Roman 9:13 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Hebrews 12:16b “or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.”
This one of the most difficult passages in the Bible and abler men have expounded on it significantly. It is one that leads me to Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
What the passages on Esau lead us to is the debate between freewill and sovereignty. There is no satisfactory answer to this question. If there were it would have been found long ago. What we have in the Body of Christ around this issue is entrenched camps, not agreement. I was raised a Roman Catholic Church that overused the term “mystery” to describe difficult to understand things. However, Protestants underuse the term. There is a divine mystery in terms of how a man plans his way while at the same time God is ordering his steps, but I tell you friends, it gives me great comfort to know that He is. He is also just. Romans 9:20, finishes the logical track of this conversation when it says. “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?”
What we do know is that Esau was held accountable by God for the choices he made and he is called godless because he sells his inheritance. The question I want to pose is how many of us are despising the inheritance that we the Lord prepared for us? When the New Testament scriptures speak of inheritance they speak about eternal life and a kingdom prepared for those who qualify. Esau’s inheritance is a birthright. All human being have an inheritance prepared for them as a birthright. We are qualified. This is because we are made in the image and likeness of God. No other creature has this birthright. No animal on Earth and no angel in heaven has this birthright, only human beings do. There is a condition however. We cannot despise this birthright. We must believe and acknowledge that we have it. Ephesians 1: 13-14 read, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
What Esau did not understand is that an inheritance is more than material, it is also spiritual. His Daddy Isaac is in the faith hall of fame for one reason only, “Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.” Hebrew 11:20. In regards to the material inheritance of Esau, it would ultimately be located between the northern section of the Gulf of Aqaba and the southern shore of the Dead Sea. It was a strong place and one that lead to ungodly type self sufficiency. Of Esau, Obadiah 1:3 reads; “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Many of us are struck by this sin of pride and self sufficiency. The cure is simple. We have to let the Lord pass through our lives.
Numbers 20 shows Esau’s descendents secure in these mountains. Israel now with the testimony of miracles fresh in the recent history of a region just wants to pass through. However, the Esau’s people would not let it happen.
What does God hate? He hates those who will not allow him to pass through. In that passing the people of Esau would have beheld a miracle and their hearts might have softened enough to be saved. God just wants a hearing. He wants an opportunity to show you his miracle. When you do this you make yourself vulnerable. You might even walk with a limp afterwards. Do not blasphemy the Holy Ghost by resisting his request to pass through your life. If you let him pass you may see and believe and receive the inheritance that he intended for you from the foundations of the Earth.
Badge
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
God's Will for Ishmael
Oh that Ishmael might live before thee! Genesis 17-18
No study on the nations can be complete without a discussion of Ishmael and his descendants. The following words from God to his mother Hagar describe the condition of this man “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” However the prophecy made to his father is equally true, “I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.” Three of those rulers have names that are messages to the descendants of Ishmael Mishma, Dumah, and Massa, they mean, hear, keep silence, and bear. Matthew Henry draws a parallel with the names in the scripture found in James 1:19 “Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”
Wild donkeys are not considered swift to hear. On website describes wild donkeys as “Swift and sure-footed in their rough, rocky habitat, they have been clocked at 50 kmph or 30 mph. Mature males defend large territories around 23 square kilometers in size, … Due to the size of these ranges, the dominant male cannot exclude other males. Rather, intruders are tolerated - recognized and treated as subordinates.
The devil has used the wild donkey type of characteristics and placed them in religious cloth the religion of Islam. Islam is a new religion on the world scene and was not associated with the children of Ishmael until Mohammed received his deceptive visions in 610 AD. Why do I call it a deceptive vision? Consider the Quran chapter 4:157 “That they said in boast, "We killed Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not.” Compare this passage to 1 John 4:3. “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”
This donkey like characteristic now clothed and in religious garments and motivated by a spirit of antichrist creates scriptures like the following, “Sahih Muslim (1:33) The Messenger of Allah said: "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..." The last part is the Shahada, or profession of faith in Islam” This was never God’s will for the people of Ishmael.
God certainly wanted them to be a strong people. This strength of characteristic was captured by in the script from Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence when speaking Prince Feisal says, 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now!” This strategy was sufficient to lead to the modern establishment of the modern state of Arabia when “Lawrence and some Arab chiefs with a few hundred of their tribesmen. Together they kill or capture some 1200 Turks at a cost of only two of their own lives.”
Why would God do this if he did not want to prosper the children of Ishmael? That prosperity can also not be dissociated with Christianity. If God’s desire is bless Ishmael do we believe he would send this people group to hell by the millions? Don’t believe the lies God is blessing Ishmael. “The Internet site aljazeera.net published an interview with Ahmad Al Qataani an important Islamic cleric said: “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." Consider this quote about the reduction of Islam in Africa, the home of the Ishmael in the last 100 hundred years.
“Islam used to represent, …, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. …, in the non Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329,882,000. Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.” That is just Catholics, “since the era of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. According to recent figures from the World Christian Database, pentecostals now represent 12%, or about 107 million, of Africa's population of nearly 890 million people.”
Let God be true even if every man lies. When God says he is going to bless. He means he is going to bless. When Abraham calls out to God, let Ishmael live before thee, was he praying that he would live before him in a false religion? Of course not, remember the words of the scriptures. Revelations 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:” “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Yes, Ishmael too. Praise Be To The Lord Jesus Christ!!!
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/perissodactyla/equus_asinus.html
http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/muhammad.html
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=326845
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/013-forced-conversion.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/quotes
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=58&HistoryID=aa06>rack=pthc#ixzz1T8CLOAJM
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm
http://pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant-Churches/Overview-Pentecostalism-in-Africa.aspx
No study on the nations can be complete without a discussion of Ishmael and his descendants. The following words from God to his mother Hagar describe the condition of this man “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” However the prophecy made to his father is equally true, “I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.” Three of those rulers have names that are messages to the descendants of Ishmael Mishma, Dumah, and Massa, they mean, hear, keep silence, and bear. Matthew Henry draws a parallel with the names in the scripture found in James 1:19 “Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”
Wild donkeys are not considered swift to hear. On website describes wild donkeys as “Swift and sure-footed in their rough, rocky habitat, they have been clocked at 50 kmph or 30 mph. Mature males defend large territories around 23 square kilometers in size, … Due to the size of these ranges, the dominant male cannot exclude other males. Rather, intruders are tolerated - recognized and treated as subordinates.
The devil has used the wild donkey type of characteristics and placed them in religious cloth the religion of Islam. Islam is a new religion on the world scene and was not associated with the children of Ishmael until Mohammed received his deceptive visions in 610 AD. Why do I call it a deceptive vision? Consider the Quran chapter 4:157 “That they said in boast, "We killed Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not.” Compare this passage to 1 John 4:3. “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”
This donkey like characteristic now clothed and in religious garments and motivated by a spirit of antichrist creates scriptures like the following, “Sahih Muslim (1:33) The Messenger of Allah said: "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..." The last part is the Shahada, or profession of faith in Islam” This was never God’s will for the people of Ishmael.
God certainly wanted them to be a strong people. This strength of characteristic was captured by in the script from Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence when speaking Prince Feisal says, 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now!” This strategy was sufficient to lead to the modern establishment of the modern state of Arabia when “Lawrence and some Arab chiefs with a few hundred of their tribesmen. Together they kill or capture some 1200 Turks at a cost of only two of their own lives.”
Why would God do this if he did not want to prosper the children of Ishmael? That prosperity can also not be dissociated with Christianity. If God’s desire is bless Ishmael do we believe he would send this people group to hell by the millions? Don’t believe the lies God is blessing Ishmael. “The Internet site aljazeera.net published an interview with Ahmad Al Qataani an important Islamic cleric said: “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." Consider this quote about the reduction of Islam in Africa, the home of the Ishmael in the last 100 hundred years.
“Islam used to represent, …, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. …, in the non Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329,882,000. Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.” That is just Catholics, “since the era of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. According to recent figures from the World Christian Database, pentecostals now represent 12%, or about 107 million, of Africa's population of nearly 890 million people.”
Let God be true even if every man lies. When God says he is going to bless. He means he is going to bless. When Abraham calls out to God, let Ishmael live before thee, was he praying that he would live before him in a false religion? Of course not, remember the words of the scriptures. Revelations 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:” “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Yes, Ishmael too. Praise Be To The Lord Jesus Christ!!!
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/perissodactyla/equus_asinus.html
http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/muhammad.html
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=326845
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/013-forced-conversion.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/quotes
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=58&HistoryID=aa06>rack=pthc#ixzz1T8CLOAJM
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm
http://pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant-Churches/Overview-Pentecostalism-in-Africa.aspx
Friday, July 22, 2011
A Good Day to Die
A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth. Ecclesiastes 7:1
I was recently walking through a cemetery near my home. It was early evening on a cool summer day. It was pleasant to commune with God in that place. As I looked at the various tomb stones I began to pray that our generation would begin to reflect on its mortality. Mosses said of life in Psalm 90, “Each of us lives for 70 years- or even 80 if we are in good health. But the best of them [bring] trouble and misery. Indeed, they are soon gone, and we fly away.” Most of the stones in the cemetery were from the 18th century. There is no a single person on the planet alive that was born prior to 1890. 100% of the generation has been judged. They have received a grace that set them to eternity with God or a judgment that has separated them from God.
They are receiving the natural consequences of the desire to know and love God or they are eternally and without repentance separated from him. This truth of the lack of repentance is demonstrated in Revelations 6: 15-17 “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” You will notice a desire to be free from pain but no sorrow for the sin that lead the ‘wrath of the Lamb.
Consider Luke chapter 16: 22-24 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ Please notice that the rich man is also only seeking relief from his pain and has no agony in his soul for the injustices that lead to the riches he received in life. He is in fact trying to treat Lazarus who is in heaven as his servant. He is completely without repentance. Also note that the rich man is unnamed. Lazarus has a name written that will never fade away because it is recorded in the scriptures. The rich man will be anonymous for eternity.
Well you might ask did that rich man have the opportunity to understand the nature of his eternal state. Did the message come to him? We are privileged to hear a conversation between him and Abraham, who he calls father. ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ Luke 16
These truths are equally applicable for Abraham, Lazarus, the 18th century and our own generation. We have Mosses and the prophets and one who was raised from the dead. We know his name. Acts 4 says of that name “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Our name represents our life. The living is in the dash in between the dates set forth on the stone that makes our grave. In that living we set ourselves up for eternity. 1 Corinthians 3 is very clear on this matter. It is a passage intended for those who trusted in the name of Jesus to save them. “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
So why then is the day of death better than the day of birth. A good name is earned when it is written into the Lambs book of life. It is a book that is exclusively for those who loved and feared God. Please do not soften this word fear. Romans 11:22 reads “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”
Let us continue in that goodness. 1Timothy 3 tells us that we must even have a good reputation among those outside the church. However we must remember that we must have a good reputation with God first, Peter and John were ‘commanded not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But they answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” Acts 4
Peter and John names are also recorded in eternity. There days were numbered they served their God and they were received into glory upon their death. I pray that you to will number your days and remember they are but a few. I pray that your name is recorded in the Book of Life and that you see your death as better than your birth because you have completed your days on Earth and have been called to a better place.
I was recently walking through a cemetery near my home. It was early evening on a cool summer day. It was pleasant to commune with God in that place. As I looked at the various tomb stones I began to pray that our generation would begin to reflect on its mortality. Mosses said of life in Psalm 90, “Each of us lives for 70 years- or even 80 if we are in good health. But the best of them [bring] trouble and misery. Indeed, they are soon gone, and we fly away.” Most of the stones in the cemetery were from the 18th century. There is no a single person on the planet alive that was born prior to 1890. 100% of the generation has been judged. They have received a grace that set them to eternity with God or a judgment that has separated them from God.
They are receiving the natural consequences of the desire to know and love God or they are eternally and without repentance separated from him. This truth of the lack of repentance is demonstrated in Revelations 6: 15-17 “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” You will notice a desire to be free from pain but no sorrow for the sin that lead the ‘wrath of the Lamb.
Consider Luke chapter 16: 22-24 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ Please notice that the rich man is also only seeking relief from his pain and has no agony in his soul for the injustices that lead to the riches he received in life. He is in fact trying to treat Lazarus who is in heaven as his servant. He is completely without repentance. Also note that the rich man is unnamed. Lazarus has a name written that will never fade away because it is recorded in the scriptures. The rich man will be anonymous for eternity.
Well you might ask did that rich man have the opportunity to understand the nature of his eternal state. Did the message come to him? We are privileged to hear a conversation between him and Abraham, who he calls father. ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ Luke 16
These truths are equally applicable for Abraham, Lazarus, the 18th century and our own generation. We have Mosses and the prophets and one who was raised from the dead. We know his name. Acts 4 says of that name “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Our name represents our life. The living is in the dash in between the dates set forth on the stone that makes our grave. In that living we set ourselves up for eternity. 1 Corinthians 3 is very clear on this matter. It is a passage intended for those who trusted in the name of Jesus to save them. “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
So why then is the day of death better than the day of birth. A good name is earned when it is written into the Lambs book of life. It is a book that is exclusively for those who loved and feared God. Please do not soften this word fear. Romans 11:22 reads “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”
Let us continue in that goodness. 1Timothy 3 tells us that we must even have a good reputation among those outside the church. However we must remember that we must have a good reputation with God first, Peter and John were ‘commanded not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But they answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” Acts 4
Peter and John names are also recorded in eternity. There days were numbered they served their God and they were received into glory upon their death. I pray that you to will number your days and remember they are but a few. I pray that your name is recorded in the Book of Life and that you see your death as better than your birth because you have completed your days on Earth and have been called to a better place.
The Choice of Love & Submission: Isaac and Rebekah
Powerful Independence Meets Interdependence
Now Isaac… went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel …she took her veil and covered herself. …Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her. Genesis 24: 62-66
I borrowed this title off of Kathleen Humphrey as she commented on a previous blog. This blog in particular is the first post thesis blog that is not simply an exhortation but an attempt to continue to do a study through the Bible on redemptive gifts related to nations and individuals. You may not have realized it but that is what you have been studying if you have been reading these blogs. As the quoted scripture indicates we are in Genesis 24, and are talking about the adult man Isaac and his wife Rebekah. Isaac was forty when he married his wife. His cooperation with his father in the sacrifice of himself demonstrates a rare humility in regards to the will of God. On the evening he was meditating it is likely that he was meditating on his wife to be. He knew his father Abraham had sent his servant to find him a wife. Isaac was prepared to dedicate his love to a choice God appointed, his father initiated, and a servant executed. Isaac demonstrates independence in the choice to love; he demonstrates interdependence when he submits his personal will to those that the Lord has placed in his life.
Rebekah trust is no less noteworthy. The decision she makes is a lifelong one. It is one that would take her away from her family of origin permanently. With very few words she makes a decision to submit to God, to a servant and to a man she has never seen. She simply said, “I will go,” a choice was made and a life was entered into.
We may think that the time period that I am referencing has no application to our modern life. This was after all an arranged marriage, but I believe that it has great application. Isaac could have made Rebekah a wife of obligation and duty, but he used his powerful independence and chose to love her. Rebekah could have chosen to stay with her own people and in her own place but she stepped off that camel and she married the man. They lived together interdependent, not perfectly but in a lifelong union.
What does this middle aged man and probably teenage girl teach us. They teach us that love and commitments are choices. If they being strangers could work out a lifelong union can we who have identified our spouses through affection and dispositions chose to love the way they did? Doesn’t this use of powerful independence relate to our own personal holiness or lack thereof?
Time ticks to the rhythm of choices. Each day provides the opportunity to choose a life submitted to God. Our society has made us to believe that our choices today are shackled to the events and experiences of the past. It has communicated that we are victims to unconscious motivations that cause to behave and act in ways that we cannot control. Many will quote Romans 7: 14-20 to support this erroneous position. Romans 7 is not independent of Romans 8, verses 12 –13 read, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” In other words choice, The Lord God has made us each powerfully independent. Free to choose the flesh, as Isaac could have chosen to treat Rebekah as an object, but he loved her as his wife. Rebekah responded in glorious submission.
Jesus also had an arranged marriage. He married a bride of the father’s choosing. Will we who are his cover ourselves with a veil of submission. Will we chose to live with the one who chose to love us? Isaac and Rebekah teach us how. Chose this day to Love and to Submit.
Now Isaac… went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel …she took her veil and covered herself. …Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her. Genesis 24: 62-66
I borrowed this title off of Kathleen Humphrey as she commented on a previous blog. This blog in particular is the first post thesis blog that is not simply an exhortation but an attempt to continue to do a study through the Bible on redemptive gifts related to nations and individuals. You may not have realized it but that is what you have been studying if you have been reading these blogs. As the quoted scripture indicates we are in Genesis 24, and are talking about the adult man Isaac and his wife Rebekah. Isaac was forty when he married his wife. His cooperation with his father in the sacrifice of himself demonstrates a rare humility in regards to the will of God. On the evening he was meditating it is likely that he was meditating on his wife to be. He knew his father Abraham had sent his servant to find him a wife. Isaac was prepared to dedicate his love to a choice God appointed, his father initiated, and a servant executed. Isaac demonstrates independence in the choice to love; he demonstrates interdependence when he submits his personal will to those that the Lord has placed in his life.
Rebekah trust is no less noteworthy. The decision she makes is a lifelong one. It is one that would take her away from her family of origin permanently. With very few words she makes a decision to submit to God, to a servant and to a man she has never seen. She simply said, “I will go,” a choice was made and a life was entered into.
We may think that the time period that I am referencing has no application to our modern life. This was after all an arranged marriage, but I believe that it has great application. Isaac could have made Rebekah a wife of obligation and duty, but he used his powerful independence and chose to love her. Rebekah could have chosen to stay with her own people and in her own place but she stepped off that camel and she married the man. They lived together interdependent, not perfectly but in a lifelong union.
What does this middle aged man and probably teenage girl teach us. They teach us that love and commitments are choices. If they being strangers could work out a lifelong union can we who have identified our spouses through affection and dispositions chose to love the way they did? Doesn’t this use of powerful independence relate to our own personal holiness or lack thereof?
Time ticks to the rhythm of choices. Each day provides the opportunity to choose a life submitted to God. Our society has made us to believe that our choices today are shackled to the events and experiences of the past. It has communicated that we are victims to unconscious motivations that cause to behave and act in ways that we cannot control. Many will quote Romans 7: 14-20 to support this erroneous position. Romans 7 is not independent of Romans 8, verses 12 –13 read, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” In other words choice, The Lord God has made us each powerfully independent. Free to choose the flesh, as Isaac could have chosen to treat Rebekah as an object, but he loved her as his wife. Rebekah responded in glorious submission.
Jesus also had an arranged marriage. He married a bride of the father’s choosing. Will we who are his cover ourselves with a veil of submission. Will we chose to live with the one who chose to love us? Isaac and Rebekah teach us how. Chose this day to Love and to Submit.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Creation Conscience and Christ Conclusion: (for today)
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” (Acts 17:26)
This verse that set the context for these series of blogs and is wrought with a confirmation of the value that God places on diversity. It was penned so easily by Paul because he was a man that lived in such a diverse and multi-cultural community. The city of Rome had a population between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in his time. He worked in a highly urbanized environment in which ideas circulated in many different way. Robert Linthicum contends “one of Paul’s primary concerns was to enable these urban churches to act rather than react to their city, province, and empire. If they could not be assertive to undertaking ministry in their city and as part of the Roman Empire, they would eventually die. To be effective in ministry, it was necessary for Paul’s churches to understand their urban and international context.” I have tried to do that with this work by making historic and contemporary applications that can be drawn from and used for ministry application. If there is not a practical value for what I have written I would think the work a failure. The thesis was written in order to provoke thinking. Doctrine always follows Theology. What we do has its root in what we think.
The western church is the prevailing influence on the universal church and the western church has been incredibly influenced by the sins of the western world and it exports them. In the chapter Abraham Conqueror of Idolatry I believe I capture the prevailing sins of the last few generations. Patriotic Idolatry lead to two World Wars in the last century, Materialist Idolatry has become so pervasive that the local mall is a better barometer for understanding the culture than the local church. This is manifested in our churches increased selling of coffee and books clothing apparel, and health products in the local assembly and various Christian mediums. These are all substitutes for simply giving to the church because we love God and we desire to follow his commands. Religious Idolatry is seen in an attitude of hedonism and selfishness that is lived out in our most basic institutions. Instead of approaching family life and church life from the perspective of how can my life benefit the world and how can I serve God? We ask the question, what can the church do for me, and how can I live life without being inconvenienced by the prospect of trusting God with the size of my family, or having the burden of taking care of the widow the orphan or the poor? The typical medial class family American family vacation could provide a water well in most third world countries that would radically improve the quality of life for and entire village, and pave the way for the preaching of the Gospel. Many of us have a Starbucks or Dunking Donut budget that would pay a full time salary to an Apostle in India. The eternal consequence of our sin makes me fear for myself and my generation. I am guilty, we are guilty. I believe the solution is a return to basic structures and first commands.
The church must return to an understanding of the vows taken in marriage. This will never happen unless local churches become community oriented and not local assembly oriented and this can not happen until pastors pray together and befriend one another. We have to begin to get some history on saints that are transferring from on church to another, especially if the transfer is in the local community. We have to start to ask the question, why are you leaving Pastor Steve’s church to come to my church, instead of delighting in transfer church growth. It may simply be that Pastor Steve is holding a couple or a man accountable for their sin. 1 Corinthians 5:11 “But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.” The key word here is ‘brother’ and the admonishment is to not even eat with the brother who is in sin. Sexually immoral, greedy, idolatrous brothers, end up divorced and not meeting the needs of their families. Dr. James Dobson apply described them. Instead of enforcing the disciple of the church we allow the brother to marry his mistress and return to another church, often in the same community. Would this occur if Pastor Steve and Pastor Don saw themselves as elders of the church of Newport, RI and not One New Man Community and Crosspoint Church respectively? Would it happen if we were hungrier for souls than for church members?
If we could enforce church discipline we would have stronger families. If we had stronger families those families would desire children and the command to be fruitful and multiple might not fall on deaf ears. If we had more children we might relate better to the man overseas whose child is starving for food and the Word of God. We would have living examples of the glory of God’s creation running around our homes and who would be taught the principles of sharing and reciprocity and not selfishness and materialism. Our consciences are tenderized by children because we see our negative and positive behaviors reflected in them. The former should lead to repentance and later to the glory of God. When those children became adults they may assist us in living righteous lives like Isaac did with Abraham, they may cause us to forgo sin the way the Gideon did with Joash, they may simply live out a supernatural love and devotion to us despite our sin as Jonathan did for Saul.
When families are intact communities are intact and you begin to lend ‘honor to whom honor is due’. You build a culture in which holidays and festivals have specific meaning to your own people, Thanksgiving and Independence Day are the best American examples of this truth. When you have families that are appropriately patriotic these holidays and other like Veterans Day and Memorial Day mean something. We begin to live out seasons of rejoicing and mourning that help us honor past generations and teach future generations. The alternative is to drink another beer and throw another steak on the barbeque grill because we are simply glad we don’t have to work. Wouldn’t it be better to work hard six days a week and honor God on the Sabbath. It was not so long ago when every store in my community of 100,000 people closed at 6 pm on weekdays and every Sunday. It was less than a generation ago when the only athletes that played on Sunday were professionals, now I pass field after field full of families practicing football on Sunday morning that should be practicing their faith. My point is that God established both work and the Sabbath for our good, when we ignore one the other suffers and to our peril. Doing it the right way helps us to see the right way it is being done by others. I am concerned that the Western Church will do more damage to the African and Asian Church than Planned Parenthood will. These churches are often imitating us as we imitate Christ Jesus. Unfortunately we are often failing to imitate Christ Jesus. The result is they become materialistic, they stop honoring family and elders in a manner that is Biblical and they become like us, seeking a Gospel of pleasure and not a Gospel of service. If missionaries both short term and long term would enter these cultures with eyes for what is Biblical we may take away more of the Gospel than we bring. I hope I have to some measure made that case in body of these. My discussion about the Cherokee and the Chinese I believe emphasized the value of indigenous cultures that have redemptive aspects to them and from which we can learn and grow.
I have attempted to promote the value of the individual soul and the redemptive nature of children above everything else. I have tried to demonstrate that where that this is embraced communities prosper. It is a very difficult message to communicate to a western audience. Even with Europe’s diminishing population. This is in large measure because of the three types of idolatry the Abraham gained ascendency over; patriotic, religious, and materialistic have prevailed in modern times. These sins we have seen were primarily in developed nations and not animistic ones as I would have expected. I considered extending the section of the redemptive gift of marriage several times but thought the topic was covered in the discussion on Eve. The saddest part of the work for me was meditating on the lost opportunities provided to the pre-flood generation. The most difficult section to write was on the contraception because it is so far removed from the understanding of the modern western Christian. My greatest surprise was seeing the parallels between the pre flood generation and early colonial America. My greatest hope was recognized in the growing understanding of relationships between fathers and sons.
It tried to caste a wide net historically and culturally within the work. It was my hope that this approach would add to the universal application of the truths contained within the work. Discovering John Murray’s work after writing most of the thesis was confirming and humorous for me. If I had viewed it earlier it may have deflected my commitment to the topic for fear that this work would only have been a reflection of his. I think they are very complementary however. The key Biblical foundation of the work begins and ends with is the pattern that the Paul the Apostle set for us in Acts 17. When Paul met with Jews who had knowledge of the scriptures he reasoned from the scriptures. Many non-believers have knowledge of the scriptures but don’t know Jesus. Many of them go to church every Sunday.
“When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christhad to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ the said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” (Acts 17:1-2)
For those that did not know the scriptures Paul used the cultural norms that were around him. This work has sited truth literally from around the world and from many generations using well known and obscure sources. I have done so in an effort to model the precept of becoming “all thing to all men so that some might be saved.” 1 Corinthians 9:22 ) just like the Paul the Apostle
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17: 22-23)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-20586744.html
Robert C. Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan a biblical theology of the Urban Church, (Zondervan Publishing House), 1991, pg 66
http://www.nickmaine.info/Documents/Christianity%20in%20China.htm
John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991) 1, Questia, Web, 19 Oct. 2010.
This verse that set the context for these series of blogs and is wrought with a confirmation of the value that God places on diversity. It was penned so easily by Paul because he was a man that lived in such a diverse and multi-cultural community. The city of Rome had a population between 750,000 and 1,000,000 in his time. He worked in a highly urbanized environment in which ideas circulated in many different way. Robert Linthicum contends “one of Paul’s primary concerns was to enable these urban churches to act rather than react to their city, province, and empire. If they could not be assertive to undertaking ministry in their city and as part of the Roman Empire, they would eventually die. To be effective in ministry, it was necessary for Paul’s churches to understand their urban and international context.” I have tried to do that with this work by making historic and contemporary applications that can be drawn from and used for ministry application. If there is not a practical value for what I have written I would think the work a failure. The thesis was written in order to provoke thinking. Doctrine always follows Theology. What we do has its root in what we think.
The western church is the prevailing influence on the universal church and the western church has been incredibly influenced by the sins of the western world and it exports them. In the chapter Abraham Conqueror of Idolatry I believe I capture the prevailing sins of the last few generations. Patriotic Idolatry lead to two World Wars in the last century, Materialist Idolatry has become so pervasive that the local mall is a better barometer for understanding the culture than the local church. This is manifested in our churches increased selling of coffee and books clothing apparel, and health products in the local assembly and various Christian mediums. These are all substitutes for simply giving to the church because we love God and we desire to follow his commands. Religious Idolatry is seen in an attitude of hedonism and selfishness that is lived out in our most basic institutions. Instead of approaching family life and church life from the perspective of how can my life benefit the world and how can I serve God? We ask the question, what can the church do for me, and how can I live life without being inconvenienced by the prospect of trusting God with the size of my family, or having the burden of taking care of the widow the orphan or the poor? The typical medial class family American family vacation could provide a water well in most third world countries that would radically improve the quality of life for and entire village, and pave the way for the preaching of the Gospel. Many of us have a Starbucks or Dunking Donut budget that would pay a full time salary to an Apostle in India. The eternal consequence of our sin makes me fear for myself and my generation. I am guilty, we are guilty. I believe the solution is a return to basic structures and first commands.
The church must return to an understanding of the vows taken in marriage. This will never happen unless local churches become community oriented and not local assembly oriented and this can not happen until pastors pray together and befriend one another. We have to begin to get some history on saints that are transferring from on church to another, especially if the transfer is in the local community. We have to start to ask the question, why are you leaving Pastor Steve’s church to come to my church, instead of delighting in transfer church growth. It may simply be that Pastor Steve is holding a couple or a man accountable for their sin. 1 Corinthians 5:11 “But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.” The key word here is ‘brother’ and the admonishment is to not even eat with the brother who is in sin. Sexually immoral, greedy, idolatrous brothers, end up divorced and not meeting the needs of their families. Dr. James Dobson apply described them. Instead of enforcing the disciple of the church we allow the brother to marry his mistress and return to another church, often in the same community. Would this occur if Pastor Steve and Pastor Don saw themselves as elders of the church of Newport, RI and not One New Man Community and Crosspoint Church respectively? Would it happen if we were hungrier for souls than for church members?
If we could enforce church discipline we would have stronger families. If we had stronger families those families would desire children and the command to be fruitful and multiple might not fall on deaf ears. If we had more children we might relate better to the man overseas whose child is starving for food and the Word of God. We would have living examples of the glory of God’s creation running around our homes and who would be taught the principles of sharing and reciprocity and not selfishness and materialism. Our consciences are tenderized by children because we see our negative and positive behaviors reflected in them. The former should lead to repentance and later to the glory of God. When those children became adults they may assist us in living righteous lives like Isaac did with Abraham, they may cause us to forgo sin the way the Gideon did with Joash, they may simply live out a supernatural love and devotion to us despite our sin as Jonathan did for Saul.
When families are intact communities are intact and you begin to lend ‘honor to whom honor is due’. You build a culture in which holidays and festivals have specific meaning to your own people, Thanksgiving and Independence Day are the best American examples of this truth. When you have families that are appropriately patriotic these holidays and other like Veterans Day and Memorial Day mean something. We begin to live out seasons of rejoicing and mourning that help us honor past generations and teach future generations. The alternative is to drink another beer and throw another steak on the barbeque grill because we are simply glad we don’t have to work. Wouldn’t it be better to work hard six days a week and honor God on the Sabbath. It was not so long ago when every store in my community of 100,000 people closed at 6 pm on weekdays and every Sunday. It was less than a generation ago when the only athletes that played on Sunday were professionals, now I pass field after field full of families practicing football on Sunday morning that should be practicing their faith. My point is that God established both work and the Sabbath for our good, when we ignore one the other suffers and to our peril. Doing it the right way helps us to see the right way it is being done by others. I am concerned that the Western Church will do more damage to the African and Asian Church than Planned Parenthood will. These churches are often imitating us as we imitate Christ Jesus. Unfortunately we are often failing to imitate Christ Jesus. The result is they become materialistic, they stop honoring family and elders in a manner that is Biblical and they become like us, seeking a Gospel of pleasure and not a Gospel of service. If missionaries both short term and long term would enter these cultures with eyes for what is Biblical we may take away more of the Gospel than we bring. I hope I have to some measure made that case in body of these. My discussion about the Cherokee and the Chinese I believe emphasized the value of indigenous cultures that have redemptive aspects to them and from which we can learn and grow.
I have attempted to promote the value of the individual soul and the redemptive nature of children above everything else. I have tried to demonstrate that where that this is embraced communities prosper. It is a very difficult message to communicate to a western audience. Even with Europe’s diminishing population. This is in large measure because of the three types of idolatry the Abraham gained ascendency over; patriotic, religious, and materialistic have prevailed in modern times. These sins we have seen were primarily in developed nations and not animistic ones as I would have expected. I considered extending the section of the redemptive gift of marriage several times but thought the topic was covered in the discussion on Eve. The saddest part of the work for me was meditating on the lost opportunities provided to the pre-flood generation. The most difficult section to write was on the contraception because it is so far removed from the understanding of the modern western Christian. My greatest surprise was seeing the parallels between the pre flood generation and early colonial America. My greatest hope was recognized in the growing understanding of relationships between fathers and sons.
It tried to caste a wide net historically and culturally within the work. It was my hope that this approach would add to the universal application of the truths contained within the work. Discovering John Murray’s work after writing most of the thesis was confirming and humorous for me. If I had viewed it earlier it may have deflected my commitment to the topic for fear that this work would only have been a reflection of his. I think they are very complementary however. The key Biblical foundation of the work begins and ends with is the pattern that the Paul the Apostle set for us in Acts 17. When Paul met with Jews who had knowledge of the scriptures he reasoned from the scriptures. Many non-believers have knowledge of the scriptures but don’t know Jesus. Many of them go to church every Sunday.
“When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christhad to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ the said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” (Acts 17:1-2)
For those that did not know the scriptures Paul used the cultural norms that were around him. This work has sited truth literally from around the world and from many generations using well known and obscure sources. I have done so in an effort to model the precept of becoming “all thing to all men so that some might be saved.” 1 Corinthians 9:22 ) just like the Paul the Apostle
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17: 22-23)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-20586744.html
Robert C. Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan a biblical theology of the Urban Church, (Zondervan Publishing House), 1991, pg 66
http://www.nickmaine.info/Documents/Christianity%20in%20China.htm
John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991) 1, Questia, Web, 19 Oct. 2010.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Fathers and Sons; When Attachment Breaks Down: Part III
Cross Cultural Examples
The scriptures are not the only sources that emphasis the importance of father and son relationships. The wisdom of protecting this vital relationship is contained in many cultures. One of the clearest examples of this is Chinese culture.
“Filial piety is the basis of order in Chinese family. The father-son relationship is the elementary and the most important one in the family and all other relationships in the family system are regarded as extensions of or supplementary to it. Filial piety refers to the kind of superior-inferior relationship inherent in the father-son relationship. As it often appears, filial piety means children, especially sons, must please, support, and subordinate to their parents (Hsu 1971).
As a general statement it would be accurate to state that the Chinese culture supports at varying levels the redemptive gifts and premises that are supported in this work. The following quote emphasizes strong father and son relationships with redemptive purpose and procreation. The cultural memory that we have referencing is not perfectly Biblical but its influence is unmistakable. The result is that China is one of the longest standing cultures on the Earth.
“Since the relationship between father and son is indisputably most important, the major duty of a man is, thus, to his parents and only second to the state. With the emphasis on filial piety, a son could even be absolved from responsibility for reporting the infractions of his father in the Imperial China, except in the case of treason. In the mean time, sexual love can also be pressed into the service of filial piety, which is incumbent upon any man to continue his male line. Mencius (a great Chinese philosopher second only to Confucius) said that of the three un-filial acts, failure to produce an heir is the worst. It is so because the whole continuum of ancestors and unborn descendants die with him. “
When the norms established in Eden, the dignity of the individual the value of marriage, work, and worship of the monotheistic God are violated cultures begin to disintegrate. It is true with the contexts that have been listed but it is also true in regards to father and son relationships. Most extant cultures have maintained them.
“most of the people of the world follow a mode of patrilineal descent. David Aberle ( 1961) once calculated that 44 percent of a representative sample of cultures in the world is patrilineal (with 36 percent bilateral or cognatic, 15 percent matrilineal, and 5 percent double). These percentages would took even more impressive if one were to calculate them by population. Patrilineal descent covers large and densely populated regions such as China and India. It is also prevalent in the Middle East and much of Africa.”
Violations of these concepts have been problematic for people groups and individuals within the context of the scriptures and outside it. Polygamy is one such violation that has been cited in the literature and has precedent in the scriptures.
“Wlliam Divale ( 1975) even suggested that extensive polygyny was a cause of feuding and internal warfare because it deprived some men of wives, promoting adultery, wife stealing, and fights over women. If this is (or was) true, it carries implications for gender, linking patrilocality with aggressive, competitive males and making women important as sources of male conflict. Whatever the origin (male cooperation, male conflict, or something else), a pattern of patrilineal descent with patrilocality has persisted in many parts of the globe, surviving even changes in economic and political organization”
Kithara M. in a an abstract published by the U.S National Library of Medicine that polygamy has a negative influence the development of masculinity due to the absence of the father.
“In polygynous societies in which the family consists of husband, wives, and children only, if each cowife lives in a separate quarter with her children, males are more likely to be circumcised or segregated at puberty. These customs are interpreted as the measures to rectify boys' mother-oriented personality development because of limited contact with their fathers due to their mother's separate quarters. Circumcision and segregation can be explained better in terms of the son's insufficient contact with the father rather than a very close relationship with the mother due to the long postpartum sexual taboo.”
David and Absalom and Amnon
The relationship between David and Absalom is reflective to the types of problems that are seen in polygamous relationships. David clearly loved Absalom. He nearly lost his kingdom because of his attachment to him. However, Absalom never internalized or understood his father’s love. Their relationship was detached, violent and one in which David’s authority was questioned and attacked by his son. David was “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) However the structure of his marital life and therefore his relationships with his children was not redemptive. It is the contention of the work that this is a direct consequence of polygamy.
It could be argued that polygamy is seen throughout the scriptures. This would be true but wherever it is seen there are problems with violence and attachment. Joseph was loved by Jacob in a disproportional manner because he was the first child from the union with Rachel, the wife that Jacob loved. Jacob’s detachment toward his other sons is the direct result of the polygamy he practiced. His son’s violence toward their brother Joseph is a natural consequence of the non redemptive nature of polygamy. Ruben’s taking of Jacob’s concubine is also an extension of the non redemptive nature of polygamy.
Violence and sexual perversion are also characteristic of the sad tale of David’s sons and their relationships with him and with each other. 2 Samuel 13 tells their story. The lust of Amnon is where the chapter begins.
“In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.” (2 Samuel 13:1)
Amnon distortion of the nature of his relationship is first seen in his address her as Absalom sister and not his own. The pervasiveness of this cultural perversion is witnessed in his ‘friend’ or more accurately his cousins advice to him. The advice included the manipulation of his father under the pretense of sickness. Tamar retained within herself and understanding of the wrongness of Amnon’s desire and appealed to cultural memory and law as reasonable modes for dissuading Amnon from his wicked desires.
"Don't, my brother!" she said to him. "Don't force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
“Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!" "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me." But he refused to listen to her. He called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her.” (2 Samuel 13:14-16)
Amnon desire drove him to a heinous sin. His conscience drove him to self condemnation and guilt and hatred of his sister. His un-repentance prevented any reasonable effort to heal the evil wound he had inflected. His detachment from his father and brothers seared the shame and social pressure to reconcile the sin. Tamar was willing to participate in his reconciliation by appealing to their father to allow them to marry. Amnon dehumanized his sister prevented him from doing the right thing. All inordinate affections dehumanize individuals. The monogamous lifelong relationship between one man and one women is the structure that God’s established as the primary means for protecting against dehumanization and inordinate affections.
Absalom’s plotting and execution of the murder of Amnon is an extension of the detachment that polygamy causes. The plot is motivated by vengeance for the sin committed against his sister but it is oblivious to the fact that the plot is against his brother and will affect his father. Our purpose now is not the retelling of Absalom and David’s story but to point out God’s design for redemptive structures such as marriage. Regardless of the structure God can redeem man and redeem cultures. His purpose is heard in the words of a woman know as the women of Tekoa, who the Bible describes as wise. David’s response is also telling
"Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son? Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.(2 Samuel 14:13)
The king said... "Very well, I will do it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom." (2 Samuel 14:21)
Attachment in Father and Son Relationships.
The lack of attachment has been discussed in the context of a father’s absence in polygamous relationships. Attachment as it is occurs in the family structure is an important development task that healthy children must accomplish. Dr. Charles Williams, Ph.D. discusses stages of development in father and son relationships. He lists them as idolizing, discord, evolving, acceptance and becoming a legacy. In order for these steps to be accomplished the father has to be present and available.
Williams’ concise teaching on these areas is quoted below.
“As children, sons idolize their dads and think they can do anything. This identification is most often demonstrated by a son’s imitation of his father’s behavior by walking like him, talking like him or wearing his clothes or shoes. At this age, a son wants so much to please his father and receive his approval and acceptance.
As teens, sons experience a period of discord in which conflict is the central theme they share. They often reject the expectations, values and directions their fathers have embraced and take on more non-traditional philosophies, placing them regularly at odds with one other. The teen may resent or even fear his father depending on the intensity of their differences, at times, carrying over into the son’s early twenties.
As young adults, the father-son relationship enters into a period of evolving. Distance may still exist emotionally and they may even ignore each other. The conscious attempts at being different than one’s father so characteristic in the discord stage begin to appear more like competition. Competition with another can be viewed as one of the most indirect but highest forms of flattery that exists. …
As adults in their 30’s and 40’s, sons begin to move into the stage of acceptance toward their fathers. They have begun to forgive, recognize strengths and even admire the qualities that once seemed so out of step with their previous "know it all" manner of thinking. They begin to accept each other’s differences. Fathers and sons often become friends during this time, share common interests and express opinions without heated exchanges. The son may even experience challenges as a father with his own son. Charles Wadsworth once said, "By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong."
In their 50’s, older adult sons become a legacy of their father’s influence for better and worse. Time tempers painful memories and in their place often remains admiration and respect for the difficult job being a father must have been. Older adult sons who have not yet resolved those issues with their elderly or deceased fathers, however, typically see them replayed with their teenage or young adult sons. If elderly fathers are still living, an ironic role reversal occurs with older adult sons beginning to take care of their aging fathers. Perhaps the best revenge is to live long enough to be a problem to your children. “
The above development tasks that boys complete are filled with difficulty in the best of circumstances. They are important subject of this work because valuing children as redemptive means rearing them in a redemptive fashion. It provides the ‘root’ in which the seed of the Gospel can grow. Character traits both promote and hinder the reception of the Gospel in the souls of men. Matthew 13 illustrates this truth for us.
“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13: 18-23)
James Dobson made the following comments about Western civilization and the loss of character among our male population that is largely related to the poor quality relationships between fathers and sons.
“Nations that are populated largely by immature immoral, weak-willed, cowardly, and self indulgent men cannot and will not long endure. These types of men include those who sire and abandon their children; who cheat on their wives; who lie, steal, covet; who hate their countrymen; and who serve no god but money”
In other words, men who did not practice any type of redemptive gifts as it relates to their families, the children or their work or any other type of responsibility that God has granted them. God has provided and easy to understand structures for mankind to implement within their lives. It is seen in the basic anatomy of the human being, the crops that grow on our farms, and the nutrition that our bodies gain in the food and drink we consume. It is also present in the love that parents experience with the children and the love the children manifest for their parents. Abuse and neglect can usurp the power of these roles, conditioning can remove it in some cases when the child is moved from his or her family of origin and indoctrinated into an unnatural system but under normal circumstances the bonds of love between parents and children will grow as the ears of corn grow naturally in a field that is watered and has nutritional value in the soil. As this work draws to conclusions I would like to talk about the process of learning as much as summarize the premises of have argued.
China - Regulations Of Family Relationships - Single Parent, Gender, Chinese, Parents, Filial, Piety, Age, and Superior http://family.jrank.org/pages/253/China-Regulations-Family-Relationships.html#ixzz0yUYVzTvi
China - Regulations Of Family Relationships - Single Parent, Gender, Chinese, Parents, Filial, Piety, Age, and Superior http://family.jrank.org/pages/253/China-Regulations-Family-Relationships.html#ixzz0yUdUvwJO
Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Contributors: Linda Stone - author. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 61. http://www.questia.com/read/9961875?title=Kinship%20and%20Gender%3a%20An%20Introduction
Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Contributors: Linda Stone - author. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 62. http://www.questia.com/read/9961875?title=Kinship%20and%20Gender%3a%20An%20Introduction
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/952605
http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=15
http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=15
Dobson, James, Bring up Boys, (Tyndale, 2001) pg 54
The scriptures are not the only sources that emphasis the importance of father and son relationships. The wisdom of protecting this vital relationship is contained in many cultures. One of the clearest examples of this is Chinese culture.
“Filial piety is the basis of order in Chinese family. The father-son relationship is the elementary and the most important one in the family and all other relationships in the family system are regarded as extensions of or supplementary to it. Filial piety refers to the kind of superior-inferior relationship inherent in the father-son relationship. As it often appears, filial piety means children, especially sons, must please, support, and subordinate to their parents (Hsu 1971).
As a general statement it would be accurate to state that the Chinese culture supports at varying levels the redemptive gifts and premises that are supported in this work. The following quote emphasizes strong father and son relationships with redemptive purpose and procreation. The cultural memory that we have referencing is not perfectly Biblical but its influence is unmistakable. The result is that China is one of the longest standing cultures on the Earth.
“Since the relationship between father and son is indisputably most important, the major duty of a man is, thus, to his parents and only second to the state. With the emphasis on filial piety, a son could even be absolved from responsibility for reporting the infractions of his father in the Imperial China, except in the case of treason. In the mean time, sexual love can also be pressed into the service of filial piety, which is incumbent upon any man to continue his male line. Mencius (a great Chinese philosopher second only to Confucius) said that of the three un-filial acts, failure to produce an heir is the worst. It is so because the whole continuum of ancestors and unborn descendants die with him. “
When the norms established in Eden, the dignity of the individual the value of marriage, work, and worship of the monotheistic God are violated cultures begin to disintegrate. It is true with the contexts that have been listed but it is also true in regards to father and son relationships. Most extant cultures have maintained them.
“most of the people of the world follow a mode of patrilineal descent. David Aberle ( 1961) once calculated that 44 percent of a representative sample of cultures in the world is patrilineal (with 36 percent bilateral or cognatic, 15 percent matrilineal, and 5 percent double). These percentages would took even more impressive if one were to calculate them by population. Patrilineal descent covers large and densely populated regions such as China and India. It is also prevalent in the Middle East and much of Africa.”
Violations of these concepts have been problematic for people groups and individuals within the context of the scriptures and outside it. Polygamy is one such violation that has been cited in the literature and has precedent in the scriptures.
“Wlliam Divale ( 1975) even suggested that extensive polygyny was a cause of feuding and internal warfare because it deprived some men of wives, promoting adultery, wife stealing, and fights over women. If this is (or was) true, it carries implications for gender, linking patrilocality with aggressive, competitive males and making women important as sources of male conflict. Whatever the origin (male cooperation, male conflict, or something else), a pattern of patrilineal descent with patrilocality has persisted in many parts of the globe, surviving even changes in economic and political organization”
Kithara M. in a an abstract published by the U.S National Library of Medicine that polygamy has a negative influence the development of masculinity due to the absence of the father.
“In polygynous societies in which the family consists of husband, wives, and children only, if each cowife lives in a separate quarter with her children, males are more likely to be circumcised or segregated at puberty. These customs are interpreted as the measures to rectify boys' mother-oriented personality development because of limited contact with their fathers due to their mother's separate quarters. Circumcision and segregation can be explained better in terms of the son's insufficient contact with the father rather than a very close relationship with the mother due to the long postpartum sexual taboo.”
David and Absalom and Amnon
The relationship between David and Absalom is reflective to the types of problems that are seen in polygamous relationships. David clearly loved Absalom. He nearly lost his kingdom because of his attachment to him. However, Absalom never internalized or understood his father’s love. Their relationship was detached, violent and one in which David’s authority was questioned and attacked by his son. David was “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) However the structure of his marital life and therefore his relationships with his children was not redemptive. It is the contention of the work that this is a direct consequence of polygamy.
It could be argued that polygamy is seen throughout the scriptures. This would be true but wherever it is seen there are problems with violence and attachment. Joseph was loved by Jacob in a disproportional manner because he was the first child from the union with Rachel, the wife that Jacob loved. Jacob’s detachment toward his other sons is the direct result of the polygamy he practiced. His son’s violence toward their brother Joseph is a natural consequence of the non redemptive nature of polygamy. Ruben’s taking of Jacob’s concubine is also an extension of the non redemptive nature of polygamy.
Violence and sexual perversion are also characteristic of the sad tale of David’s sons and their relationships with him and with each other. 2 Samuel 13 tells their story. The lust of Amnon is where the chapter begins.
“In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.” (2 Samuel 13:1)
Amnon distortion of the nature of his relationship is first seen in his address her as Absalom sister and not his own. The pervasiveness of this cultural perversion is witnessed in his ‘friend’ or more accurately his cousins advice to him. The advice included the manipulation of his father under the pretense of sickness. Tamar retained within herself and understanding of the wrongness of Amnon’s desire and appealed to cultural memory and law as reasonable modes for dissuading Amnon from his wicked desires.
"Don't, my brother!" she said to him. "Don't force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
“Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!" "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me." But he refused to listen to her. He called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of here and bolt the door after her.” (2 Samuel 13:14-16)
Amnon desire drove him to a heinous sin. His conscience drove him to self condemnation and guilt and hatred of his sister. His un-repentance prevented any reasonable effort to heal the evil wound he had inflected. His detachment from his father and brothers seared the shame and social pressure to reconcile the sin. Tamar was willing to participate in his reconciliation by appealing to their father to allow them to marry. Amnon dehumanized his sister prevented him from doing the right thing. All inordinate affections dehumanize individuals. The monogamous lifelong relationship between one man and one women is the structure that God’s established as the primary means for protecting against dehumanization and inordinate affections.
Absalom’s plotting and execution of the murder of Amnon is an extension of the detachment that polygamy causes. The plot is motivated by vengeance for the sin committed against his sister but it is oblivious to the fact that the plot is against his brother and will affect his father. Our purpose now is not the retelling of Absalom and David’s story but to point out God’s design for redemptive structures such as marriage. Regardless of the structure God can redeem man and redeem cultures. His purpose is heard in the words of a woman know as the women of Tekoa, who the Bible describes as wise. David’s response is also telling
"Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son? Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.(2 Samuel 14:13)
The king said... "Very well, I will do it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom." (2 Samuel 14:21)
Attachment in Father and Son Relationships.
The lack of attachment has been discussed in the context of a father’s absence in polygamous relationships. Attachment as it is occurs in the family structure is an important development task that healthy children must accomplish. Dr. Charles Williams, Ph.D. discusses stages of development in father and son relationships. He lists them as idolizing, discord, evolving, acceptance and becoming a legacy. In order for these steps to be accomplished the father has to be present and available.
Williams’ concise teaching on these areas is quoted below.
“As children, sons idolize their dads and think they can do anything. This identification is most often demonstrated by a son’s imitation of his father’s behavior by walking like him, talking like him or wearing his clothes or shoes. At this age, a son wants so much to please his father and receive his approval and acceptance.
As teens, sons experience a period of discord in which conflict is the central theme they share. They often reject the expectations, values and directions their fathers have embraced and take on more non-traditional philosophies, placing them regularly at odds with one other. The teen may resent or even fear his father depending on the intensity of their differences, at times, carrying over into the son’s early twenties.
As young adults, the father-son relationship enters into a period of evolving. Distance may still exist emotionally and they may even ignore each other. The conscious attempts at being different than one’s father so characteristic in the discord stage begin to appear more like competition. Competition with another can be viewed as one of the most indirect but highest forms of flattery that exists. …
As adults in their 30’s and 40’s, sons begin to move into the stage of acceptance toward their fathers. They have begun to forgive, recognize strengths and even admire the qualities that once seemed so out of step with their previous "know it all" manner of thinking. They begin to accept each other’s differences. Fathers and sons often become friends during this time, share common interests and express opinions without heated exchanges. The son may even experience challenges as a father with his own son. Charles Wadsworth once said, "By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong."
In their 50’s, older adult sons become a legacy of their father’s influence for better and worse. Time tempers painful memories and in their place often remains admiration and respect for the difficult job being a father must have been. Older adult sons who have not yet resolved those issues with their elderly or deceased fathers, however, typically see them replayed with their teenage or young adult sons. If elderly fathers are still living, an ironic role reversal occurs with older adult sons beginning to take care of their aging fathers. Perhaps the best revenge is to live long enough to be a problem to your children. “
The above development tasks that boys complete are filled with difficulty in the best of circumstances. They are important subject of this work because valuing children as redemptive means rearing them in a redemptive fashion. It provides the ‘root’ in which the seed of the Gospel can grow. Character traits both promote and hinder the reception of the Gospel in the souls of men. Matthew 13 illustrates this truth for us.
“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13: 18-23)
James Dobson made the following comments about Western civilization and the loss of character among our male population that is largely related to the poor quality relationships between fathers and sons.
“Nations that are populated largely by immature immoral, weak-willed, cowardly, and self indulgent men cannot and will not long endure. These types of men include those who sire and abandon their children; who cheat on their wives; who lie, steal, covet; who hate their countrymen; and who serve no god but money”
In other words, men who did not practice any type of redemptive gifts as it relates to their families, the children or their work or any other type of responsibility that God has granted them. God has provided and easy to understand structures for mankind to implement within their lives. It is seen in the basic anatomy of the human being, the crops that grow on our farms, and the nutrition that our bodies gain in the food and drink we consume. It is also present in the love that parents experience with the children and the love the children manifest for their parents. Abuse and neglect can usurp the power of these roles, conditioning can remove it in some cases when the child is moved from his or her family of origin and indoctrinated into an unnatural system but under normal circumstances the bonds of love between parents and children will grow as the ears of corn grow naturally in a field that is watered and has nutritional value in the soil. As this work draws to conclusions I would like to talk about the process of learning as much as summarize the premises of have argued.
China - Regulations Of Family Relationships - Single Parent, Gender, Chinese, Parents, Filial, Piety, Age, and Superior http://family.jrank.org/pages/253/China-Regulations-Family-Relationships.html#ixzz0yUYVzTvi
China - Regulations Of Family Relationships - Single Parent, Gender, Chinese, Parents, Filial, Piety, Age, and Superior http://family.jrank.org/pages/253/China-Regulations-Family-Relationships.html#ixzz0yUdUvwJO
Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Contributors: Linda Stone - author. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 61. http://www.questia.com/read/9961875?title=Kinship%20and%20Gender%3a%20An%20Introduction
Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Contributors: Linda Stone - author. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 62. http://www.questia.com/read/9961875?title=Kinship%20and%20Gender%3a%20An%20Introduction
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/952605
http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=15
http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=15
Dobson, James, Bring up Boys, (Tyndale, 2001) pg 54
The Redemptive Relationships: Part II When Sons Defend Fathers
Gideon and Joash
“The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." (Judges 6: 11-13)
This passage is important to this discussion because Gideon references “the wonders that our fathers told us about” Gideon wants to know why the blessing that were upon his fathers were not upon his generation. The wonders he references ended because Israel had ‘worshiped the gods of the Amorites’ whose redemptive purposes we have looked at. It was false worship and false sacrifice that lead to Israel being oppressed by the surrounding nations.
“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it” Judges 6: 1-5)
The false religion that develops becomes a bondage that is generational and Gideon’s father is powerless to do anything about it. This powerlessness in cultural. There are times when it takes a son the break generation bondage for a father. The destruction of the idol becomes the redemption of Joash. The first thing that God has Gideon do is establish true worship.
“So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.” (Judges 6:24)
The next thing that he is told to do is:
“Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” (Judges 6:25)
Gideon completes this task in secrecy because of fear. “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.” (Judges 6:27) When this task is completed not only is Gideon and Israel set free but so is Joash his father. This is evidenced by Joash’s reaction to the angry crowd that gathered to attack Gideon. It is important to note that it was Joash’s false altar not the towns. Joash says,
"Are you going to plead Baal's cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning!
In a moment in time Joash goes from being and idol worshiper to a prophet of God. This occurs because of the redemptive gift of a child and the redemptive relationship that can exist between a father and son. Israel would go on the gain victory in war ‘by faith not by might’ and its redemptive purpose as a nation begins to establish itself again.
Jonathan and Saul
Jonathan is one of the most unappreciated personalities in the scriptures. He is the son of a King with all the character qualities to be a King. He was a proven warrior and leader, a steadfast friend, and a faithful son. When Jonathan is first mentioned in the scriptures his partnership with his father is well established. They are in the midst of a battle and Saul divides his army demonstrating great confidence in his son.
“Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin.”(1 Samuel 13:2)
When the battles went bad and the Israelite army was down to two swords one belong to Saul the other to Jonathan.
“So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them” (1 Samuel 13:22)
Jonathan never sought to usurp his father’s authority even when the means were readily available to him. 1 Samuel 14 tells us the story of the initiative and faith that Jonathan took in attacking the Philistines. In the meantime Saul bound Israel to an oath of that included death to anyone who ate on the day of this battle. Saul’s decision to remain true to the oath, even when he learned that Jonathan had broken it in ignorance, lead to the Israeli army defending Jonathan against Saul. Other sons of lesser character and faith would have used this opportunity to become King themselves, but not Jonathan. He remained true to his father until their death together in battle. David’s dirge of lament is a testament to the power of their relationship.
"Saul and Jonathan, in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.” (2 Samuel 1:23)
“The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." (Judges 6: 11-13)
This passage is important to this discussion because Gideon references “the wonders that our fathers told us about” Gideon wants to know why the blessing that were upon his fathers were not upon his generation. The wonders he references ended because Israel had ‘worshiped the gods of the Amorites’ whose redemptive purposes we have looked at. It was false worship and false sacrifice that lead to Israel being oppressed by the surrounding nations.
“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it” Judges 6: 1-5)
The false religion that develops becomes a bondage that is generational and Gideon’s father is powerless to do anything about it. This powerlessness in cultural. There are times when it takes a son the break generation bondage for a father. The destruction of the idol becomes the redemption of Joash. The first thing that God has Gideon do is establish true worship.
“So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.” (Judges 6:24)
The next thing that he is told to do is:
“Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” (Judges 6:25)
Gideon completes this task in secrecy because of fear. “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.” (Judges 6:27) When this task is completed not only is Gideon and Israel set free but so is Joash his father. This is evidenced by Joash’s reaction to the angry crowd that gathered to attack Gideon. It is important to note that it was Joash’s false altar not the towns. Joash says,
"Are you going to plead Baal's cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning!
In a moment in time Joash goes from being and idol worshiper to a prophet of God. This occurs because of the redemptive gift of a child and the redemptive relationship that can exist between a father and son. Israel would go on the gain victory in war ‘by faith not by might’ and its redemptive purpose as a nation begins to establish itself again.
Jonathan and Saul
Jonathan is one of the most unappreciated personalities in the scriptures. He is the son of a King with all the character qualities to be a King. He was a proven warrior and leader, a steadfast friend, and a faithful son. When Jonathan is first mentioned in the scriptures his partnership with his father is well established. They are in the midst of a battle and Saul divides his army demonstrating great confidence in his son.
“Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin.”(1 Samuel 13:2)
When the battles went bad and the Israelite army was down to two swords one belong to Saul the other to Jonathan.
“So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them” (1 Samuel 13:22)
Jonathan never sought to usurp his father’s authority even when the means were readily available to him. 1 Samuel 14 tells us the story of the initiative and faith that Jonathan took in attacking the Philistines. In the meantime Saul bound Israel to an oath of that included death to anyone who ate on the day of this battle. Saul’s decision to remain true to the oath, even when he learned that Jonathan had broken it in ignorance, lead to the Israeli army defending Jonathan against Saul. Other sons of lesser character and faith would have used this opportunity to become King themselves, but not Jonathan. He remained true to his father until their death together in battle. David’s dirge of lament is a testament to the power of their relationship.
"Saul and Jonathan, in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.” (2 Samuel 1:23)
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Redemptive Relationship Between Fathers and Sons: Part I
Biblical Examples
“God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you”. Genesis 17:3-7)
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. (Genesis 17:20)
Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah (Genesis 25: 1-4)
In our discussion about Abraham we have referenced his father and his wife we have not yet talked about his sons. Isaac is referenced in the scriptures as the son through home God would fulfill His promise. (Genesis 17:19) He serves as the prototype for father and son redemptive relationships for this work. The nature of this type of relationship is that the son and the father become mutually supportive of each other in a way that is beneficial to each other and the community. We will consider Isaac’s role in partnering with Abraham in his well known sacrifice of his “only son”. (Genesis22:2) We will also look at Gideon’s destruction of the father Joash’s false gods and Joash’s resultant faith. Jonathan son of Saul is another example of humility, courage and redemptive wisdom that blesses and honors his father. Additionally we will give credence to various cultural views of the father son relationship. If the nature of marriage is a reflection of the church and its relationship with Christ then truly the relationships between fathers and sons reflects the nature of the Godhead itself. Never was the voice of the Father every clearer in the ears of mankind than when it said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."(Matthew 3:17)
“Few male-male relationships may be more socially significant than that between father and son. While the strength and influence of friendships, work partnerships, and even fraternal relationships often waxes and wanes over the life course, fathers and sons can affect each other's lives substantially, in both positive and negative ways, even during sons' adult lives (see Beatty & Dobos, 1993). The father-son relationship has been found to be an important predictor of sons' parenting style (Simons, Beaman, Conger, & Chao, 1993; Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, & Wu, 1991), sons' communication behaviors (Buerkel-Rothfuss & Yerby, 1981; Fink, 1993), relational closeness between the father and son (Ivy & Backlund, 1994; Messner, 1992; Reid & Fine, 1992; Sillars & Scott, 1983; Wellman, 1992), sons' relational communication with his spouse (Beatty & Dobos, 1993), sons' attitudes toward sexuality (Fisher, 1987), and sons' emotional health and relational success in adulthood (Beatty & Dobos, 1993; Berry, 1990). Indeed, Bochner (1976) argued that communication within the family of origin shapes how men communicate in nearly every area of their lives.
Abraham and Isaac
Abraham and Isaac relationship was mutually influential. This is especially true in regards to Isaac role in his sacrifice. Numerous commentators are in agreement that Isaac was not a child at the time of the sacrifice but a full grown man.
“Several commentators have weighed in on this question. Leupold wrote: “He may by this time have arrived at the age of some eighteen to twenty years” (1942, 1:625). Josephus stated: “Now Isaac was twenty-five years old” (1.13.2). Adam Clarke said: “[I]t is more probable that he was now about thirty-three” (1:140, emp. in orig.). Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown asserted that Isaac was “then upwards of twenty years of age” (n.d., p. 29). J. Curtis Manor described him as “a youth of sufficient strength and agility to carry a load of firewood up a mountainside” (1994, p. 103). Keil and Delitzsch affirmed that “this son had grown into a young man” (1976, 1:248). Morris added: “[T]he meaning in Isaac’s case should also be ‘young man’ ” (1976, p. 373).”
If it is assumed that Isaac was 20 and Abraham was 120 it can be deduced that that Isaac could have easily overpowered his father or at least escape the consequences of the sacrifice as described in the scriptures. (Genesis 22:9) However, Isaac allowed himself to be bound. The journey to the sacrifice was three days long. (Genesis 22:4) Abraham would have contemplated this moment throughout the entire journey. Paul the Apostle tells us that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.
“Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” (Hebrews 11:9)
Matthew Henry commentaries provide Abraham with the honor due his faith.
“The greatest trial and act of faith upon record is, Abraham's offering up Isaac, Ge 22:2. There, every word shows a trial. It is our duty to reason down our doubts and fears, by looking, as Abraham did, to the Almighty power of God. The best way to enjoy our comforts is, to give them up to God; he will then again give them as shall be the best for us. Let us look how far our faith has caused the like obedience, when we have been called to lesser acts of self-denial, or to make smaller sacrifices to our duty. Have we given up what was called for, fully believing that the Lord would make up all our losses, and even bless us by the most afflicting dispensations?”
Biblical teachers should be as interested in Isaac’s faith as they are Abraham’s. The scriptures are surprising brief in its description Isaac’s faith, only one verse, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future”. (Hebrews 11:20) This passage is brief but it tells us much about Isaac and his understanding of his redemptive role within his generation and his place. Isaac’s name means happy. He was happy because he fulfilled his role within his generation and passed it on to the next. He did this by faith. Isaac knew of his supernatural conception. He could have allowed that supernatural conception to create in him the expectation of greater task than his father. However he remained humble throughout his life. This humility was always connected to his honoring of Abraham. Isaac recognized his father’s power, and authority through God and his dominant role as the man through whom God made his promises.
“power, authority, dominance, and control are relevant to a gendered closeness approach to affectionate communication because they are inherent to almost every description of the traditional masculine gender role. For example, David and Brannon (1976) categorized four basic themes of masculinity, one of which they called the "Big Wheel." According to this theme, masculinity is measured by success, power, status, and the admiration of others.
Isaac did not lack power or authority, but he knew they began with the relationship that was established between his Father and God. Isaac would renew this relationship with God himself and he knew that his sons would be required to do the same. That is why he blessed them in regards to their future. The follow passage demonstrates Isaac faith in a time of famine and the connection of his success with the promise made to his father.
Now there was a famine in the land—besides the earlier famine of Abraham's time—and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring]all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws." So Isaac stayed in Gerar. (Genesis 26:1-5)
Isaac was also a man of power in his own right and grew in favor with God and man as well.
“Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us." (Genesis 26: 14-16)
Isaac is a man that we may describe as inheriting a generational blessing from his father and therefore would be expected to prosper and grow in power and influence. However there are other examples in the scriptures of men that were born without this favor but their life was still redemptive for them, their father and the community in which they lived. Gideon is the best example of this. We will pick up his story in the next blog of this series. Judges 6 will be our reference mark.
Affectionate Communication between Fathers and Young Adult Sons: Individual-And Relational-Level Correlates. Contributors: Mark T. Morman - author, Kory Floyd - author. Journal Title: Communication Studies. Volume: 50. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 294. COPYRIGHT 1999 Central States Communication Association; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
http://www.questia.com/read/5001897326?title=Affectionate%20Communication%20between%20Fathers%20and%20Young%20Adult%20Sons%3a%20Individual-And%20Relational-Level%20Correlates
Miller, David Copyright © 2003 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved. http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2319
http://bible.cc/hebrews/11-19.htm
Henry, Matthew. Concise commentary http://bible.cc/hebrews/11-19.htm
Affectionate Communication between Fathers and Young Adult Sons: Individual-And Relational-Level Correlates. Contributors: Mark T. Morman - author, Kory Floyd - author. Journal Title: Communication Studies. Volume: 50. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 294. COPYRIGHT 1999 Central States Communication Association; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
http://www.questia.com/read/5001897326?title=Affectionate%20Communication%20between%20Fathers%20and%20Young%20Adult%20Sons%3a%20Individual-And%20Relational-Level%20Correlates
“God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you”. Genesis 17:3-7)
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. (Genesis 17:20)
Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah (Genesis 25: 1-4)
In our discussion about Abraham we have referenced his father and his wife we have not yet talked about his sons. Isaac is referenced in the scriptures as the son through home God would fulfill His promise. (Genesis 17:19) He serves as the prototype for father and son redemptive relationships for this work. The nature of this type of relationship is that the son and the father become mutually supportive of each other in a way that is beneficial to each other and the community. We will consider Isaac’s role in partnering with Abraham in his well known sacrifice of his “only son”. (Genesis22:2) We will also look at Gideon’s destruction of the father Joash’s false gods and Joash’s resultant faith. Jonathan son of Saul is another example of humility, courage and redemptive wisdom that blesses and honors his father. Additionally we will give credence to various cultural views of the father son relationship. If the nature of marriage is a reflection of the church and its relationship with Christ then truly the relationships between fathers and sons reflects the nature of the Godhead itself. Never was the voice of the Father every clearer in the ears of mankind than when it said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."(Matthew 3:17)
“Few male-male relationships may be more socially significant than that between father and son. While the strength and influence of friendships, work partnerships, and even fraternal relationships often waxes and wanes over the life course, fathers and sons can affect each other's lives substantially, in both positive and negative ways, even during sons' adult lives (see Beatty & Dobos, 1993). The father-son relationship has been found to be an important predictor of sons' parenting style (Simons, Beaman, Conger, & Chao, 1993; Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, & Wu, 1991), sons' communication behaviors (Buerkel-Rothfuss & Yerby, 1981; Fink, 1993), relational closeness between the father and son (Ivy & Backlund, 1994; Messner, 1992; Reid & Fine, 1992; Sillars & Scott, 1983; Wellman, 1992), sons' relational communication with his spouse (Beatty & Dobos, 1993), sons' attitudes toward sexuality (Fisher, 1987), and sons' emotional health and relational success in adulthood (Beatty & Dobos, 1993; Berry, 1990). Indeed, Bochner (1976) argued that communication within the family of origin shapes how men communicate in nearly every area of their lives.
Abraham and Isaac
Abraham and Isaac relationship was mutually influential. This is especially true in regards to Isaac role in his sacrifice. Numerous commentators are in agreement that Isaac was not a child at the time of the sacrifice but a full grown man.
“Several commentators have weighed in on this question. Leupold wrote: “He may by this time have arrived at the age of some eighteen to twenty years” (1942, 1:625). Josephus stated: “Now Isaac was twenty-five years old” (1.13.2). Adam Clarke said: “[I]t is more probable that he was now about thirty-three” (1:140, emp. in orig.). Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown asserted that Isaac was “then upwards of twenty years of age” (n.d., p. 29). J. Curtis Manor described him as “a youth of sufficient strength and agility to carry a load of firewood up a mountainside” (1994, p. 103). Keil and Delitzsch affirmed that “this son had grown into a young man” (1976, 1:248). Morris added: “[T]he meaning in Isaac’s case should also be ‘young man’ ” (1976, p. 373).”
If it is assumed that Isaac was 20 and Abraham was 120 it can be deduced that that Isaac could have easily overpowered his father or at least escape the consequences of the sacrifice as described in the scriptures. (Genesis 22:9) However, Isaac allowed himself to be bound. The journey to the sacrifice was three days long. (Genesis 22:4) Abraham would have contemplated this moment throughout the entire journey. Paul the Apostle tells us that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.
“Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” (Hebrews 11:9)
Matthew Henry commentaries provide Abraham with the honor due his faith.
“The greatest trial and act of faith upon record is, Abraham's offering up Isaac, Ge 22:2. There, every word shows a trial. It is our duty to reason down our doubts and fears, by looking, as Abraham did, to the Almighty power of God. The best way to enjoy our comforts is, to give them up to God; he will then again give them as shall be the best for us. Let us look how far our faith has caused the like obedience, when we have been called to lesser acts of self-denial, or to make smaller sacrifices to our duty. Have we given up what was called for, fully believing that the Lord would make up all our losses, and even bless us by the most afflicting dispensations?”
Biblical teachers should be as interested in Isaac’s faith as they are Abraham’s. The scriptures are surprising brief in its description Isaac’s faith, only one verse, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future”. (Hebrews 11:20) This passage is brief but it tells us much about Isaac and his understanding of his redemptive role within his generation and his place. Isaac’s name means happy. He was happy because he fulfilled his role within his generation and passed it on to the next. He did this by faith. Isaac knew of his supernatural conception. He could have allowed that supernatural conception to create in him the expectation of greater task than his father. However he remained humble throughout his life. This humility was always connected to his honoring of Abraham. Isaac recognized his father’s power, and authority through God and his dominant role as the man through whom God made his promises.
“power, authority, dominance, and control are relevant to a gendered closeness approach to affectionate communication because they are inherent to almost every description of the traditional masculine gender role. For example, David and Brannon (1976) categorized four basic themes of masculinity, one of which they called the "Big Wheel." According to this theme, masculinity is measured by success, power, status, and the admiration of others.
Isaac did not lack power or authority, but he knew they began with the relationship that was established between his Father and God. Isaac would renew this relationship with God himself and he knew that his sons would be required to do the same. That is why he blessed them in regards to their future. The follow passage demonstrates Isaac faith in a time of famine and the connection of his success with the promise made to his father.
Now there was a famine in the land—besides the earlier famine of Abraham's time—and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring]all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws." So Isaac stayed in Gerar. (Genesis 26:1-5)
Isaac was also a man of power in his own right and grew in favor with God and man as well.
“Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us." (Genesis 26: 14-16)
Isaac is a man that we may describe as inheriting a generational blessing from his father and therefore would be expected to prosper and grow in power and influence. However there are other examples in the scriptures of men that were born without this favor but their life was still redemptive for them, their father and the community in which they lived. Gideon is the best example of this. We will pick up his story in the next blog of this series. Judges 6 will be our reference mark.
Affectionate Communication between Fathers and Young Adult Sons: Individual-And Relational-Level Correlates. Contributors: Mark T. Morman - author, Kory Floyd - author. Journal Title: Communication Studies. Volume: 50. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 294. COPYRIGHT 1999 Central States Communication Association; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
http://www.questia.com/read/5001897326?title=Affectionate%20Communication%20between%20Fathers%20and%20Young%20Adult%20Sons%3a%20Individual-And%20Relational-Level%20Correlates
Miller, David Copyright © 2003 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved. http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2319
http://bible.cc/hebrews/11-19.htm
Henry, Matthew. Concise commentary http://bible.cc/hebrews/11-19.htm
Affectionate Communication between Fathers and Young Adult Sons: Individual-And Relational-Level Correlates. Contributors: Mark T. Morman - author, Kory Floyd - author. Journal Title: Communication Studies. Volume: 50. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 294. COPYRIGHT 1999 Central States Communication Association; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
http://www.questia.com/read/5001897326?title=Affectionate%20Communication%20between%20Fathers%20and%20Young%20Adult%20Sons%3a%20Individual-And%20Relational-Level%20Correlates
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Abraham Conqueror of Idolatry (Part II)
The Patriotic Aspects of Idolatry
Acts 17:26 does not just express the importance of the individual but also the nations. From one man he made every nation of men. ( Acts 17:26) I have made the case in these articles that the diversity God desires in mankind is inherent in the nations. As in other types of blessings the Lord grants man, such as food, sex and drink, their abuse becomes sin. This also is true of the love of country.
Bible-history.com states
“There is ever in the human mind a craving for visible forms to express religious conceptions.”….The special enticements to idolatry as offered by these various cults were found in their deification of natural forces and their appeal to primitive human desires, especially sexual; also through association produced by intermarriage and through appeal to patriotism.”
When idolatrous love of country is present it glorifies man over God. Instead of the God of heaven being the source of blessing the King or the Pharaoh are made gods and are viewed as the source of blessing themselves. This was true in Ur and we have seen it in other degenerating kingdoms in the history of man. The below quote describes the one of the Kings of Ur reign.
“Construction of the ziggurat was completed in the 21st century BC by King Shulgi, during whose 48-year reign the city of Ur grew to be the capital of an empire controlling much of Mesopotamia. To win the allegiance of the many formerly independent cities he controlled, Shulgi proclaimed himself a god and became a great patron of the arts. He had his poets and scribes publicize all sorts of stories about his prowess: he had complete mastery of every weapon of war, could capture gazelles on the run, slay lions unaided, and play every known musical instrument. The King himself claimed that he once ran 200 miles during a fierce hailstorm—which he may have done.
King Shulgi and Ur demonstrate religious idolatry in the construction of the ziggurat. The King proclaims himself ‘god’ reinforcing patriotic idolatry. The lavishness the cities possessions could rightly be described as idolatrous as well. King Shulgi strength, his prowess in war is glorified. He does support intellectual culture of art and poetry, each redemptive in their own way. The struggle to honor God and honor King is always present in the heart of man. The idolatrous extreme leads to the deifying of human being that was first expressed in the garden by Satan.
“whatever benefits come from honorable patriotism are outweighed by the harm done by its idolatrous counterparts, to say nothing of the consequences of still baser passions that masquerade as patriotism.”
The above quote does not have to be true of any nation. It certainly should not have been true of Israel. God created Israel through the prophet Abraham to be an example to the nations. When Abram left Ur he would have been fighting the forces of tribal and patriotic ties that defined the area. The thirst of personal gratification that is present in our culture would have been present in his. Additionally the local deity would have been viewed as the primary reason for the areas prosperity and strength. Abraham’s abandonment of his local god would have been seen both as heretic and as treasonous. The concept of religious and patriotic distinctions or separation of church and state was not present in that era.
It is also possible that despite its idolatry and its moral problems Abraham may have had a real patriotic love for his home. Eamonn Callon, the author of “Love, Idolatry, and Patriotism” makes a distinction between national love that retains enough redemptive value that it might reform a degenerated nation and national love that is that is so degenerated that it needs to be eradicated from the heart of its citizens. He expresses this in sentimental tones, “After all, being told to give up what you love is a harder message for anyone to heed than being told that you should love it better”
George Orwell, sited in Eamonn’s article expresses it in historic tones as it relates to the English empire.
“According to Orwell, patriotism is love for a particular place and the community that resides there and stretches across many generations into the past and future. Even though the distinctive character of the community might be accurately portrayed at a given moment in history, patriots need not be nostalgic conservatives who resist change to the country they love. In an arresting metaphor, he depicts England as "an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of all recognition and yet remain the same"
Abraham’s obedience to God’s call would break the exaggerated aspects of patriotic love off of his life with consideration of both future and past generations as poetically expressed by Orwell. He exercised strong faith and psychological disciple in order to give up his patriotic love of Ur. We see appropriate patriotic love in Abraham’s commissioning of his chief servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. There are three things that Abraham does that demonstrate a mature understanding of the distinction between patriotic love and patriotic idolatry. It should be noted that he is an old man when he manifests this wisdom. We see him control the present idolatry that was in the geography and generation he lived, he manages past idolatry from his families generations and where he use to live, and finally he builds a future structure for the success of his son Isaac free of idolatry.
“ Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way” He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, "Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac."
The servant asked him, "What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?"
"Make sure that you do not take my son back there," Abraham said. "The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there." So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.(Genesis 24: 1-9)
Abraham’s primary admonishment of his chief servant was that he, “not allow his son Isaac, to take a wife from among the Canaanites”. The Canaanites of Abraham’s generations were a wicked idolatrous people. This is the region of the world that gave rise to Sodom as we have seen. Then, as now, kingdoms and cultures affected one another. The people of Ur were not exempt from these sins either. They too were idolatrous and sinful. So why would Abraham send his servant back to his home, where the people were idol worshipers to get his son a wife? The reason has to do with this idea of patriotic love and idolatry. Abraham knew what idols, what sins; his son would have to ‘master’. They were the sins and the idols of his own people. Abraham therefore took control of the present by telling his servant. “you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living,” He was managing his past when he said to his servant, “do not take my son back there!” When Abraham did this he limited Isaac’s exposure to the idolatry he grew up with but also acknowledged the value of his people group as well. He does this in a manner that honors his people without the sin of racism and nationalism that can be present when these types of decisions are made by parents on behalf of their children.
Abraham also made and effort the break off idolatry’s hold on his son and future generations back making his chief servant, ‘swear by the God of Heaven and Earth.’ Abraham expresses faith in clear in unambiguous terms when he says. “The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there.”
The opposite reaction to patriotic love that some people see as a solution man’s problems with nationalism is universalism. Callon states, “If humanity could make a bargain with God to make patriotism disappear, so that all its harms evaporated along with its benefits, maybe we should take the deal. But no such bargain is on offer.” In popular culture this sentiment is best summarized in the lyric of John Lennon’s classic Imagine. “Imagine there's no countries; It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too, Imagine all the people, Living life in peace...”
The Lord has always had a plan for nation states that worship him based on identities that are built in geographies, generations, and genealogies in which they are placed. The forging of a national identity would be refined in the work that was required in the place God called them. Initially, simply to survive, and then to prosper as creativity and inventiveness were incorporated into cultural norms, traditions and laws. The integral structures of the value of each individual, the traditional family construct, justice, and monotheistic frameworks based on original design, provided the best outcomes because God acknowledged their presence and actively endorsed their implementation.
The Materialistic Aspects of Idolatry
“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world.”
Lennon’s lyrics in Imagine appeal to us because they promote peace and generosity. They were difficult for him to apply in his own life. His net worth was estimated at $150,000,000 dollars in the fall of 1980, yet they have value in thinking about the redemptive value of wealth.
The last area we will consider is materialistic idolatry as it affected Abraham’s life. Abraham had real victory in this area of his life. We know that the wealth of Ur did not keep him from following God. When know that he allowed Lot to choose the best of the land. I think Abraham demonstrates his highest level of faith with his wife Sarah. Abraham had two examples in his life where he allowed fear to overcome his love for her. I am referencing Genesis 12 and Genesis 20 when Abraham tells Pharaoh and Abimelech respectively that Sarah is his sister. This being true I would like to consider another part of their relationship. It connects directly to the presentation of redemptive gift of children.
Abraham’s lament about his lack of children is heard clearly in Genesis 15:3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." Despite Abraham’s heartfelt disappointment in this area he does not take another wife. He remains committed to Sarah. There would have been no cultural inhibitions to his taking another wife; in fact the contrary was true. Children were viewed then as a blessing from God, and a financial asset. Most cultures throughout history have viewed children this way. The Genesis 16 passage in which Hagar is taken as Abraham’s concubine is initiated by Sarah. It is Sarah who is covering her shame not Abraham. Abraham sacrifices the wealth associated with having a son and risked a servant of his household being his heir based on his love for his wife. This certainly is the opposite of materialistic idolatry.
Materialist idolatry stated in the simplest terms is selfishness. It is childlike and self absorbed. An article by Chyan Yang published in International Journal of Management in 2008 title the “The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: An Empirical Study” addresses the effects materialist idolatry on the personality. The concepts presented are present in our generation and would have been in Abraham’s as well. The author defines idolatry as; “Idolatry, the excessive admiration of devotion to something or someone, is commonly found among adolescents. This personal trait is more emotional than rational.” He states that the most vulnerable population to idolatry is young people and adolescents.
“Idolatry, as a transitional mental phenomenon in the development process of children and young people, is one of the most common phenomena among children (He, 2006). Idolatry is one of the unique characteristics of adolescents (Raviv et al., 1996)”
Yang’s study is completed among Taiwanese adolescents immersed materialist idolatry, Chritopher Lasch, author of The Culture of Narcissism points out its pervasiveness among modern elites.
“The advantages the rich confer on their children dwindle down to money alone. As the new elite discards the outlook of the old bourgeoisie, it identifies itself not with the work ethic and the responsibilities of wealth but with an ethic of leisure, hedonism, and self-fulfillment.”
A sad but eloquent formulation of the selfishness associated with modern American life is expressed by Lasch below. It captures the training of previous wealthy generations for leadership and social responsibility. It romanticizes their commitment to the poor and understates the current generation’s generosity to the poor. This may be due to its 1991 publication. It predates the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is the catalyst for a great deal of the philanthropy in our generation. Their foundation may give as much as $600,000,000 dollars to charity annually. The quote is valuable to us because it depicts the process of degeneration of different political systems and also their potential to be benevolent, redemptive and avoid materialistic idolatry.
“a new kind of paternalism, which has risen from the ruins of the old paternalism of kings, priests, authoritarian fathers, slave masters, and landed overlords. Capitalism has severed the ties of personal dependence only to revive dependence under cover of bureaucratic rationality. Having overthrown feudalism and slavery and then outgrown its own personal and familial form, capitalism has evolved a new political ideology, welfare liberalism, which absolves individuals of moral responsibility and treats them as victims of social circumstance. It has evolved new modes of social control, which deal with the deviant as a patient and substitute medical rehabilitation for punishment. It has given rise to a new culture, the narcissistic culture of our time, which has translated the predatory individualism of the American Adam into a therapeutic jargon that celebrates not so much individualism as solipsism, justifying self-absorption as "authenticity" and "awareness."
Ostensibly egalitarian and antiauthoritarian, American capitalism has rejected priestly and monarchical hegemony only to replace it with the hegemony of the business corporation, the managerial and professional classes who operate the corporate system, and the corporate state. A new ruling class of administrators, bureaucrats, technicians, and experts has appeared, which retains so few of the attributes formerly associated with a ruling class—pride of place, the "habit of command," disdain for the lower orders—that its existence as a class often goes unnoticed. The difference between the new managerial elite and the old propertied elite defines the difference between a bourgeois culture that now survives only on the margins of industrial society and the new therapeutic culture of narcissism.”
The solution to self absorption and narcissism is generosity. The attributes of “pride of place, the habit of command” develop naturally when the redemptive task of work is present. Work that improves the conditions of a place and a time, that does not exploit the environment or the culture, is especially redemptive. The elite’s role is to create a construct in which all of its citizens have the maximum opportunity for success by promoting individual creativity and talent.
Abraham’s generous spirit, as a semi-nomadic shepherd, was sacrificial and loving. It broke materialist idolatry off of his life. There is a global opportunity to do the same now. In an interesting ‘one eyed view’ of redemptive gifts author Gerard Piel advocates for a Marshall Plan type of investment in the third world as a means of promoting industrialization and reducing the number of children. Piel states;
“The problem is not population; it is poverty. We can reach zero-growth population, if we expand the world economy fourfold and share the proceeds equitably. That would bring the poorest 20 percent out of poverty. The industrialized countries must climb out of their economic torpor and restart their economic engines.”
Piel sees half the picture. Investment in people and in the nations is always the right thing to do. Limiting the amount of people is the wrong thing to do. We have completely lost sight of the fact the people are the greatest gift that God has granted us. The insight and the understanding that children are a blessing from God are inherent in most cultures and most culture’s memory. It is now a spiritual truth that requires spiritual understanding. Part of what has affected the church’s understanding in this area is simply the facts that present themselves.
“The population of the world has more than doubled since 1950 - from 2.5 billion to 5.3 billion. The number of people living in direst poverty has increased to 1.3 billion - close to the total population of the underdeveloped countries in 1950. The population is doubling now again. The number in direst poverty could equal the present world population. A doubling after that would bring the human species close to full occupation of the Earth.”
I am not suggesting that we ignore such facts and depend on faith to feed people. I am suggesting that the church get involved in the types of advocacy the Piel is suggesting and combine faith and works.
“the time has come to bring the vision of a global Marshall Plan into focus again. Getting on with the industrial revolution is the most urgent challenge civilization now faces. If foreign aid was being considered an act of common humanity at mid-century, it is now dictated by the exigencies of common survival.”…. The number in direst poverty could equal the present world population. A doubling after that would bring the human species close to full occupation of the Earth.”
That sounds a little like the fulfillment of the Lord’s command to be fruitful and multiple and fill the Earth. For the majority of people who do not support the proliferation of the species, but who do not want the see the poor begging for bread the following quote should have application. It provides a positive outcome and economic solutions in under developed nations.
“In order to stabilize the world's population at some sustainable level, the industrial revolution must be carried out worldwide. Natural population increase has ceased in the 20 percent of the world population that is represented by the industrialized countries. Fertility is approaching the zero-growth rate in another 20 percent of the population currently living in the pre-industrial countries. That is happening in countries that have gotten on with their industrial revolutions since 1950. The population explosion that distresses so many well-off people in the industrialized countries is confined to the countries where the revolution has lagged and is now arrested. The sooner the industrial revolution reaches people everywhere, the smaller will be the world's population.”
The premise of Piel’s study is that the opportunities that were created for Germany and Japan should be created for Bangladesh and Ecuador. His advocacy assumes common capacity among the people groups of the world if they are provided with common opportunity. It is truly a redemptive work in that sense. It assumes cooperation among nations and among the wealthy. It assumes the type of leadership that is redemptive and shuns materialistic idolatry. It represents leadership that is transformational. Abraham was a transformational leader and he has his modern counterparts. They are the wealthiest men the Earth has ever known and they care about the condition of mankind.
“Black and Porter (2000, p. 432) define transformational leadership as: "leadership that motivates followers to ignore self-interests and work for the larger good of the organization to achieve significant accomplishments; emphasis is on articulating a vision that will convince subordinates to make major changes." These leaders have a profound effect on their followers' beliefs regarding what the organization should become and also on their subordinates' values. They also provide their followers with guidance so that they are able to achieve their goals. Some examples of individuals who are considered transformational leaders include Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of Dell Computer Corporation, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Lou Gerstner of IBM, and Jack Welch of GE.”
Mithchell Langbert the author of “Abraham as a Transformational Leader” sites seven characteristics that Abraham displayed that made him a transformational leader. It was these traits that broke off religious idolatry, patriotic idolatry, and materialistic idolatry in his life. He was a visionary, had a sense of justice, was humble, charismatic, willing the sacrifice for what he believed in, he dared to be different.
Even within his own generation Abraham’s wealth and strength grew to a national level. The personal power and wealth he gained made him as strong and prosperous as many local kings. He fought five kings in order to rescue his nephew lot and won. Abraham could have easily sought a kingship for himself. Abraham’s humility and meekness never allowed for this. When Lot’s servants and his servants were in conflict Abraham gave Lot the best of the land. He did not receive a reward as we have pointed out from the King of Sodom. He honored his wife in life and insisted on paying her burial plot when it was offered for free. The acceptance of the gift would have meant honor for the gift giver. Abraham refused to use his wife’s death for even the slightest politic advantage of alliance. Abraham’s greatest triumph was the faith to believe that God would raise Isaac from the dead upon his sacrifice of him. Abraham knew the redemptive value of children, and especially Isaac but he was willing to obey God. He destroyed the power of idolatry over his own life. Langbert summarizes his accomplishments well.
“The major accomplishment of Abraham was to spread the belief in a single God in a world filled with paganism. Today's world has been dramatically changed because Abraham spread monotheism and the concomitant philosophy of caring for one's fellow human being. His philosophy eventually became institutionalized as the law of "you shall love your fellow as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). …Abraham's philosophies can serve as a paradigm or touchstone for the successful leader of today”
http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/I/IDOLATRY
http://www.amazeingart.com/seven-wonders/ziggurat.html
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://gatesofpraiseministries.blogspot.com/
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.lyrics007.com/Beatles%20Lyrics/Imagine%20Lyrics.html
http://www.lyrics007.com/Beatles%20Lyrics/Imagine%20Lyrics.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Sean_lennon_net_worth
http://www.questia.com/read/5035328485 The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: an Empirical Study. Contributors: Chyan Yang - author, Yau de Wang - author, Han Jen Niu - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Management. Volume: 25. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2008. Page Number: 633+. © 2008
http://www.questia.com/read/5035328485 The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: an Empirical Study. Contributors: Chyan Yang - author, Yau de Wang - author, Han Jen Niu - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Management. Volume: 25. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2008. Page Number: 633+. © 2008
http://www.questia.com/read/99032064 The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Contributors: Christopher Lasch - author. Publisher: W. W. Norton. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 225.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article1113258.ece
http://www.questia.com/read/99032064 The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Contributors: Christopher Lasch - author. Publisher: W. W. Norton. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 225.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
Acts 17:26 does not just express the importance of the individual but also the nations. From one man he made every nation of men. ( Acts 17:26) I have made the case in these articles that the diversity God desires in mankind is inherent in the nations. As in other types of blessings the Lord grants man, such as food, sex and drink, their abuse becomes sin. This also is true of the love of country.
Bible-history.com states
“There is ever in the human mind a craving for visible forms to express religious conceptions.”….The special enticements to idolatry as offered by these various cults were found in their deification of natural forces and their appeal to primitive human desires, especially sexual; also through association produced by intermarriage and through appeal to patriotism.”
When idolatrous love of country is present it glorifies man over God. Instead of the God of heaven being the source of blessing the King or the Pharaoh are made gods and are viewed as the source of blessing themselves. This was true in Ur and we have seen it in other degenerating kingdoms in the history of man. The below quote describes the one of the Kings of Ur reign.
“Construction of the ziggurat was completed in the 21st century BC by King Shulgi, during whose 48-year reign the city of Ur grew to be the capital of an empire controlling much of Mesopotamia. To win the allegiance of the many formerly independent cities he controlled, Shulgi proclaimed himself a god and became a great patron of the arts. He had his poets and scribes publicize all sorts of stories about his prowess: he had complete mastery of every weapon of war, could capture gazelles on the run, slay lions unaided, and play every known musical instrument. The King himself claimed that he once ran 200 miles during a fierce hailstorm—which he may have done.
King Shulgi and Ur demonstrate religious idolatry in the construction of the ziggurat. The King proclaims himself ‘god’ reinforcing patriotic idolatry. The lavishness the cities possessions could rightly be described as idolatrous as well. King Shulgi strength, his prowess in war is glorified. He does support intellectual culture of art and poetry, each redemptive in their own way. The struggle to honor God and honor King is always present in the heart of man. The idolatrous extreme leads to the deifying of human being that was first expressed in the garden by Satan.
“whatever benefits come from honorable patriotism are outweighed by the harm done by its idolatrous counterparts, to say nothing of the consequences of still baser passions that masquerade as patriotism.”
The above quote does not have to be true of any nation. It certainly should not have been true of Israel. God created Israel through the prophet Abraham to be an example to the nations. When Abram left Ur he would have been fighting the forces of tribal and patriotic ties that defined the area. The thirst of personal gratification that is present in our culture would have been present in his. Additionally the local deity would have been viewed as the primary reason for the areas prosperity and strength. Abraham’s abandonment of his local god would have been seen both as heretic and as treasonous. The concept of religious and patriotic distinctions or separation of church and state was not present in that era.
It is also possible that despite its idolatry and its moral problems Abraham may have had a real patriotic love for his home. Eamonn Callon, the author of “Love, Idolatry, and Patriotism” makes a distinction between national love that retains enough redemptive value that it might reform a degenerated nation and national love that is that is so degenerated that it needs to be eradicated from the heart of its citizens. He expresses this in sentimental tones, “After all, being told to give up what you love is a harder message for anyone to heed than being told that you should love it better”
George Orwell, sited in Eamonn’s article expresses it in historic tones as it relates to the English empire.
“According to Orwell, patriotism is love for a particular place and the community that resides there and stretches across many generations into the past and future. Even though the distinctive character of the community might be accurately portrayed at a given moment in history, patriots need not be nostalgic conservatives who resist change to the country they love. In an arresting metaphor, he depicts England as "an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of all recognition and yet remain the same"
Abraham’s obedience to God’s call would break the exaggerated aspects of patriotic love off of his life with consideration of both future and past generations as poetically expressed by Orwell. He exercised strong faith and psychological disciple in order to give up his patriotic love of Ur. We see appropriate patriotic love in Abraham’s commissioning of his chief servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. There are three things that Abraham does that demonstrate a mature understanding of the distinction between patriotic love and patriotic idolatry. It should be noted that he is an old man when he manifests this wisdom. We see him control the present idolatry that was in the geography and generation he lived, he manages past idolatry from his families generations and where he use to live, and finally he builds a future structure for the success of his son Isaac free of idolatry.
“ Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way” He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, "Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac."
The servant asked him, "What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?"
"Make sure that you do not take my son back there," Abraham said. "The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there." So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.(Genesis 24: 1-9)
Abraham’s primary admonishment of his chief servant was that he, “not allow his son Isaac, to take a wife from among the Canaanites”. The Canaanites of Abraham’s generations were a wicked idolatrous people. This is the region of the world that gave rise to Sodom as we have seen. Then, as now, kingdoms and cultures affected one another. The people of Ur were not exempt from these sins either. They too were idolatrous and sinful. So why would Abraham send his servant back to his home, where the people were idol worshipers to get his son a wife? The reason has to do with this idea of patriotic love and idolatry. Abraham knew what idols, what sins; his son would have to ‘master’. They were the sins and the idols of his own people. Abraham therefore took control of the present by telling his servant. “you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living,” He was managing his past when he said to his servant, “do not take my son back there!” When Abraham did this he limited Isaac’s exposure to the idolatry he grew up with but also acknowledged the value of his people group as well. He does this in a manner that honors his people without the sin of racism and nationalism that can be present when these types of decisions are made by parents on behalf of their children.
Abraham also made and effort the break off idolatry’s hold on his son and future generations back making his chief servant, ‘swear by the God of Heaven and Earth.’ Abraham expresses faith in clear in unambiguous terms when he says. “The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there.”
The opposite reaction to patriotic love that some people see as a solution man’s problems with nationalism is universalism. Callon states, “If humanity could make a bargain with God to make patriotism disappear, so that all its harms evaporated along with its benefits, maybe we should take the deal. But no such bargain is on offer.” In popular culture this sentiment is best summarized in the lyric of John Lennon’s classic Imagine. “Imagine there's no countries; It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too, Imagine all the people, Living life in peace...”
The Lord has always had a plan for nation states that worship him based on identities that are built in geographies, generations, and genealogies in which they are placed. The forging of a national identity would be refined in the work that was required in the place God called them. Initially, simply to survive, and then to prosper as creativity and inventiveness were incorporated into cultural norms, traditions and laws. The integral structures of the value of each individual, the traditional family construct, justice, and monotheistic frameworks based on original design, provided the best outcomes because God acknowledged their presence and actively endorsed their implementation.
The Materialistic Aspects of Idolatry
“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world.”
Lennon’s lyrics in Imagine appeal to us because they promote peace and generosity. They were difficult for him to apply in his own life. His net worth was estimated at $150,000,000 dollars in the fall of 1980, yet they have value in thinking about the redemptive value of wealth.
The last area we will consider is materialistic idolatry as it affected Abraham’s life. Abraham had real victory in this area of his life. We know that the wealth of Ur did not keep him from following God. When know that he allowed Lot to choose the best of the land. I think Abraham demonstrates his highest level of faith with his wife Sarah. Abraham had two examples in his life where he allowed fear to overcome his love for her. I am referencing Genesis 12 and Genesis 20 when Abraham tells Pharaoh and Abimelech respectively that Sarah is his sister. This being true I would like to consider another part of their relationship. It connects directly to the presentation of redemptive gift of children.
Abraham’s lament about his lack of children is heard clearly in Genesis 15:3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." Despite Abraham’s heartfelt disappointment in this area he does not take another wife. He remains committed to Sarah. There would have been no cultural inhibitions to his taking another wife; in fact the contrary was true. Children were viewed then as a blessing from God, and a financial asset. Most cultures throughout history have viewed children this way. The Genesis 16 passage in which Hagar is taken as Abraham’s concubine is initiated by Sarah. It is Sarah who is covering her shame not Abraham. Abraham sacrifices the wealth associated with having a son and risked a servant of his household being his heir based on his love for his wife. This certainly is the opposite of materialistic idolatry.
Materialist idolatry stated in the simplest terms is selfishness. It is childlike and self absorbed. An article by Chyan Yang published in International Journal of Management in 2008 title the “The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: An Empirical Study” addresses the effects materialist idolatry on the personality. The concepts presented are present in our generation and would have been in Abraham’s as well. The author defines idolatry as; “Idolatry, the excessive admiration of devotion to something or someone, is commonly found among adolescents. This personal trait is more emotional than rational.” He states that the most vulnerable population to idolatry is young people and adolescents.
“Idolatry, as a transitional mental phenomenon in the development process of children and young people, is one of the most common phenomena among children (He, 2006). Idolatry is one of the unique characteristics of adolescents (Raviv et al., 1996)”
Yang’s study is completed among Taiwanese adolescents immersed materialist idolatry, Chritopher Lasch, author of The Culture of Narcissism points out its pervasiveness among modern elites.
“The advantages the rich confer on their children dwindle down to money alone. As the new elite discards the outlook of the old bourgeoisie, it identifies itself not with the work ethic and the responsibilities of wealth but with an ethic of leisure, hedonism, and self-fulfillment.”
A sad but eloquent formulation of the selfishness associated with modern American life is expressed by Lasch below. It captures the training of previous wealthy generations for leadership and social responsibility. It romanticizes their commitment to the poor and understates the current generation’s generosity to the poor. This may be due to its 1991 publication. It predates the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is the catalyst for a great deal of the philanthropy in our generation. Their foundation may give as much as $600,000,000 dollars to charity annually. The quote is valuable to us because it depicts the process of degeneration of different political systems and also their potential to be benevolent, redemptive and avoid materialistic idolatry.
“a new kind of paternalism, which has risen from the ruins of the old paternalism of kings, priests, authoritarian fathers, slave masters, and landed overlords. Capitalism has severed the ties of personal dependence only to revive dependence under cover of bureaucratic rationality. Having overthrown feudalism and slavery and then outgrown its own personal and familial form, capitalism has evolved a new political ideology, welfare liberalism, which absolves individuals of moral responsibility and treats them as victims of social circumstance. It has evolved new modes of social control, which deal with the deviant as a patient and substitute medical rehabilitation for punishment. It has given rise to a new culture, the narcissistic culture of our time, which has translated the predatory individualism of the American Adam into a therapeutic jargon that celebrates not so much individualism as solipsism, justifying self-absorption as "authenticity" and "awareness."
Ostensibly egalitarian and antiauthoritarian, American capitalism has rejected priestly and monarchical hegemony only to replace it with the hegemony of the business corporation, the managerial and professional classes who operate the corporate system, and the corporate state. A new ruling class of administrators, bureaucrats, technicians, and experts has appeared, which retains so few of the attributes formerly associated with a ruling class—pride of place, the "habit of command," disdain for the lower orders—that its existence as a class often goes unnoticed. The difference between the new managerial elite and the old propertied elite defines the difference between a bourgeois culture that now survives only on the margins of industrial society and the new therapeutic culture of narcissism.”
The solution to self absorption and narcissism is generosity. The attributes of “pride of place, the habit of command” develop naturally when the redemptive task of work is present. Work that improves the conditions of a place and a time, that does not exploit the environment or the culture, is especially redemptive. The elite’s role is to create a construct in which all of its citizens have the maximum opportunity for success by promoting individual creativity and talent.
Abraham’s generous spirit, as a semi-nomadic shepherd, was sacrificial and loving. It broke materialist idolatry off of his life. There is a global opportunity to do the same now. In an interesting ‘one eyed view’ of redemptive gifts author Gerard Piel advocates for a Marshall Plan type of investment in the third world as a means of promoting industrialization and reducing the number of children. Piel states;
“The problem is not population; it is poverty. We can reach zero-growth population, if we expand the world economy fourfold and share the proceeds equitably. That would bring the poorest 20 percent out of poverty. The industrialized countries must climb out of their economic torpor and restart their economic engines.”
Piel sees half the picture. Investment in people and in the nations is always the right thing to do. Limiting the amount of people is the wrong thing to do. We have completely lost sight of the fact the people are the greatest gift that God has granted us. The insight and the understanding that children are a blessing from God are inherent in most cultures and most culture’s memory. It is now a spiritual truth that requires spiritual understanding. Part of what has affected the church’s understanding in this area is simply the facts that present themselves.
“The population of the world has more than doubled since 1950 - from 2.5 billion to 5.3 billion. The number of people living in direst poverty has increased to 1.3 billion - close to the total population of the underdeveloped countries in 1950. The population is doubling now again. The number in direst poverty could equal the present world population. A doubling after that would bring the human species close to full occupation of the Earth.”
I am not suggesting that we ignore such facts and depend on faith to feed people. I am suggesting that the church get involved in the types of advocacy the Piel is suggesting and combine faith and works.
“the time has come to bring the vision of a global Marshall Plan into focus again. Getting on with the industrial revolution is the most urgent challenge civilization now faces. If foreign aid was being considered an act of common humanity at mid-century, it is now dictated by the exigencies of common survival.”…. The number in direst poverty could equal the present world population. A doubling after that would bring the human species close to full occupation of the Earth.”
That sounds a little like the fulfillment of the Lord’s command to be fruitful and multiple and fill the Earth. For the majority of people who do not support the proliferation of the species, but who do not want the see the poor begging for bread the following quote should have application. It provides a positive outcome and economic solutions in under developed nations.
“In order to stabilize the world's population at some sustainable level, the industrial revolution must be carried out worldwide. Natural population increase has ceased in the 20 percent of the world population that is represented by the industrialized countries. Fertility is approaching the zero-growth rate in another 20 percent of the population currently living in the pre-industrial countries. That is happening in countries that have gotten on with their industrial revolutions since 1950. The population explosion that distresses so many well-off people in the industrialized countries is confined to the countries where the revolution has lagged and is now arrested. The sooner the industrial revolution reaches people everywhere, the smaller will be the world's population.”
The premise of Piel’s study is that the opportunities that were created for Germany and Japan should be created for Bangladesh and Ecuador. His advocacy assumes common capacity among the people groups of the world if they are provided with common opportunity. It is truly a redemptive work in that sense. It assumes cooperation among nations and among the wealthy. It assumes the type of leadership that is redemptive and shuns materialistic idolatry. It represents leadership that is transformational. Abraham was a transformational leader and he has his modern counterparts. They are the wealthiest men the Earth has ever known and they care about the condition of mankind.
“Black and Porter (2000, p. 432) define transformational leadership as: "leadership that motivates followers to ignore self-interests and work for the larger good of the organization to achieve significant accomplishments; emphasis is on articulating a vision that will convince subordinates to make major changes." These leaders have a profound effect on their followers' beliefs regarding what the organization should become and also on their subordinates' values. They also provide their followers with guidance so that they are able to achieve their goals. Some examples of individuals who are considered transformational leaders include Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of Dell Computer Corporation, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Lou Gerstner of IBM, and Jack Welch of GE.”
Mithchell Langbert the author of “Abraham as a Transformational Leader” sites seven characteristics that Abraham displayed that made him a transformational leader. It was these traits that broke off religious idolatry, patriotic idolatry, and materialistic idolatry in his life. He was a visionary, had a sense of justice, was humble, charismatic, willing the sacrifice for what he believed in, he dared to be different.
Even within his own generation Abraham’s wealth and strength grew to a national level. The personal power and wealth he gained made him as strong and prosperous as many local kings. He fought five kings in order to rescue his nephew lot and won. Abraham could have easily sought a kingship for himself. Abraham’s humility and meekness never allowed for this. When Lot’s servants and his servants were in conflict Abraham gave Lot the best of the land. He did not receive a reward as we have pointed out from the King of Sodom. He honored his wife in life and insisted on paying her burial plot when it was offered for free. The acceptance of the gift would have meant honor for the gift giver. Abraham refused to use his wife’s death for even the slightest politic advantage of alliance. Abraham’s greatest triumph was the faith to believe that God would raise Isaac from the dead upon his sacrifice of him. Abraham knew the redemptive value of children, and especially Isaac but he was willing to obey God. He destroyed the power of idolatry over his own life. Langbert summarizes his accomplishments well.
“The major accomplishment of Abraham was to spread the belief in a single God in a world filled with paganism. Today's world has been dramatically changed because Abraham spread monotheism and the concomitant philosophy of caring for one's fellow human being. His philosophy eventually became institutionalized as the law of "you shall love your fellow as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). …Abraham's philosophies can serve as a paradigm or touchstone for the successful leader of today”
http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/I/IDOLATRY
http://www.amazeingart.com/seven-wonders/ziggurat.html
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://gatesofpraiseministries.blogspot.com/
http://www.questia.com/read/5018510014 Love, Idolatry and Patriotism. Contributors: Eamonn Callan - author. Journal Title: Social Theory and Practice. Volume: 32. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2006. Page Number: 525
http://www.lyrics007.com/Beatles%20Lyrics/Imagine%20Lyrics.html
http://www.lyrics007.com/Beatles%20Lyrics/Imagine%20Lyrics.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Sean_lennon_net_worth
http://www.questia.com/read/5035328485 The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: an Empirical Study. Contributors: Chyan Yang - author, Yau de Wang - author, Han Jen Niu - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Management. Volume: 25. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2008. Page Number: 633+. © 2008
http://www.questia.com/read/5035328485 The Effects of Idolatry and Personality Traits on Impulse Buying: an Empirical Study. Contributors: Chyan Yang - author, Yau de Wang - author, Han Jen Niu - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Management. Volume: 25. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2008. Page Number: 633+. © 2008
http://www.questia.com/read/99032064 The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Contributors: Christopher Lasch - author. Publisher: W. W. Norton. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 225.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article1113258.ece
http://www.questia.com/read/99032064 The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Contributors: Christopher Lasch - author. Publisher: W. W. Norton. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 225.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001648729 Worldwide Development or Population Explosion: Our Choice. Contributors: Gerard Piel - author. Journal Title: Challenge. Volume: 38. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 13+.
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
http://www.questia.com/read/5001778455 Abraham as a Transformational Leader. Contributors: Hershey H. Friedman - author, Mitchell Langbert - author. Journal Title: Journal of Leadership Studies. Volume: 7. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 88. COPYRIGHT 2000
Abraham Conqueror of Idolatry (Part I )
The life of Abraham is well documented and has been examined by the best commentators the world has ever known. Despite this fact I believe this work will contribute something of value to the contemporary conversation about this ancient patriarch. I would like to begin our discussion of Abraham from a macro perspective first by researching the idolatry that affected the city where he was reared. Idolatry’s contribution to the failure of historic and contemporary people to discover their redemptive gifts is a reoccurring and prevailing problem for mankind. Its practical, sociological and psychological effects on communities will be our starting point. When contemplating the life of Abraham, we will consider the man, his work, his woman, their offspring, and his worship. We will examine the cultural memory that set the context for his thinking and conduct. His pattern of faith is the great redemptive gift that Abraham gave to the world. We will consider the initiative that the Lord took in calling Abraham, as well as, Abraham’s responsibility to the region he lived in and the world that would follow his example. “The Book of Genesis covers more than 2,000 years and more than 20 generations. Yet, it spends almost a third of its text on the life of one man - Abram.”
In the life of Abraham you have a unique call of faith. It has similarities to the life of Noah, especially his call out of a generation that no longer preserved the knowledge of God. However, it has more parallels with the life of Adam. Like Adam, Abraham would have to begin a life of faith with his wife separated from anything he previously knew. J. Vernon McGee points out; “In the first eleven chapters (of the book of Genesis) we have seen four great events; the Creation, the fall of man, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. In all these tremendous events God has been dealing with the human race as a whole. Other than Adam and Abraham, God did not appear to anyone else.”
Sovereign Call
What did God say to Abraham when he called him out of his family’s household, and why?
“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12: 1-3)
“Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.” (Joshua 24:2)
O. Palmer Robertson addresses the sovereign call of God to Abraham in his book The Christ of the Covenants, he states, “The sovereign aspects of God’s relationship with Abraham was made quite apparent in the time of the patriarch’s call. God did not suggest meekly that if Abraham would depart from his fatherland, he would be blessed. Instead, the word of God came in a solemn charge, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred’( Genesis 12:1) This same tone appeared at the institution of the covenant seal of circumcision. The Lord declared to Abraham; ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will establish my covenant between me and you…’ (Genesis 17:1,2) Nowhere does any suggestion of “agreement” or “contract” emerge from these narratives.”
Abraham’s break from his family and culture of origin is unlike any other man’s in history. Noah’s generation was thoroughly corrupt; there was nothing redemptive in it at all. The only thing Noah was leaving behind was God’s judgment. Abraham had the effects of ten living generations reinforcing a growing idolatry in the city of the Ur of Chaldees, a span of approximately 500 years. . His father would migrate from Ur to the city of Haran, but not until Abram had already taken a wife.
“This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.”(Genesis 1128-32)
The plain English reading of the text has Terah taking Abraham out of the land of Ur. However Acts 7:2 states clearly that Abraham was called by God while he was in Ur.
"Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you. 'So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.(Acts 7:2-4)
David Guzik believes that it was Abraham taking the lead in the families moving from Ur to Haran when he states the following.
“Acts 7:2-4 makes it clear the call of Genesis 12:1-3 came to Abram while he still lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. When he received this call from God he was only partially obedient, because he took his father Terah with him to Haran even though the LORD called him to go from Ur by himself.”
Matthew Henry lets us know the approximate length of Abraham’s family journey.
“Haran, or Charran, (is) a place about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt till Terah’s head was laid, probably because the old man was unable, through the infirmities of age, to proceed in his journey.”
Professor Eric H. Cline, of George Washington University states;
“If Abraham’s father took the journey from Ur in Mesopotamia up to Haran near modern Turkey, he would have followed the course of the Euphrates River, which was a known international trade route at that time, and it is quite possible that he settled down in a region in either north Syria or south Turkey. There are villages in the region today that still look much as they did four thousand years ago. Abraham also fits into some of the general migrations during this time period. It is quite conceivable that Abraham’s and his father’s movements should be seen in the light of these major migrations, which take place at the beginning of the second millennium BCE.”
Matt T. Rosenburg article, “Largest Cities Through History” claims that Ur would have been a city of 65,000 people. It would have been a city that was esteemed by its own people and highly influential on the regions, religious, cultural, and commercial life. I believe the Joshua 24:2 confirms Ur’s idolatry influenced Terah when it states that he worshipped other gods or idols. The city of Ur is the cultural home that Abraham and the place he was called to physically, spiritually and psychologically leave when he was call by God.
Three Aspects of Multigenerational Idolatry
There are three aspects of idolatry that affect all individuals and people groups. Each would have affected Abraham life and conduct. There is a religious component that moves away from a personal monotheistic God of Creation. When this happened the conscience can be desensitized and fails to hear God. The insight of a creator God who speaks to his sheep is retained in the cultural memory of people groups to the degree that they avoid idolatry. There is a patriotic or local aspect that is associated with victory in war or blessing upon the land. The need to appease such gods is often present when this type of idolatry is inherent in a culture. There is also a materialist component that is expressed in the things we own and the objects we desire that we will investigate. All three aspects of idolatry I believe were present in Ur. These forms of idolatry are not sequential or parallel but are bond together as a three strand cord that is difficult to break. Abraham had to break the three cords of idolatry in order to serve God effectively in generation and the geography to which he was assigned.
The Religious Aspects of Idolatry
Early Judaic and Christian theologians correctly viewed idolatry as a degeneration from monotheistic forms of religion. Modern scholars debate this, but I would support those earlier scholars’ positions in this thesis. “In an age when the study of religion was practically confined to Judaism and Christianity, idolatry was regarded as a degeneration from an uncorrupt primeval faith,”… but the comparative and historical investigation of religion has shown it to be rather a stage of an upward movement, and that by no means the earliest.” The quote is taken from The Classic Encyclopedia, which is based on the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1911 it adds this on the topic of idolatry. “It is not found, for instance, among Bushmen, Fuegians, Inuit,” This may be because they retained the knowledge of a God of creation. (see earlier blogs)
When Luke writes about Paul’s missionary journey to the idolatrous city of Athens, Greece he describes Paul as, “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”(Acts 17:16) Paul’s distress motivates him to action and redemptive speech. I believe Acts 17:23captures the evangelistic approach that missionaries are to exercise in pluralistic cultures. Paul builds on the existing religious structure, with the idea of perfecting its truths, and pointing to the Gospel. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:23)Athens was a city in ignorance. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:30)
Even with the “children of Abraham” Paul takes the same approach. He builds on the existing religious system in order to preach salvation. The Jews of Athens were no more saved than the pagans of Athens. Their existing system acknowledged the important of the scriptures however, therefore Paul, “As his custom was … went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ] had to suffer and rise from the dead.”(Acts 17:2) In both cases recorded in Acts 17 Paul builds on the existing religious system to preach the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ
The people of Ur were ignorant of the knowledge of God. They were clearly in the bondage of idolatry. Paul does not condemn the Athenians for their ignorance nor does Abraham condemn the cities in his generation and geography for theirs. On the contrary, both are concerned with the mercy of God being manifested in the lives of those that lived near them. Paul builds upon the cultural memory of “the unknown god” with the Greeks and those truths contained in the scriptures with the Jews. Abraham’s approach to Sodom’s idolatry is similar. He says to God. “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) The Jewish Encyclopedia says of Ur.
“This was an ancient seat of lunar worship; and it was dominant as a political center as early as 3000 B.C. Those scholars who incline to establish a connection between moon-worship ("Sin" = "moon") and the monotheism of Israel ("Sinai") find a corroboration of their theory in the fact that Abram's original home was the seat of the worship of Sin (comp. Jensen in "Zeitschrift für Assyriologie," xi. 298 et seq.).”
Amaseing.com has these comments about the areas primary deity and place of worship.
“The Ziggurat at Ur, a massive stepped pyramid about 210 by 150 feet in size, is the most well-preserved monument from the remote age of the Sumerians. It consists of a series of successively smaller platforms which rose to a height of about 64 feet, and was constructed with a solid core of mud-brick covered by a thick skin of burnt-brick to protect it from the elements. Its corners are oriented to the compass points, and like the Parthenon, its walls slope slightly inwards, giving an impression of solidity.
The ziggurat was part of a temple complex that served as an administrative center for the city, and it was also thought to be the place on earth where the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur, had chosen to dwell. Nanna was depicted as a wise and unfathomable old man with a flowing beard and four horns, and a single small shrine.”
Within the ziggurats you can see both the cultural memory of the worship of the true God and its perversion in worshipping the creation verses the creator. The following quote speaks of sacrifice that would have been handed down from the time of Adam. However it also includes the enculturation of sexual sin as a form of worship.
“Worship in Sumer involved temples as well as ziggurats with small temples on the top. These temples were staffed by priests (who offered sacrifices and made libations), singers and musicians, as well as male and female prostitutes (whose activities many scholars relate to the fertility cult).[6] Much later than Abraham, the Israelites are warned against worship of the moon, sun, and stars (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:2-5), though this kind of worship continued under idolatrous kings (2 Kings 23:5-12).”
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Volume 1, (Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1981. pg 55
Robertson, O. Palmer, The Christ of the Covenants, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980) pg 127
http://kukis.org/Doctrines/GenealogyNoah.pdf
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=638&commInfo=5&topic=Genesis
“A History of Ancient Israel for the Patriarchs through the Romans” Lecture content, copyright 2006 Eric H. Cline, Course Guide copyright 2006 Recorded Books LLC
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=40&letter=U
http://www.amazeingart.com/seven-wonders/ziggurat.html
http://www.jesuswalk.com/abraham/0_intro.htm
http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/I/IDOLATRY
In the life of Abraham you have a unique call of faith. It has similarities to the life of Noah, especially his call out of a generation that no longer preserved the knowledge of God. However, it has more parallels with the life of Adam. Like Adam, Abraham would have to begin a life of faith with his wife separated from anything he previously knew. J. Vernon McGee points out; “In the first eleven chapters (of the book of Genesis) we have seen four great events; the Creation, the fall of man, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. In all these tremendous events God has been dealing with the human race as a whole. Other than Adam and Abraham, God did not appear to anyone else.”
Sovereign Call
What did God say to Abraham when he called him out of his family’s household, and why?
“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12: 1-3)
“Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.” (Joshua 24:2)
O. Palmer Robertson addresses the sovereign call of God to Abraham in his book The Christ of the Covenants, he states, “The sovereign aspects of God’s relationship with Abraham was made quite apparent in the time of the patriarch’s call. God did not suggest meekly that if Abraham would depart from his fatherland, he would be blessed. Instead, the word of God came in a solemn charge, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred’( Genesis 12:1) This same tone appeared at the institution of the covenant seal of circumcision. The Lord declared to Abraham; ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will establish my covenant between me and you…’ (Genesis 17:1,2) Nowhere does any suggestion of “agreement” or “contract” emerge from these narratives.”
Abraham’s break from his family and culture of origin is unlike any other man’s in history. Noah’s generation was thoroughly corrupt; there was nothing redemptive in it at all. The only thing Noah was leaving behind was God’s judgment. Abraham had the effects of ten living generations reinforcing a growing idolatry in the city of the Ur of Chaldees, a span of approximately 500 years. . His father would migrate from Ur to the city of Haran, but not until Abram had already taken a wife.
“This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.”(Genesis 1128-32)
The plain English reading of the text has Terah taking Abraham out of the land of Ur. However Acts 7:2 states clearly that Abraham was called by God while he was in Ur.
"Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you. 'So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.(Acts 7:2-4)
David Guzik believes that it was Abraham taking the lead in the families moving from Ur to Haran when he states the following.
“Acts 7:2-4 makes it clear the call of Genesis 12:1-3 came to Abram while he still lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. When he received this call from God he was only partially obedient, because he took his father Terah with him to Haran even though the LORD called him to go from Ur by himself.”
Matthew Henry lets us know the approximate length of Abraham’s family journey.
“Haran, or Charran, (is) a place about mid-way between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt till Terah’s head was laid, probably because the old man was unable, through the infirmities of age, to proceed in his journey.”
Professor Eric H. Cline, of George Washington University states;
“If Abraham’s father took the journey from Ur in Mesopotamia up to Haran near modern Turkey, he would have followed the course of the Euphrates River, which was a known international trade route at that time, and it is quite possible that he settled down in a region in either north Syria or south Turkey. There are villages in the region today that still look much as they did four thousand years ago. Abraham also fits into some of the general migrations during this time period. It is quite conceivable that Abraham’s and his father’s movements should be seen in the light of these major migrations, which take place at the beginning of the second millennium BCE.”
Matt T. Rosenburg article, “Largest Cities Through History” claims that Ur would have been a city of 65,000 people. It would have been a city that was esteemed by its own people and highly influential on the regions, religious, cultural, and commercial life. I believe the Joshua 24:2 confirms Ur’s idolatry influenced Terah when it states that he worshipped other gods or idols. The city of Ur is the cultural home that Abraham and the place he was called to physically, spiritually and psychologically leave when he was call by God.
Three Aspects of Multigenerational Idolatry
There are three aspects of idolatry that affect all individuals and people groups. Each would have affected Abraham life and conduct. There is a religious component that moves away from a personal monotheistic God of Creation. When this happened the conscience can be desensitized and fails to hear God. The insight of a creator God who speaks to his sheep is retained in the cultural memory of people groups to the degree that they avoid idolatry. There is a patriotic or local aspect that is associated with victory in war or blessing upon the land. The need to appease such gods is often present when this type of idolatry is inherent in a culture. There is also a materialist component that is expressed in the things we own and the objects we desire that we will investigate. All three aspects of idolatry I believe were present in Ur. These forms of idolatry are not sequential or parallel but are bond together as a three strand cord that is difficult to break. Abraham had to break the three cords of idolatry in order to serve God effectively in generation and the geography to which he was assigned.
The Religious Aspects of Idolatry
Early Judaic and Christian theologians correctly viewed idolatry as a degeneration from monotheistic forms of religion. Modern scholars debate this, but I would support those earlier scholars’ positions in this thesis. “In an age when the study of religion was practically confined to Judaism and Christianity, idolatry was regarded as a degeneration from an uncorrupt primeval faith,”… but the comparative and historical investigation of religion has shown it to be rather a stage of an upward movement, and that by no means the earliest.” The quote is taken from The Classic Encyclopedia, which is based on the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1911 it adds this on the topic of idolatry. “It is not found, for instance, among Bushmen, Fuegians, Inuit,” This may be because they retained the knowledge of a God of creation. (see earlier blogs)
When Luke writes about Paul’s missionary journey to the idolatrous city of Athens, Greece he describes Paul as, “greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”(Acts 17:16) Paul’s distress motivates him to action and redemptive speech. I believe Acts 17:23captures the evangelistic approach that missionaries are to exercise in pluralistic cultures. Paul builds on the existing religious structure, with the idea of perfecting its truths, and pointing to the Gospel. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:23)Athens was a city in ignorance. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:30)
Even with the “children of Abraham” Paul takes the same approach. He builds on the existing religious system in order to preach salvation. The Jews of Athens were no more saved than the pagans of Athens. Their existing system acknowledged the important of the scriptures however, therefore Paul, “As his custom was … went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ] had to suffer and rise from the dead.”(Acts 17:2) In both cases recorded in Acts 17 Paul builds on the existing religious system to preach the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ
The people of Ur were ignorant of the knowledge of God. They were clearly in the bondage of idolatry. Paul does not condemn the Athenians for their ignorance nor does Abraham condemn the cities in his generation and geography for theirs. On the contrary, both are concerned with the mercy of God being manifested in the lives of those that lived near them. Paul builds upon the cultural memory of “the unknown god” with the Greeks and those truths contained in the scriptures with the Jews. Abraham’s approach to Sodom’s idolatry is similar. He says to God. “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) The Jewish Encyclopedia says of Ur.
“This was an ancient seat of lunar worship; and it was dominant as a political center as early as 3000 B.C. Those scholars who incline to establish a connection between moon-worship ("Sin" = "moon") and the monotheism of Israel ("Sinai") find a corroboration of their theory in the fact that Abram's original home was the seat of the worship of Sin (comp. Jensen in "Zeitschrift für Assyriologie," xi. 298 et seq.).”
Amaseing.com has these comments about the areas primary deity and place of worship.
“The Ziggurat at Ur, a massive stepped pyramid about 210 by 150 feet in size, is the most well-preserved monument from the remote age of the Sumerians. It consists of a series of successively smaller platforms which rose to a height of about 64 feet, and was constructed with a solid core of mud-brick covered by a thick skin of burnt-brick to protect it from the elements. Its corners are oriented to the compass points, and like the Parthenon, its walls slope slightly inwards, giving an impression of solidity.
The ziggurat was part of a temple complex that served as an administrative center for the city, and it was also thought to be the place on earth where the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur, had chosen to dwell. Nanna was depicted as a wise and unfathomable old man with a flowing beard and four horns, and a single small shrine.”
Within the ziggurats you can see both the cultural memory of the worship of the true God and its perversion in worshipping the creation verses the creator. The following quote speaks of sacrifice that would have been handed down from the time of Adam. However it also includes the enculturation of sexual sin as a form of worship.
“Worship in Sumer involved temples as well as ziggurats with small temples on the top. These temples were staffed by priests (who offered sacrifices and made libations), singers and musicians, as well as male and female prostitutes (whose activities many scholars relate to the fertility cult).[6] Much later than Abraham, the Israelites are warned against worship of the moon, sun, and stars (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:2-5), though this kind of worship continued under idolatrous kings (2 Kings 23:5-12).”
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Volume 1, (Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1981. pg 55
Robertson, O. Palmer, The Christ of the Covenants, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980) pg 127
http://kukis.org/Doctrines/GenealogyNoah.pdf
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=7331&commInfo=31&topic=Genesis
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=638&commInfo=5&topic=Genesis
“A History of Ancient Israel for the Patriarchs through the Romans” Lecture content, copyright 2006 Eric H. Cline, Course Guide copyright 2006 Recorded Books LLC
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Idolatry
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=40&letter=U
http://www.amazeingart.com/seven-wonders/ziggurat.html
http://www.jesuswalk.com/abraham/0_intro.htm
http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/I/IDOLATRY
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