27. Beginner Bible Course: The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - genocide, incest, and other troubling issues

EPISODE 27  The simple Bible overview of…THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH

Fresh out of college...

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...I worked as a rep for a national restaurant chain. A big part of my job was going in to these franchise restaurants and inspecting them twice a year. If the restaurant was in good shape, I take a break in the middle and have lunch or dinner in that restaurant. These were help yourself. Buffet restaurants, back in my booth, I began to eat. It was quite enjoyable until I stumbled across something on my fork. It was a condiment and my salad that I hadn't put on myself. It was a band-aid in the shape of a finger. That's a true story. For many first-time Bible readers, they don't get far into the text before they stumble across a band-aid in their salad, a distasteful incident that ruins their appetite for the scriptures.

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There have been a few awkward moments up until now, but then we get to Genesis chapter 19. Prior to this class, I email the parents with a YUCK ALERT. That's what it says in the email subject line. I let them know what's coming and promise them. I'll try, handle it as delicately as I can to all you listening. This is your YUCK ALERT. I encourage you to hang in there. I'll try to explain the story as delicately as I can, and perhaps provide some perspective and perhaps provide enough perspective that you'll be willing to continue your old Testament meal. First, this story, then some guidance.

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In our last episode, Abraham visits with three visitors about the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The text tells us they were evil through and through rotten to the core to have these men had to Saddam. They intend to sleep in the city square overnight lot. Abraham's nephew sees them in the square and urges them to come to his house. At first, they decline, but a lot insists that night while they're inside the house. All of the men of the city, both young and old surrounded the house, their intent. There's no way to sugar. Coat this to gang rape. The two visitors, lots of steps outside and begs them to reconsider lot becomes desperate.

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He offers the mob has two unmarried daughters who are in the house. The mob becomes more frenzied to follow through with their initial plans. The two angels put a lot back inside, shut the door and bring blindness on the attackers in the verses that follow for the hours that follow the angels help a lot, gather up all who will listen to get out of town before it's destroyed. The only ones they can get to comply are a lot, his two daughters and lot's wife. And even then they have to drag them out. The text tells us when they're out of the city limits sufficiently, God brings massive destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah.

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It uses the metaphor of fire raining down from heaven. God could have brought that in many ways, meteorites exploding the oil fields around it exploding, or even just splitting atoms over Sodom and Gomorrah, Hiroshima and Nagasaki style. The destruction was intense, immediate, and complete hearing. The explosions. The text tells us lot's wife turned around and he's back. Perhaps looking at our hearts still back in Sodom or the text tells us she was turned into a pillar of salt or at least to look like a pillar of salt. Lot in his two daughters are escorted to a little town outside the fallout zone.

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Chapter 19 ends with a description of lot in his two daughters living after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the daughters' husbands have been caught up in the destruction. They started having a conversation about honey <inaudible> and more so babies. How will they continue their line? They come up with a plan it's to have their dad lot father they're children. And so they acute a plan to get their father drunk enough to not know what he's doing, but sober enough to do it. They do this over two consecutive nights. With 100% effectiveness, both daughters become pregnant and nine months later, they give birth to two boys cousins, one named Moab, one name Amman.

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Remember those two names. Moab Ammon, Moab will grow up and have a family line. The Moabites Ammon will grow up and have a family line. The Ammonites both we'll be thorns in the side of Abraham's offspring for band-aids in the salad in one chapter. Sure. Genocide rape, lot throwing his two daughters under the bus and incest YUCK. These are band-aids that should bother you. And I'll tell you up front, the perspective I'm about to provide may not make them much more palatable, but here goes first genocide God destroying groups of people, or perhaps worse ordering people to carry out his destruction on people.

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I answered this with my students in two ways. First I remind them if God is good, that he seeks our best interests at all times the best interests of all people. If God calls out destruction on a person or people group, it must fit within his character of goodness. It is being driven by goodness. The second thing I do is draw on the whiteboard, a dot with an arrow, going to the right across the entire white board. I explain to students that from a book Bible perspective, our human lives on this earth or the dot and that our existence goes on internally. In some way after that dot, I explained to them that scripture, what we do on this dot has an impact on the line coming out of it, our eternity.

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I also explain what we do on our dot affects other people's dots and their attorneys. Each time my wife was expecting, I made a strange request of God. I asked that if he knew in his wisdom, that what that child would do on his dot would negatively affect his or her dot or eternity or the daughter Aternity of others could God would take that child in the womb. In regard to genocide. I tell them one more thing. Only God has the insight and write to trigger it. Man never has that insight or right. The scripture consistently teaches.

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If you take a life, God will hold you accountable for each life you take. The second bandaid is gang rape that this is recorded in the Bible is not, what's so offensive. It's the circumstances around it and how it's interpreted. Many advocates of the Bible have interpreted this passage that the men of Sodom young and old came out with less full desire for these men. They interpret Saddam's gross. Sin is rampant, homosexuality, a twisting of God's pattern and creation. These advocates normally point to the extreme judgment brought in these cities to suggest that homosexuality is a sin trespass, wickedness more serious than other sins.

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But I asked my students to push the pause button. If that's their view, here's why there's another equally. And perhaps more plausible explanation in ancient cultures, male rape was a way to humiliate someone to send a distinct message through this act of violence that the text tells us they were evil through and through and that all of the men of the city, young and old surrounded the house strongly suggest they were sending a message. Go away, leave us alone. Don't come back. The third bandaid in the salad is lot offering his two unmarried daughters in the house to the mob. Critics of the Bible say, see how the Bible devalues and oppresses women.

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My first response is, hold on. Remember how God made men and women in creation partners for the rest of scripture in cultures that were oppressive of women, God, in his word, keep lifting them back up. The second thing I tell my students is cultural norms. At this time, when you invited someone into your house, you owed them the highest level of protection. This is still true. I believe when my kids were little, they often had friends sleepover on more than one occasion. As the parents got ready to leave after dropping them off, I would say something like, if there's a fire, I'll carry your child out. First. My kids would roll their eyes and go dad.

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But it was true. Can you imagine standing on the curb, your house on fire, the parents of your sleepover guests arriving going, is everybody okay? And you reply? Well, I got my wife out, my kid's out in the dog out, but I'm sorry, your child's still in there. I would carry their child out first. That's just what you do when someone's under the protection of your roof lot was out of options. So to protect his guests, he offered the last option. He had his daughters. There's no reason to think he didn't love his daughters, but he was out of options. The last band-aid is incest. I instruct my students to report any close relative who crosses lines in this area.

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It's never right. The Bible in no way is condoning or promoting this. It's explaining what happened. I tell my students at this point, I'm going to give you a one-sentence theme for the old Testament. Please write it down and remember it. Here it is, guys and gals are gross, but God is gracious. I warned them 20 years from now. If I see you on the street, I may ask you this. What's the theme of the old Testament guys and gals are gross, but God is gracious. We'll find more gross things in the pages of scripture band-aids as it were, but I urge you, please keep eating for we'll discover just how gracious this God of ours is.

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In fact, we'll discover that vividly in the next wordpicture,