13:4 - Abram goes back to a place he had an incredible experience with God and reconnects with God. It is good for us to have sacred spaces where we have connected with God over and over - not because those places themselves are holy, but because your heart and mind are often more open to listening to God in a place where He's spoken to you before.
13:10 - The easiest road is rarely the road to take. Lot takes the land in the Jordan valley that is fertile and good and sets up shop near Sodom. Hmmm, where have I heard that name before...Sodom? Oh that's right, Lot and his family get swept up in the evil of Sodom and almost die in a hail of fireballs (His wife does get killed for looking back)...then his daughters get him drunk and sleep with him, but that is in a later chapter. Abram gets the harder land to live off of, but actually finds a place to rest in God. The tougher path is usually better.
14:17ff - So I have to talk about this crazy guy Melchizedek don't I? I'm not going to leave you hanging like that? Who is he? Is he really a priest of the God of Abram - the one and only God. Well in the Hebrew, it says that Melchizedek is a priest of "El Elyon" - a priest of the most high God. If we wanted to take the easy way out, we could just assume that Melchizedek worshipped the one true God, but Canaanites also referred to their gods as El. Melchizedek is most likely a pagan Canaanite priest/king that Abram shows respect to because he is powerful. The story of Melchizedek gets crazy when Jewish thinkers over the years began to create legends revolving around him. Some say he was God's priest but lost his priesthood to Abram because of arrogance. Some began to think he was the angel Michael. In other words, by the time the writer of Hebrews came along, Melchizedek was a figure of legend and great power in the mind of many Jews. So when the writer of Hebrews talks about Jesus being a more powerful priest than Melchizedek, he is not saying that Melchizedek was a follower of God...the writer is saying that Jesus is more powerful and a better priest than even the Jews mythical thought about the legendary Melchizedek. Kinda like saying he is more powerful than Superman. Hope that makes some sense.
15:4-6 - God promises the very old Abram that he will have offspring and because Abram believes God, he is called righteous. The righteousness that believers like you and me receive from God also comes through belief.
15:12-21 - I love the imagery of this passage. God makes a covenant with Abram in the style of people in the ancient near east. They would making a binding contract with one another by cutting animals in half and laying them on the ground in the path of blood that both parties would walk through. As they passed through the blood path, they were in essence telling one another that if they broke their covenant their bodies could be torn in half like those animals. Pretty brutal, yet I'm sure it was very effective. In this passage from Genesis, who is it that walks through the blood path? Is it both God and Abram? No - it is simply God. God makes this covenant with Abram and basically says that he is going to hold both ends of the deal up. He is going to remain faithful to His people and He is going to pay the blood price when His people break the covenant (Like we all do!). Jesus body was torn and broken to pay the price for us breaking our covenant with God. That is how loving and faithful our Father in heaven is!
3 comments:
13:10- This reminds me of Pi-Hahiroth. I may be wanting to take the easy path, be God is calling me into a world of surprises and unknown
Nice Matty
15:12-21 just blew my mind.
First of all, there is no way I could ever accept or comprehend God telling me something like, "Josh...you and your friends and family are going to be enslaved for 400 years...but in the end it'll all be just fine!" I can hardly even accept his plans for me for tomorrow. But Abram did it...and I know how. He gave everything he had to God.
Second, I was at my cousin's wedding last weekend and the Reverend was talking about marriage being a covenant. He said the world looks at marriage like it's a contract...and a contract basically says, "IF you do your part THEN I'll do mine." But a covenant is so much more than that. A covenant is saying that you'll do your part no matter what the circumstances are. Because a covenant is something directly from God; therefore a covenant involves love and understanding. And God never fails to do what He says...so a covenant should be the same way.
Sorry I went off in a rant...that part was really calling to me :).
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