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Good News and Bad News—Genesis 18

New life and imminent death

Genesis 18 offers many lessons. These include lessons about hospitality, about faith, about God’s patience, about God’s justice, about persevering prayer and about God’s sovereignty in answering prayer. These lessons appear in God’s dialogue with Sarah and Abraham.

When three visitors suddenly appear near his camp, Abraham offers hospitality eagerly, running from his shade (18:2) and offering shade for them (18:4). As today in many cultures, including in Africa, hospitality also includes seeing people off, which Abraham does when they are ready to leave (Gen 18:16). Of course, by that time Abraham has a much better idea who his visitors are.

One of the three visitors is explicitly the LORD himself (18:1, 13, 17, 22; cf. 19:1)! He has a shocking message for Sarah: the Lord announces that Sarah will bear a son at that time the next year! In response, Sarah laughs (18:12), just as Abraham had when he first heard it (17:17). Passages we explored earlier have shown Abraham as a man of faith, but after so many years of waiting, at a time of life that was naturally impossible, and after already having settled that Ishmael would be the heir, mustering courage for this further phase of the promise must have appeared difficult.

God’s current promise—his current invitation to faith—was fortunately not dependent on the level of their confidence. God had seen their obedience in years past and was bringing about his purposes. Sarah denies laughing (18:15), but cannot fool God any more than did the earlier evasive response of Cain (4:9).

God has another issue to raise with Abraham before he is finished. God had been seeking to turn humanity back to himself since the garden and since the flood, but most people had remained alienated from him. God chose Abraham partly for how he would raise his children (18:19), to start a new line that would call humanity back toward the one true God. God called Abraham to this task even though God would give him just one son to directly fulfill this purpose, and it would only be later that this son’s descendants would make this God known to other peoples. That is because God knows the future. God did not need for Abraham to have a lot of extra sons “just in case.”

Yet in Abraham’s time most of humanity remained alienated from God, some as wickedly as the generation of the flood. Their wickedness was contagious, and God would destroy them rather than allow the moral cancer to corrupt others. We will look further at Sodom in the next chapter (when addressing Gen 19), but here it’s important to note Abraham’s response to the announcement of judgment on Sodom, and why he responds this way.

Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom. On their behalf, and on behalf of the (wrongly) presumed other righteous persons in the city, Abraham pleads with God to spare the city. We too should join in prayer on behalf of God’s children in difficult places. In 18:22-32, we see a model of persistence in prayer. God shares the matter with Abraham to begin with because he wants Abraham to intercede. God wants us to care about others, and God himself looks for an occasion to show mercy; even if Sodom did not merit it, perhaps Abraham would merit it.

Abraham knows enough about Sodom to recognize that God’s justice means that Sodom is doomed unless God shows mercy (18:21-23). Thus he offers arguments based on God’s character, seeking to reason with God in prayer yet all the while recognizing that God’s reason is greater than Abraham’s own. Abraham recognizes that before God he is just dust (18:27)—like Adam (2:7; 3:19). Ultimately, there are fewer righteous people in Sodom than Abraham presumes; even Lot’s own family has been corrupted. Yet while Sodom did not merit sparing, Abraham did, and Lot is spared for Abraham’s sake (19:16, 21-22, 29). God destroys Sodom and yet fulfills the spirit of Abraham’s prayer. Abraham sees the smoke of Sodom the next day (19:27-28), not yet knowing that God spared Lot for Abraham’s sake (19:29).

How often does God meet our need, yet in ways different from what we supposed necessary? How often does God say, “I will see you through this,” and yet he sees us through in a different way than we expected? And how many places are spared because of the righteous, though they might be despised in those places, as Lot was?

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The problematic polarization of public rhetoric

An example

Tom A. Toe, senatorial candidate from the red party, recently waffled on a reporter’s pointed question about food preferences, thus conspicuously displaying his hatred of bananas.

Although reds complain that bananas are largely starch, recent studies widely tout the health benefits of bananas. By contrast, tomatoes, which the reds feel contain more vitamins, are likelier to cause indigestion, have some of their reported health benefits only when cooked (unnecessary with bananas), and grow closer to the ground where they are more susceptible to rabbits. Tomato skins also can contain pesticides, whereas these are easily removed with the peels on bananas.

Toe’s obvious sidestepping of an explicit question underlines his status as a banaphobe. Bananaphobia is a form of rhetorical violence, comparable to the hatred of geese, and should be banned from public discourse. That some members of the red party have denounced Yellows as tomatophobes, based on a few extreme voices, simply demonstrates the depths of falsehood to which banaphobes stoop. This state will be much safer and more respectful for everyone if banaphobes, the party of extremism, are silenced, banned, and reformed so they can participate more helpfully in our free and open society.

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Good cultural backgrounds helps us trust Scripture

Lots of skeptics today criticize the Bible, oblivious to the cultural setting that it was addressing. Instead of seeing how biblical texts improved values of their surrounding culture, skeptics condemn the Bible for not promoting twenty-first century values that (whether we agree with those values or not) no one had heard of in biblical times. When Christians read the Bible in an ahistorical way, ignoring the cultural settings that it originally addressed, we play into skeptics’ hands. Just as God communicated the divine message to people in their specific languages, God also communicated to them in concrete cultural settings. Recognizing those settings helps us reapply the Bible’s message more concretely and appropriately in our often different situations today. If you want to apply the Bible rightly, knowing the first situation helps you recognize what kinds of situations are and are not analogous today.

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Father of nations and kings—Genesis 17:5-6

Sometimes people go around “confessing” things in “faith” that aren’t true, and such words have no effect. There is, however, someone who speaks and it is as good as done. As Lamentations declares, “Who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has commanded it? Isn’t it from the Highest One’s decree that both harm and good issue forth?” (Lam 3:37-38).

When God declared to Abram, “I have made you a father of nations” (17:5), he referred to a future promise. God is referring to what will happen through Sarah (17:15-16), thus to something that in Genesis 17 still remains future. What matters, however, is not whether something has already happened, but whether God has decreed that it will happen. Some promises in the Bible are conditional, of course, but God states the condition here and Abraham follows it.

First, God states the promise he makes as part of the covenant (“As for me,” 17:4); God also makes a promise concerning Sarai (“As for Sarai,” 17:15). The condition for Abraham is clear: he and his descendants must be circumcised (“As for you,” 17:9-14).

God’s promise was not only that Abraham would become a father of nations, but that kings would descend from him (17:6). Again, he refers to Abraham’s line by Sarah, through their son Isaac: “kings of peoples” (plural) would descend from Sarah (17:16). Other rulers might descend from Abraham’s lines through Hagar (Ishmaelites), Keturah (Midianites and others), and from Abraham’s and Sarah’s relatives (peoples from Lot’s daughters). From Sarah, however, the only two peoples would be the Edomites and the Israelites. Jacob’s line, like Esau’s (36:31), would include many kings (35:11), most importantly in the Davidic dynasty. But Jacob would beget not only a nation but a community of nations (35:11). The ultimate Davidic ruler, the Messiah, would rule all nations (see Isa 11:10, 12).

Abraham obeyed his part of the covenant immediately (17:23), despite the pain if circumcision at his age (nearly one hundred, 17:1, 17, 24), and the pain of his followers. They needed a new leader who would succeed him, and this leader was promised by God. Often when God makes a promise there is a condition, and the condition often entails a cost. Those who genuinely believe what God has promised, however, will readily undertake any conditions to serve and please the God who watches over us.

In this chapter, we see God’s covenant faithfulness and his power to bring to pass what he promises. We also see the importance of obeying what God commands.

(This is part of a series of studies on Genesis; see e.g., Sodom; flood; creation; fall; God’s favor.)

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Frank Viola interviews Craig about Impossible Love

Impossible Love tells the story of Craig (as a person), with a special focus on his wife Médine’s experiences as a war refugee. Although a true account, it is narrated more in the style of an adventure story rather than in documentary style, so it is suitable for a wide audience.
Here is Frank Viola’s interview (on his blog)

For those interested in the book itself, here are a couple links: through CBD; through Amazon.