Genesis 20 and the World

So, this week we talked about that sinner Abraham and that righteous Gentile Abimelech. Two things stood out to me. First, it's very clear that God intervenes here to protect His covenant promise, despite Abraham's unfaithfulness. And immediately following this story of sin and the faithless covenant People of God, God intervenes again and Isaac is born. Crazy God that we worship decided to bless Abraham while he was a sinning sinner who sinned. I'm really thankful for that crazy God and His outrageous love and care for us.

The second thing that really caught me from this passage is the relationship between the unrighteous People of God and the righteous Gentile. Abraham acts faithlessly, threatens God's covenant promise, gives up his wife to another man to save himself, badly misjudges Abimelech's character, shifts blame, tries to justify himself, and just plain sucks. What is he thinking? Abimelech, on the other hand, fears God, acts obediently and with integrity, blesses Abraham, and lives totally above reproach here. Makes me wonder why God didn't choose Abimelech instead of Abraham. Again, thank God He's in charge and not me. The thing that caught me, though, is that little phrase in verse 11 - Abraham says, "I thought, 'surely there is no fear of God here'". He can justify all kinds of behavior based on his fear. He makes the mistake of thinking that only the People of God act rightly, while the rest of the world acts like Sodom. Foolish. God gave His image to all of His human creation. We all bear His character, whether we know Him or not. Because of that, we deserve to give respect and dignity to all persons, whether they are in Christ or not. And we can accept truth from them, whether they know The Truth or not.

Staying in a Christian bubble or rejecting truth because it scares us or challenges our ways of thinking is fundamentally anti-Creation and anti-Christ. Our God calls us to be a blessing to the world. I found this over the last week (courtesy of Rod Dreher). What a joke. A conservative Bible that rejects "liberal bias", "liberal wordiness", and even the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, because it's used in a liberal way. Seriously. I love the Body of Christ, but sometimes the immaturity and close-mindedness of some of her members drives me crazy. Lord, I pray for the total failure of this project and others like it. Let's love others and accept goodness and truth from them.

- Josh

An Update: This quote is also courtesy of Dreher, from St Nikolai Velimirovich:

He is a man; do not rejoice in his fall. He is your brother; let not your heart leap for joy when he stumbles. God created him for life, and God does not rejoice in his fall. And you also, do not rejoice at that which grieves God.