Cycles, good and bad, are hard to break

I’m currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He’s funny, if you don’t get offended by arrogance, sarcasm, overly pretentious writing, and the mocking of religion. I really don’t. So far, it’s making me understand the thought processes behind being an atheist and why some feel so threatened and annoyed when exposed to religion. I agree with him that there’s no such thing as a “Christian child.” They aren’t old enough to make that decision yet. As for raising your child Christian being child abuse? Naw. It’s the sort of thing you can reject as soon as your teens, if you want to. 

I think it’s good because it helps you understand religions people, religion, and why anyone would even think in spiritual terms. It gives you the option to be spiritual. The people I know who were raised agnostic don’t even think about it or analyze those big questions much. They don’t know it’s something to think about. I’d rather open that door to my kids. Do I recommend Christians read books like this? Absolutely, but only if they've studied the Bible and books written by Christians first so that they aren't swayed by the weakest arguments from the other side. If you have a good foundation, you can learn something and become stronger in your own faith.

I’m a good ways in, and so far I still believe in God. Should this belief be altered, it will probably affect this blog, so that’s a heads up. Unlikely though. As Socrates said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” And, well, I went to school. It’s fun to have a mental dialogue with the guy though. I don’t argue with actual atheists because they tend to get upset and think I'm trying to convert them. Everyone knows an argument usually doesn't convert anyone to another way of thinking. So I get all my arguing out in my imagination. It’s a fun mind game. If he has a good point or is able to sway me, I want to know. It’s better to know a cold, hard truth that would destroy you than to live for a lie. So far, he’s debunked the lousiest arguments for the existence of God. Good job, pick better ones next time. Dawkins has really sparked my interest in physics though, weirdly. Especially since he’s a biologist.

Genesis 26 is not a popular or controversial passage. We see repetition, the same promises, and some of the same sins and conflicts as in previous chapters. There was a famine in the land and Isaac went to Abimelek, the Philistine king. The Lord appeared to Isaac and told him not to go live in Egypt, but to stay in the land God wanted him to live in. God repeats the big promise, saying, “Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because Abraham obeyed me.” Abraham wasn’t always obedient, but he did have faith, therefore he was declared righteous. Isaac follows his father’s example both in faith/following God and occasionally stumbling. 

As a commenter observed, lies run in this family. It’s a great family of faith and blessing, but man, they can’t stop deceiving. Isaac was asked about his beautiful wife, Rebekah, and he went for his dad’s standby lie: “She is my sister.” Abimelek saw Isaac caressing Rebekah and called him on it. The King James Version said Abimelek saw Isaac “sporting” with Rebekah. So we have absolutely no idea what the king actually saw them doing, and who really wants to know anyway? It wasn’t platonic, that’s for sure. Isaac came clean and Abimelek was upset. Abimelek ordered his people not to harm Isaac or Rebekah, on penalty of death. Problem solved. 

The Lord blessed Isaac with a really good crop that year. He became rich and envied by the Philistines, so he had to move. Eventually, the pagans saw that God blessed Isaac and decided it would be smart to make a peace treaty with him. Esau got married at age 40 to a woman named Judith (did you know that was a Biblical name?) and another woman named Basemath (not one for the name books, I guess). Isaac and Rebekah didn’t get along with them. They were both Hittite women. As Tim Keller often points out, whenever there is polygamy in the Bible, things don’t go smoothly with the family as a whole.

Jacob and Esau make a deal

We’re nearing the story of Jacob, and I don’t even want to approach it because of how well Tim Keller handled it in his sermon series “The Gospel According to Jacob." I’ll do my own, inferior take though. Abraham takes another wife/concubines and has a lot more kids. He gives gifts to the sons of his concubines and sends them away from Isaac, leaving the lion’s share of his estate and the promised land to Isaac. Abraham died at the age of 75 and “was gathered to his people.” Ishmael came back for the burial, which I think is nice. He wasn’t totally shunned and didn’t hate his father.

Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah (wow, that’s a long wait). Rebekah couldn’t have kids for a long time (Isaac was 60 when Rebekah finally gave birth), so Isaac prayed on her behalf. The babies “jostled each other within her.” Jewish legend says that they were trying to kill each other in the womb. Rebekah wondered why her insides were so stirred and asked God. She probably didn’t know it was twins. God said, “Two nations are in your womb. The two people inside you will be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” When they were born, the first to come out was red and hairy all over. Which is really weird on an infant, no? They named him Esau, an name denoting his hairiness. After this, Jacob was born, grasping Esau’s heel. The name Jacob refers to the heel catching, and it’s not a good name. It names him a con-man or trickster.

The boys grew and Esau became a skilled hunter, a “man of the open country.” A man’s man. Jacob was more of an indoor guy. Most second-born kids, when they pop out, take one look at the older kid and seem to say, “I’m gonna be the opposite of THAT.” I know it’s true in my family. Jacob sat around in the tents, but he liked wild game, so he loved Esau for bringing them all food. Isaac liked Esau. Rebekah favored Jacob. So did God. That’s who God is. He doesn’t pick the obvious candidate most of the time, he picks the weak one and makes him great (like with King David). You also see God rejecting the traditional, world-made selection of the oldest child over the younger children. This is a practice that means nothing to God. Favoritism in families based on birth order just doesn’t factor into God’s choice.

God’s choice also wasn’t based on moral character or the choices of the sons. He knew which one needed to continue the line and gave the birthright in grace. You see, Jacob wasn’t all that much better than Esau. You see Jacob making lousy choices throughout his life. Esau comes across as unsympathetic twice, but he has good moments (particularly one of forgiveness years later). He has a problem with instant gratification, shown in both this chapter and his casual sex habits. Hebrews 12 describes Esau as a profane person and a fornicator. Still, Jacob has his faults too.

One day, when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came home hungry and asked for some. Esau was also called Edom. Jacob said, “Sure, if you sell me your birthright.” Esau agreed and swore an oath, his thought process being that he was going to die one day anyway, so he might as well enjoy life now. What good is a birthright when it all comes to nothing and you don’t keep anything? Huge mistake. You see this kind of thought crop up a lot, and those who know that life, gifts, and choices have permanence will reject this line of thought. The birthright was eternally valuable, and Jacob knew this. In the Old Testament, birthrights have spiritual consequences. It’s not all about inheriting wealth.

The birthright passed the father’s spiritual inheritance too. This would include the covenant between God and Abraham, in this family. The son who holds the birthright becomes the head of the family and the spiritual leader of the family. We don’t know if Jacob’s parents told him that God said the younger would serve the older. Maybe Jacob already knew the birthright was his and he was making sure he would get it. Because God said it was his, it was already Jacob’s. If Jacob hadn’t taken matter into his own hands, would things have gone differently? Would Esau have just fallen off a cliff or something? Is the tricking and dealing the reason Jacob had to spend so much time away from his family while God refined his character?            

     

I think the lesson here, for us, in this little chapter is to recognize what our spiritual birthrights and purposes are, know that we already have them, and not “despise” them like Esau in favor of other, more present and physical things. This is a common universal pattern. In order to get long-term benefits, you have to have the long term in mind. Something to reflect on. Not that Bible stories are intentional morality tales, but like life, you can find the lessons in them. We people love a narrative.

Sex, Marriage, and Nose Rings

So, you know how I said this post was gonna be special? Well, in light of the Chik-Fil-A nonsense, I was going to use this week to talk about homosexuality and gay rights. When I finally get to that, it's gonna be fantastic, if only because it's so darn controversial/fun. But I still think it's better saved for Leviticus.  I loooove Leviticus.

Genesis 23-24: Sarah died and was buried in the Hittites’ best tombs. Well, caves. Obviously, this made both Abraham and Isaac sad. It was time for Isaac to get a wife to replace the feminine energy he lost when Sarah died. Now, the Bible tells us that Abraham was “old, well advanced in years.” Umm, when was he NOT old in his Biblical story? This dude has been old this whole time. We know he’s older now. Abraham had his servant (the oldest one in his household) promise to get a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s land. In Genesis 15, this was Eliezer, but it might have changed in the following 60 years, so the servant is unnamed.

Half sister-lovin’ Abraham wanted Isaac to marry family (as you do) and not the Canaanite women. The servant said, “It might be tough getting your kindred to come all the way out there. Should I bring Isaac to the land from where you came?” Abraham said, “No, God wants us to have this land. If no woman will follow you here, then you can scrap this whole promise.” Then the servant put his hand under Abraham’s thigh and swore. Well, that’s odd. Let’s look at that. All I could find on this is that an oath made by this custom was very serious. Notice that a servant was sent, not Isaac. No one wanted Isaac to leave the promised land. What if he didn’t come back?

So the servant took ten camels and some gifts, and then he want to Mesopotamia, specifically Nahor. The servant made the camels kneel outside the city by a well in the evening, the time when all the women go out to get water. The servant prayed to Abraham’s God, asking for the right/chosen young woman to let him drink out of her jar while she watered his camels. Now, this was a lot of work, so it would take someone with a real servant’s heart to do it, especially since the servant brought other men and they would just stand around watching her haul water. You know, like gentlemen. The servant doesn’t pray for the wife to be good-looking; he wants someone nice.

Before the servant even finished the prayer, Rebekah came out with her water jar on her shoulder. This happens with prayer sometimes. Isaiah 65:24 says, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” The Bible can be pretty sweet. Rebekah was Isaac’s second cousin, a virgin, and very attractive. Sounds perfect for him. She gave the servant a drink and drew water for his camels.   

The servant gave Rebekah a gold ring and two gold bracelets. The ring was most likely a nose ring. Nose rings would make lots of conservative Christians these days faint, but it was not a big deal back then. It wasn’t trashy or immoral in any way for Rebekah to have a nose ring. It’s not something to worry about, in my opinion. Let people have their nose rings. You can care about the trendiness of your appearance and still have a servant’s heart, as long as you keep your priorities in order.

The servant then went to talk to Rebekah’s brother and mother, and they agreed that it was God’s will for Rebekah to marry Isaac. They asked Rebekah what she thought, and she said she was willing to go. Isaac was out meditating in the field toward the evening. He looked up and saw Rebekah coming. The servant told Rebekah this was Isaac. She took her veil and covered herself. When Rebekah met Isaac, she wanted to give the impression that she was modest, moral, a virgin, and a servant. The servant brought Isaac up to speed on the story and then Isaac immediately brought Rebekah into his mother’s old tent and had sex with her. They weren’t seeking romantic love when God brought them together. They were both serving and seeking God, living their lives as they knew best, and then it just happened because it was supposed to.

After they had sex, the Bible says, “she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” Lots of people use this passage to justify premarital sex and still hold to conservative values. They say it's okay as long as the Christians marry each other at some point afterward. They say, “The two didn’t sin because they were married in God’s eyes and then stayed together. Rebekah and Isaac were married after they had sex. There was no ceremony or legal document.” Certainly intercourse is essential to marriage, and many cultures required it as a part of marriage. No sex meant no marriage. It literally sealed the deal.

But I disagree with this line of thought because when Rebekah and Isaac went into the tent to have sex they had both agreed to be married to each other. She said, “I will go” to the servant, and Isaac was told that this was the wife God chose for him. They had sex with the intention to be together forever, not with the intention to love each other for the foreseeable future and maybe marry later. The sex and the intent to marry happened concurrently, and that makes all the difference. Sex does not equal marriage. It’s not the same thing. Marriage is a choice paired with sex.

Hereafter in the post, I am proceeding under the assumption that the no premarital sex rule still applies today (even though we marry at 28 and not 13 now). Christians, you don’t “fix” your “mistake” by marrying someone after you sleep with them. It doesn’t make the slate clean. You still became one without the concurrent unselfish intention to give all of yourself, forever. Don’t think that God wants you to marry the person you slept with to fix something when you wouldn’t otherwise marry them. Marry for the right reasons: Because you want to marry that person. If you love them and think you should get married after sex, awesome. If you don’t want to…not awesome. 

Two wrongs don’t make a right. They don’t make for much of a marriage either. You didn't willingly make sacrifices for each other. You didn't willingly choose that life. It sounds miserable to me. The temptation to appear perfect and not have other Christians think you committed THE SIN OF ALL SINS (sarcasm, sex is not the worst sin) is huge these days. Have the courage to move on. Let’s be honest: Most Christians have sex before marriage. If you have, you’re not alone and you’re still under the law of grace.

And once again...

My dad has no internet in his house, and I can't write a whole post on my phone. I'll make it extra special next week, I promise.

Special not-so-lazy bar review edition

swamped. ugh.

Jaime, Cersei, and Isaac

Genesis 20-22. Well Abraham does it again, folks. The same thing he did decades ago. He lied to a ruler about his wife out of fear. (It’s always the same sins that creep up on us, like we are all born with specific weak areas.) Abraham decides to move in this chapter, possibly because living near the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah was bumming him out, and ended up in Gerar where Abimelech was king. Abimelech took Sarah for his own because he thought she was Abraham’s sister. God came to Abimelech in a dream and said, “You’re as good as dead, buddy. She’s married, but since you did this with a clear conscience, I kept you from sinning against me by not letting you touch her.” At this point, it was vital that Isaac’s parentage not be in question, first because God’s promise would be doubted, and second, because Jesus was to come from this line.

God told Abimelech to return Sarah and Abimelech did. Abimelech called Abraham in. Abraham basically said, “Well, I looked at your nasty kingdom full of hoodlums and figured there was no fear of God here, so they would kill me and take my wife. Also, she’s my half sister by our father. Ever since God caused me to wander from my father’s house, this has been our policy in these situations.” The usual excuses and blame-shifting are present. Abraham blames God here, complaining that God caused him to “wander.” The particular word for “wander” used here is never used by the Bible in a good way. It’s akin to a drunk guy staggering around. Abimelech then brought gifts to Abraham and Sarah, showing that he’s the bigger person in this situation. Last time Abraham was offered gifts by a pagan king, Abraham didn’t accept them. But now that Abraham realizes he’s not the good guy in this situation, he allows Abimelech to make the grand gesture.

Hilariously, Abimelech addresses Sarah and says, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.” Nice one, Abimelech.( Since Abraham and Sarah are half-sibling lovers, and I’m me, I like to imagine they look like the Game of Thrones twins. Wildly inaccurate, I know, but it makes me happy.) After that, Sarah finally bore Isaac, 25 years after he was promised. Abraham sent Ishmael and Hagar away, at Sarah’s behest and with God’s permission. Ishmael became an archer and married an Egyptian woman. Then comes Abraham’s big test. I love this story, and I feel like it’s misunderstood a lot. An atheist praised the New Testament Jesus to me, but then followed it up with, “But the Old Testament God was a douchebag. He told Abraham to kill his own son and then said, ‘Why are you doing that?’” The problem is that Christian have been emphasizing the least important thing in this story: Abraham’s faith. The point God is making and what this tells us about God is the important part.

 God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, whom he loved. This is the first mention of love in the Bible. Note: Isaac wasn’t unwilling in this whole thing. The Bible twice says he and his father “went together,” which meant literally that they “went in agreement.” While there is no stated age, Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice up the mountain, implying that he almost certainly was not a small child. Isaac is referred to as a “lad,” a word which, in the original language, could refer to a young male from infancy until the point he was married. Several Jewish commentators estimate that Isaac was in his 30s. Anyway, Abraham was over 100 and Isaac probably could have escaped at any point during the trip, if he’d wanted to. Isaac should be commended for faith and obedience too.

I feel like this chapter says more about God than it does about Abraham. Sure, Abraham showed his faith and growth, but God already knew Abraham’s heart. This test was to show Abraham something. First, it must have been personally freeing for Abraham to know how much he feared God and to know that God knew the level of his faith too. But the most important thing coming out of this chapter is that God is totally different from every other god out there. If you haven’t watched “The Gods Aren’t Angry” by Rob Bell, you should. It’s my favorite thing he’s done. It’s on DVD. If you’re willing, stop reading right now, because I’m about to ruin it. If not, here are the cliffnotes.

Bell points out that in ancient days, it was not out of the ordinary to sacrifice a child to the gods. This was by far NOT the only time this was done in the ancient world. In the ancient days, people thought the gods provided good fortune, and if they were angry or displeased, your whole family and society was doomed. People had no understanding of science and had little control over whether there would be food or health. So they sacrificed animals. And if things still didn’t go perfectly, well, there was gold, castration, mutilation, sacrifice of virgins, and then, finally, sacrifice of their sons, which were their future and all they had left to give. People lived in constant fear of consequences for not being good enough (much like we do, when we strive for perfection to deliver us from shame).

Abraham didn’t seem shocked at God’s request. He went about it like it was business as usual, even though some of his words to Isaac imply that Abraham suspected there was going to be some sort of twist (he said “God will provide the sacrifice”), because he knew God pretty well by then. Unless he meant that God had provided Isaac… People get so upset that God would ask Abraham to kill his child to prove his faith. But God didn’t, you guys. Did you miss that part? It’s the other gods that did. It’s that society that did. God was making a point that he was a new kind of God, not subject to the religious norms of the day. You were going to know  where you stood with this God, so you wouldn’t have to live in fear. This God was going to provide all the sacrifices, all the ways to reconciliation, and all the sons. Since this point was made, you don’t see God making the same request later in the Bible. We’ve seen several times in Genesis God pointing out that he’s a God of grace, and Jesus hasn’t even shown up yet. There’s no displeased God in heaven keeping score, breathing down your neck. There’s one waiting with the sacrifice.

Special Lazy July 4th Edition

God Bless America. And everyone else too, I guess, haha.