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Gen. 19
I wonder sometimes about the point of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I think, though, that it is there to show us the same truths as the rest of the Bible. God told Abraham that He would spare the cities for only ten righteous people. There clearly weren’t ten. I dare say that there wasn’t even one. Lot may not have been as vile as the rest of the crowd, and he did attempt to protect God’s angels, but he still comes across as far from righteous to me. He hesitated leaving that wicked place, argued with the angels as to where to flee, and not just once, but twice got drunk enough to ‘unknowingly’ lay with his daughters. Is this the behavior of a righteous man? I think not! So point number one of the story – “There is none righteous; not even one” (Rom. 3:10).
We see point number two in the fact that Lot needed rescue; he needed help getting out of that city. The angels saved him from the crowd at his own door, physically dragged him out of the city, and held off destruction until he was safe. We are all, like Lot, caught up in the human condition, and we can’t get out on our own. And point number three is seen in the fact that Lot was spared only because of his association with Abraham. Like Lot, God saves us not because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of another. A relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way out of our human condition. He is the only escape from God’s righteous judgment.
Matt. 18
This chapter seems to cover several different topics. However, there is a flow to Jesus’ conversation that suggests that they are all somehow connected. Jesus started with humility, not just before God, but with fellow believers. He then talked about stumbling blocks, saving the lost, and forgiveness. My thought? He was expanding on humility between believers. All of these seemingly separate topics are telling us how to help keep each other humbly in Christ and not push each other away from Him. If we do not forgive as God has forgiven us, we become a stumbling block. And if we do not repent when confronted with our sin, we have become a stumbling block. Either way, such stumbling blocks lack humility and have no place in the body of Christ.
Neh. 8
A simple question jumped out at me today at the very first verse of this chapter. How on earth did the book of the Law of Moses survive all this time? The Babylonians had destroyed or removed the Temple and everything in it. Was the book among the artifacts they took and later returned? If so, why would they preserve a book that had no value to them? Maybe there were multiple copies of it. Still, after all the years and events and disasters that took place between God’s giving of the Law and this moment…how did they have it?
That just goes to show that God has preserved and protected His holy word from the very beginning. He makes sure that it is available to us for all time. Furthermore, although it wasn’t written, this is likely the first recorded occurrence of Bible translation. The people’s language must have changed during their 70 years of exile in a foreign country. But it seems there was a group of men there who still understood the original language. Ezra, together with these men read the Law to the people, “translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading.” (Neh. 8:8b). Translating to give the sense…that work is still very much in practice today, as God continues to work through people to make His word accessible and understandable to all. It truly is miraculous.