in any book...

 

Genesis 12:13

Genesis 12:13

Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."

To my thinking this is perhaps the second biggest (after Eve and the apple) "Boy I sure wish I didn't do this moment in the Bible."

In this passage, Abram and his wife are headed into Egypt to try to get some food for everyone because things were really bad at the house. And just as Sarai is getting ready to ring the doorbell in Egypt, Abram grabs her hand and in a smooth and debonair way, “Oh, I almost forgot. Baby, when we get inside the Pharaoh’s house, how about we try this....how about we say...uhmm....I was just thinking that maybe we ought to, just this one time,...yeah you;re gonna think this was funny some day...I’ll just say you’re my sister…isn’t that crazy? Sarai…Sarai…where are you going…put that rock down…"

So for some reason Sarai goes with the plan and then later in the story, the Pharaoh has tried to put the moves on Sarai, and then he discovers that Sarai is actually Abram’s wife, not his sister.

 

"What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife?

 

And this is not in the Bible, but I would almost certainly guess that Sarai, being the loving supportive wife chimes in, “yeah Abram…why did you do that to Pharaoh?”

To which Abran replies, "Gulp...."

Genesis 10:32

Genesis 10:32

These are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

I am now ten chapters into Genesis.  In the Bible I am using, it is page 23 of 1950. There are 1,189 chapters, so I am about .85% of the way through. I have been at this about 40 days so I am going through a chapter every four days or so. If I continue at the current rate I will finish this thing in about 13 years.

Gotta pick up the pace.

But as I look back at the first ten chapters I have seen creation, fall of man, destruction of humanity, and now we are starting the "do-over."

But the thing that strikes me most is that of the first ten chapters in the most famous book in the whole world, two full chapters are composed of family trees.

Chapter five covers Adam to Noah. Chapter 10 takes us from Noah's boys to Joktan's boys.

Three things jump into my head:
    -    families are important
    -    families are what last forever
    -    sometimes what you do in/for your family will not be evident for generations.