Eileen Cass, Finn Mauritzen, Bill McCarthy and Herb and Rene Lape were present and we read through Genesis 17 through 20. The following is pretty much the bare bones of what we read and we were amazed at the "R" rated content.
Gen. 17 -When Abram is ninety-nine, the Lord appears to him again and restates his promises to him a third time: 17:2 – You will be the father of many nations, the covenant will be perpetual and is sealed by the act of circumcision. The first two are in 12:2 “I will make you a great nation, your name a blessing” and 15:18: “your descendants shall be countless, you will receive the land from Egypt to the Euphrates.” Perhaps what we have here is simply another version of the original covenant God makes with Abram, but the repetition of it highlights the fact that God’s promises and God’s intervention is on its own timetable, not ours. Nothing Abram or Sarai do will hurry the process. God changes Abram’s name here to Abraham and institutes the practice of circumcision. Thus, God says, the covenant “shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact” (17:13). Sarai’s name is modified to Sarah and the birth of their son is foretold. The pact with Ishmael is confirmed as well. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains and will become a great nation. The chapter ends with Abraham and Ishmael being circumcised even while it is clarified that Ishmael is not to be the heir God has been promising all along.
Gen. 18 - This chapter shows us Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent near a small tree called a Terebinth at Mamre. It is just getting to the hot part of the day, when three strangers appear. Abraham runs over to them and begs them to accept hospitality from him. He enlists Sarah’s help and arranges for meat and cheese to be offered. While they are eating, they ask where his wife is and one of them says “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son” (18:10). Sarah, inside the tent laughs to herself for she is well beyond child-bearing age and knows it. But the speaker, now identified as “the Lord” repeats to Abraham what she has only said to herself. Sarah tries to deny she laughed, but of course we all know that Sarah is having trouble really believing that this promise will ever be brought to pass—that is why she resorted to the scheme with Hagar.
The three men then set out from there and Abraham goes with them a ways toward Sodom. The voice changes back and forth from that of the men (or one of the men) to that of YHWH himself (18:9 and 13) and later again at verses 16 and 17. It is clear that they are to be seen as His voice. He does tell him he plans to destroy Sodom. This is an interesting passage both for its content and the point of view it pretends to speak from. Here the writer presents to us the inner workings of the Lord’s mind concerning not only Abraham, but the whole plan of the future he has initiated through Abraham. The conferring of the redemption promises on Abraham bring him into relationship with God in such a way that God feels he has a right or need to know how God will deal with men, to understand God’s justice and even to mediate mankind’s needs to God. That this spurs Abraham to intercede for Sodom flows naturally from God’s including him in the divine reflection, which ultimately effects the action God takes. There is an inter-action between the divine intention and man’s response to that intention which ultimately shapes what happens, what God puts into effect. Also interesting is the point that God is going to punish Sodom because he is responding to an outcry against their wickedness. In all this, the inter-involvement and interplay between God and man, not simply God’s omniscience and omnipotence, seem to be that which shapes events.
Abraham pleads with God not to destroy the innocent with the guilty. Noah didn’t do this (presuming that there were other innocent destroyed in the flood), but Abraham, like Moses and Jesus after him will take the part of man at least to a point and intercede for us. In a sense this makes Abraham God’s first “prophet.” The Lord finally does agree to spare Sodom if ten righteous men can be found there, and perhaps would have gone further, but Abraham does not presume to push Him beyond ten.
Gen. 19 - Two angel messengers are entertained by Lot whose hospitality is implicitly praised. The men of the town beat at his door demanding that he turn them over to them so they can “abuse” them –“be intimate with them” [Tanakh, 5]. There is virtually no discussion or follow up on the particular evil implied. The whole focus is on the fact that destruction will come, but the virtuous Lot and those he loves are given a path to follow to avoid the destruction.
Lot’s daughters seem to be affected by the sexual decadence of the times in their own plot to sleep with their father. The older daughter gives birth to Moah, the younger one to Ben-ammi (the Ammonites). The note suggests it is a gibe at Israel’s enemies to link them in this way with such conduct.
Gen. 20 - A doublet of 12:10, but involving not the king of Egypt but the King of Gerar, a kingdom south of Gaza, Abimelech. Abimelech has a dream from God revealing the truth of what Abraham is doing and he confronts Abraham. The idea of God’s prophets being favored and being people who can intercede with God for us is reinforced here (20:7). Abraham learns that there is fear and respect for God outside his own people, so at Abraham’s intercession, God does lift the sanction he had imposed on them for their inadvertent violation of his will.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
October 2nd Bible Study
There were just three of us at this morning's meeting, and we had no key to the Meeting House Center, so we had to sit out in the glorious sunshine God blessed us with. We read through Genesis 12 through 16 and had a wonderful discussion. First here is the narrative in brief form:
Gen. 12 - God addresses Abram and tells him to leave Haran, the home of his father’s clan, to go to “a land that I will show you” (12:1). And then come the great promises – God promises to make of him a great nation, and God tells him He will make Abram’s name great and him a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (12:2-3). Abram is 75 when they leave.
When they get to Shechem, the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that this is the land he is promising him. Abram builds an altar there and invokes the Lord’s name. Then we are told that they go into Egypt to escape famine. Abram worries about Sarai’s beauty being a source of conflict, so they agree to say she is his sister. The Pharaoh indeed does send for her, and we are not told what transpires there, if anything did. But Abram benefits from the Pharaoh’s favoritism; the Lord, however, is very displeased and strikes Egypt with severe plagues. There are a number of “foreshadowing details” here in this story that will be repeated at several points in the later narrative—a move to Egypt forced by famine, a position of honor accorded the wandering man of God from Canaan; God’s infliction of a series of plagues; and sending of God’s favored one away from Pharaoh’s kingdom to bring peace back to the kingdom. Even the wealth Abram obtains there (see 12:16), he gets to take with them. Surely this is a “type” of the later exodus.
Abraham is the first of the three key players in the redemption story—he will be followed by Moses and Jesus—who will in a sense “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries. The story of his sojourn in Egypt (one of a triplet of like stories in the Old Testament) establishes his prosperity, even if it comes as a result of deceit, and Sarah’s value and importance. Like his people he comes out of Egypt loaded with goods, so much he must separate from Lot (13:5-11).
Abram is told from the beginning that he is only the first of many, that through him a faithful people will be formed, and that this people will have an impact far beyond the borders of the nation they will form—that blessing will come through him and his seed to all mankind. There will be much hardship along the way—exile, slavery and oppression and who knows what else in the distant, distant, future that will come before “all the nations of the earth” will “bless themselves by his descendants.
The process begins with Abram hearing God’s voice and obeying it.
Gen. 13 - In response to God’s call, Abram goes to the Negeb and on to Bethel, to the place where he builds an altar. Abram and his extended family have so much property that he suggests to his nephew Lot that he go off and find himself a separate place to settle. Lot chooses the Jordan plain. Abram stays in Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, near Sodom. The first thing we hear about Sodom is that in inhabitants were very wicked (13:13). The chapter ends with the Lord recapitulating the promises he made to Abram: “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that is one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (13:14-17).
Gen. 14 - There is a war in the region between the two main alliances of kings. When Lot gets taken by the winning alliance, Abram goes and with 318 of his retainers, he recaptures Lot and his possessions and brings them back. When he returns, not only does the king of Sodom greet him, but a King by the name of Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem), greets him as well. Melchizedek is a priest of “the Most High God,” (our God, the God of Abram) and he gives Abram offerings of bread and wine (14:18-20). In turn Abram givens him a tenth of all he has.
Gen. 15 – God’s word comes to him again and takes him out to see the stars of the sky. And God promises in words similar to those later given to Moses—“I am YHWH who brought you out of [Ur] to give you this land.. .” (15:7) and I will make [your] Abram’s descendants as many as the stars. That Abram has faith (or trusts) in God’s promises is “credited . . .to him as an act of righteousness” (15:6). Then God repeats the covenant, and solemnizes the occasion by having Abram offer a heifer, a she-goat, a ram (all age 3), a turtle dove and a pigeon. Each of the first three is split in two and Abram guards them all day. In the evening, Abraham falls into a trance and “a deep, terrifying darkness envelope[s] him” (15:12). God reveals to Abram that his descendants shall suffer a period of slavery before God delivers them. When it is dark, a “smoking brazier and a flaming torch” pass between the severed pieces of animal and the covenant is concluded with respect to the lands God intends to confer on Abram’s line.
Gen. 16 - Discouraged that NO CHILD has come from all the promises thus far, Sarai, discouraged with her own infertility and not quite as ready as Abram is simply to trust in the word of God they have received becomes impatient and comes up with her own plan to make the promise of God come to pass. She offers Abram her maidservant Hagar with the idea that perhaps any children that result might be considered hers. Hagar is an Egyptian woman. She does become pregnant, but the success of Sarai’s scheme only creates problems. Hagar now thinks she is better than Sarai. Sarai is jealous and blames Abram for her problems. Abram allows Sarai to decide what shall happen with Hagar (16:6) and the child, and Sarai has no pity now. She “abuses” Hagar so much that she finally runs away. The tragedy of human machinations here will require deep and on-going redemptive intervention by God—an intervention that is not yet at an end in our day.
The Lord’s messenger finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness and asks her where she is going. Then he advises Hagar to return and submit to the mistreatment, and in return she will be given a promise parallel to the one given to Abram. She is the first woman with whom a covenant is contracted with the Lord. Soon after her return, Ishmael is born. Abram is 86.
We found the story is interesting for many reasons. First there is the great patience Abram shows in his faith. He is not young when God makes all these promises to him. And yet he does not complain or ever become impatient with his God. And we talked about the fact that no land in the promised region comes into Abram's hands at all. WE, living in the 21st century can see that the faith he shows in his God will eventually draw the interest of many nations and many people; but the patience and faithfulness of Abram must have had more subtle and interior rewards.
Then there are the interesting consequences of Sarai's IMPATIENCE. She apparently simply cannot believe that God will be able to bring forth an heir for Abram from her aging body. So she must say to herself something like, "How is this promise to be realized?" Certainly God doesn’t expect them just to sit around and wait for a miracle. “God helps those who help themselves—right?” We reason like this all the time. And what we learn from this story is that God, while clearly not behind this “solution,” will eventually accept it and redeem it. There will be many times in this story that a similar thing will happen. God will promise something. We will become impatient or get some inspiration of our own how we can “make” God’s promise happen and we will get it wrong—we will grasp a way he is not behind—and he will make it work in spite of us. It will happen with Ishmael’s birth; it will happen again with the institution of the monarchy in Israel; and perhaps it happens all the time. Perhaps every redemptive “effort” that man has made will ultimately be transformed by God into real redemption by God’s deep and unrelenting love and redemptive work in us, in our lives and in our history.
The appearance of Melchizedek, "Priest of the Most High God" drew interest among us as well. He shows that while God clearly had a process being started with the Hebrew descendants of Abram, He was also part of the worship of other people. The model of Melchizedek will inspire early Jewish converts of Christ, who see that God can act outside the tradition, he can raise up priests who are not of the family of Aaron. Perhaps this gave them the freedom to lay down other aspects of the Mosaic law that were impediments to gentile converts. The balance this Abram story shows between strict terms of faith and what seems a fair amount of latitude God permits us in the exercise of our freedom and our inevitable impatience and imperfection was also something we talked about.
We will begin before Meeting on October 23, or as our forebearers would have said - First Day of 23rd day, Tenth Month, 2011 (10 o'clock). We will start at Genesis 17. If you can read on, great. Or will will read together. Hope you can make it.
Gen. 12 - God addresses Abram and tells him to leave Haran, the home of his father’s clan, to go to “a land that I will show you” (12:1). And then come the great promises – God promises to make of him a great nation, and God tells him He will make Abram’s name great and him a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (12:2-3). Abram is 75 when they leave.
When they get to Shechem, the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that this is the land he is promising him. Abram builds an altar there and invokes the Lord’s name. Then we are told that they go into Egypt to escape famine. Abram worries about Sarai’s beauty being a source of conflict, so they agree to say she is his sister. The Pharaoh indeed does send for her, and we are not told what transpires there, if anything did. But Abram benefits from the Pharaoh’s favoritism; the Lord, however, is very displeased and strikes Egypt with severe plagues. There are a number of “foreshadowing details” here in this story that will be repeated at several points in the later narrative—a move to Egypt forced by famine, a position of honor accorded the wandering man of God from Canaan; God’s infliction of a series of plagues; and sending of God’s favored one away from Pharaoh’s kingdom to bring peace back to the kingdom. Even the wealth Abram obtains there (see 12:16), he gets to take with them. Surely this is a “type” of the later exodus.
Abraham is the first of the three key players in the redemption story—he will be followed by Moses and Jesus—who will in a sense “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries. The story of his sojourn in Egypt (one of a triplet of like stories in the Old Testament) establishes his prosperity, even if it comes as a result of deceit, and Sarah’s value and importance. Like his people he comes out of Egypt loaded with goods, so much he must separate from Lot (13:5-11).
Abram is told from the beginning that he is only the first of many, that through him a faithful people will be formed, and that this people will have an impact far beyond the borders of the nation they will form—that blessing will come through him and his seed to all mankind. There will be much hardship along the way—exile, slavery and oppression and who knows what else in the distant, distant, future that will come before “all the nations of the earth” will “bless themselves by his descendants.
The process begins with Abram hearing God’s voice and obeying it.
Gen. 13 - In response to God’s call, Abram goes to the Negeb and on to Bethel, to the place where he builds an altar. Abram and his extended family have so much property that he suggests to his nephew Lot that he go off and find himself a separate place to settle. Lot chooses the Jordan plain. Abram stays in Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, near Sodom. The first thing we hear about Sodom is that in inhabitants were very wicked (13:13). The chapter ends with the Lord recapitulating the promises he made to Abram: “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that is one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (13:14-17).
Gen. 14 - There is a war in the region between the two main alliances of kings. When Lot gets taken by the winning alliance, Abram goes and with 318 of his retainers, he recaptures Lot and his possessions and brings them back. When he returns, not only does the king of Sodom greet him, but a King by the name of Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem), greets him as well. Melchizedek is a priest of “the Most High God,” (our God, the God of Abram) and he gives Abram offerings of bread and wine (14:18-20). In turn Abram givens him a tenth of all he has.
Gen. 15 – God’s word comes to him again and takes him out to see the stars of the sky. And God promises in words similar to those later given to Moses—“I am YHWH who brought you out of [Ur] to give you this land.. .” (15:7) and I will make [your] Abram’s descendants as many as the stars. That Abram has faith (or trusts) in God’s promises is “credited . . .to him as an act of righteousness” (15:6). Then God repeats the covenant, and solemnizes the occasion by having Abram offer a heifer, a she-goat, a ram (all age 3), a turtle dove and a pigeon. Each of the first three is split in two and Abram guards them all day. In the evening, Abraham falls into a trance and “a deep, terrifying darkness envelope[s] him” (15:12). God reveals to Abram that his descendants shall suffer a period of slavery before God delivers them. When it is dark, a “smoking brazier and a flaming torch” pass between the severed pieces of animal and the covenant is concluded with respect to the lands God intends to confer on Abram’s line.
Gen. 16 - Discouraged that NO CHILD has come from all the promises thus far, Sarai, discouraged with her own infertility and not quite as ready as Abram is simply to trust in the word of God they have received becomes impatient and comes up with her own plan to make the promise of God come to pass. She offers Abram her maidservant Hagar with the idea that perhaps any children that result might be considered hers. Hagar is an Egyptian woman. She does become pregnant, but the success of Sarai’s scheme only creates problems. Hagar now thinks she is better than Sarai. Sarai is jealous and blames Abram for her problems. Abram allows Sarai to decide what shall happen with Hagar (16:6) and the child, and Sarai has no pity now. She “abuses” Hagar so much that she finally runs away. The tragedy of human machinations here will require deep and on-going redemptive intervention by God—an intervention that is not yet at an end in our day.
The Lord’s messenger finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness and asks her where she is going. Then he advises Hagar to return and submit to the mistreatment, and in return she will be given a promise parallel to the one given to Abram. She is the first woman with whom a covenant is contracted with the Lord. Soon after her return, Ishmael is born. Abram is 86.
We found the story is interesting for many reasons. First there is the great patience Abram shows in his faith. He is not young when God makes all these promises to him. And yet he does not complain or ever become impatient with his God. And we talked about the fact that no land in the promised region comes into Abram's hands at all. WE, living in the 21st century can see that the faith he shows in his God will eventually draw the interest of many nations and many people; but the patience and faithfulness of Abram must have had more subtle and interior rewards.
Then there are the interesting consequences of Sarai's IMPATIENCE. She apparently simply cannot believe that God will be able to bring forth an heir for Abram from her aging body. So she must say to herself something like, "How is this promise to be realized?" Certainly God doesn’t expect them just to sit around and wait for a miracle. “God helps those who help themselves—right?” We reason like this all the time. And what we learn from this story is that God, while clearly not behind this “solution,” will eventually accept it and redeem it. There will be many times in this story that a similar thing will happen. God will promise something. We will become impatient or get some inspiration of our own how we can “make” God’s promise happen and we will get it wrong—we will grasp a way he is not behind—and he will make it work in spite of us. It will happen with Ishmael’s birth; it will happen again with the institution of the monarchy in Israel; and perhaps it happens all the time. Perhaps every redemptive “effort” that man has made will ultimately be transformed by God into real redemption by God’s deep and unrelenting love and redemptive work in us, in our lives and in our history.
The appearance of Melchizedek, "Priest of the Most High God" drew interest among us as well. He shows that while God clearly had a process being started with the Hebrew descendants of Abram, He was also part of the worship of other people. The model of Melchizedek will inspire early Jewish converts of Christ, who see that God can act outside the tradition, he can raise up priests who are not of the family of Aaron. Perhaps this gave them the freedom to lay down other aspects of the Mosaic law that were impediments to gentile converts. The balance this Abram story shows between strict terms of faith and what seems a fair amount of latitude God permits us in the exercise of our freedom and our inevitable impatience and imperfection was also something we talked about.
We will begin before Meeting on October 23, or as our forebearers would have said - First Day of 23rd day, Tenth Month, 2011 (10 o'clock). We will start at Genesis 17. If you can read on, great. Or will will read together. Hope you can make it.
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