Bibleosophy

Many people read Genesis 18 as an example of God changing his mind. I think He might actually do that, but this story doesn’t make that point. To do Better Bible we must ask the questions the story is actually asking. This story is asking, Abraham, what do you think we should do? Why? Because good teachers make their students apply what they are learning!

God shows up 13 years after the Hagar stuff and clarifies His agreement with Abram. God changes Abram and Sarai’s names, He also tells Abram to break out a knife for an odd act of obedience. In the end, Abraham trusts God implicitly and obeys!

What to do with a story that seems totally out of place? Embrace the uncomfortable. Dive into the context. Reevaluate from the point of new information. Figure out why the random story is there! This episode is about God embracing a disregarded woman and giving hope where only hopelessness had been. Suddenly the out of place story seems really interesting!

Let's talk about God and Abram some more! God meets up with Abram after the big temptation to compromise and they have a life-changing interaction! At the end of this conversation, the Bible says, "Abram believed God and he was credited with righteousness." What happened here? Real genuine relationship.

While the Bible is definitely awesome, sometimes it can be a challenge to read. Often we need to back out of the details a bit, remember this is the story of God and then look for the storyline. We then can go back into the details and see what themes exist. Genesis 13-14 are exactly this. What seems to be just weird stories actually turn out to be a unified story that shows how Abram refused to compromise in the face of temptation.

There a lot of stories in the Bible that require the reader to look deeper for the purpose of the story. One of these is definitely when Abram took his family to Egypt and lied saying Sarai was his sister. Without entering into the context we are left with a weird story and what could seem like the Bible suggesting a careless view toward women. This story and many others require some effort on our part to move into the context of the story. From that vantage point, we can see this story is actually about God seeing the vulnerable and protecting her.

How good would life be if all you had to do was wriggle, scrunch your face up, and start crying and whatever you wanted just showed up? Babies are so blessed. In Genesis 12 God tells Abram he will bless him. And then there is a famine Abram has to go through. How is that blessed? I don't totally get it. So, I want to talk about. What is blessed when there are famines?

Lets finally talk about Abram! The great man of faith! Right? Sort of, but definitely didn't start that way. He became what he was because God found him, God leads him, God protected him, and God provided opportunity. The point of the story, especially contrasted with the story of the Tower of Babel is things work when we let God do the work of connecting us with him. Our role? Obey. Show our trust (faith) by obeying Him!

Mostly we think the Bible is a good thing, we’re glad it exists, but we don’t know much about it other than there are “those people” who act like they know about it and treat it like they have a some super special knowledge and tend to be judge-y. Getting better at the Bible will take effort. We are each left with the question: “Do I care about this enough to try?” My hope is this podcast can make answering “Yes”, easier.

Listen, if your faith is dumb, it isn't the because the Bible teaches that or endorses it. Bible faith is the result of engaging with God through the text of the Bible and through prayer based on what you know from the Bible. Basically, faith is the result of engaging with the Bible and then doing what it says. That ain't dumb or blind.

Real pain begs the question “why” Begs “why me?” Begs “why won’t it stop?” Maybe even asks “where is God?” and “Why would He allow this?” There are a ton of things we could do with this episode but I think the most helpful thing we can do that will also establish a base platform for how we will understand God with this podcast is to view pain as a current reality and rather than try to avoid it, find ourselves through it. Rather than just ask “why me” and spend all of our energy resisting the pain, embrace it as part of being human. Change the question to “why live?”

The whole Bible is the story of God. This is essential for understanding the Bible in its context!