The Patriarchs - Jealously Demanding

This is the eleventh post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class.

The Genesis Account

Gen. 18:1-11 – Abraham goes “all in” in his efforts to be a good host for his guests.  The evidence suggests that he knew these guests were God because he used a word reserved in Hebrew culture to address Yahweh alone.  This means that Abraham’s display of frenzied activity was intentionally directed toward God.

Gen. 22:1-10 – God demands absolute devotion in His followers.  To someone who does not worship the Lord this should look like insane zealotry.

Gen. 29:15-30 – Jacob was a man of passion and commitment.  These qualities led him to engage in some treacherous blunders but they also equipped him to stay the course until he achieved his goals.

Supporting Scriptures

Luk. 14:25-35 – Jesus, in an apparently impromptu moment, makes several statements in this passage.  The problem is that they seem to be rather disconnected and random.  First he talks about hating relatives.  Then He goes off on a tangent about building projects and war preparations.  Finally, He finishes up with a seminar on the properties of salt.  Has Jesus gone off the deep end or is there more here than meets the eye?

Questions For Meditation

Why do we as Christians sometimes fade into anonymity in our culture?

This is a critical question both to consider and answer biblically.  The United States is obviously a country of tremendous freedoms that we celebrate at least three times per year, on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day.  It is proper and fitting that we do this.  But these same freedoms that we enjoy have a dark under-belly when it comes to Christianity.

Four years ago Lifeway Research conducted a survey of evangelical Christians.  They found that 80% agreed with the following statement: “I have a personal responsibility to share my religious beliefs about Jesus Christ with non-Christians.”  Furthermore, 75% said “I feel comfortable that I can share my belief in Christ with someone else effectively.”  However, 61% of those surveyed had not shared how to become a Christian with anyone in the previous six months and 48% had not invited anyone to church in that same six month period.

What I would like to discuss today is not specifically evangelism.  But I believe that these statistics on the state of modern evangelical evangelistic efforts are a symptom of a more serious disease.

In the Genesis passages cited above, we find three examples of character qualities that God desires in His followers.  These principles transcend the historical time period of the Jewish Patriarchs and inform our understanding of what it means to be an authentic Christian today; or at least they should…

In the beginning verses of Genesis chapters 18 and 22, which we have looked at before in this series, we are presented with two snapshots from the life of Abraham that serve to illustrate what following God meant to him.  The former passage describes a visit from God when Abraham’s tents were pitched near the oaks of Mamre.  At this point the Patriarch is wealthy and powerful.  His covenantal relationship with God has paid huge material dividends already, resulting in vast herds and flocks of cattle and sheep as well as the requisite servants to care for them all.  Abraham was a man accustomed to having others do his bidding.  Yet when he realizes that it is God, in the appearance of three men, who is in front of him, notice what his response is.  He runs from his tent to greet The Lord.  He begs Him to stay so that he can serve his master.  He hurries to his tent and instructs Sarah to make bread.  He runs to the herd and selects a tender and choice calf to prepare.  Then he serves the food and stands by in case anything else is needed.  These are not the actions of a man who is halfhearted in his focus on God.  What comes to mind is a coiled spring, wound up and bursting with unreleased energy, awaiting only the summons of the Master to spring forth with vigor and power.

The second passage, in chapter 22, is even more striking.  Here we find the familiar account of the offering of Isaac.  Abraham travels to Mount Moriah with the full intention of killing his own son for the sake of obedience to his God.  The definition of a zealot is “a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.”  Can we possibly describe Abraham any other way?  It is easy for us to look with a calm detachment on this event that occurred some three thousand ago.  But how would we respond to such an incident today?  I’m certainly not calling for Christians everywhere to go running off to kill their children.  But if we really take a moment to stop and think about Abraham’s actions here it is exceedingly difficult to call them anything but crazy.  Yet the man stands eternally praised and blessed by God in the pages of the Bible because of his loyalty that some would also call zealotry.

To further refine the picture that is emerging, consider the life of Abraham’s grandson Jacob, also known as the deceiver.  In Genesis 29 we find him having already fled to Haran to escape the wrath of his brother Esau.  Jacob the deceiver is living with his uncle Laban, a man who is also cunning and treacherous.  Our protagonist is duped into working double the number of years for the right to marry his love, Rachel.  One could certainly argue that Jacob deserved this for his prior sinfulness at home.  But the point as it pertains to the discussion today is that he was a man of passion.  This great passion informed and drove most of the decisions of his life, both good and bad.  Jacob’s desire for both the material blessings of Esau’s birthright and the eternal blessings of the Abrahamic covenant resulted in the aforementioned deception in Canaan.  But this character trait also dictated that once he had a goal in mind such as marriage to Rachel he was absolutely and unswervingly committed to that goal with a singular passion that caused the passage of seven years to seem but a few days to him.

This then is the picture that the Bible paints of what God both desires and demands in His followers.  First, a whole hearted commitment to Him that is free from the distractions of this world, as witnessed by 2 Chronicles 16:7-9.  And second, an unswerving allegiance to Him that is unmoved by the competing interests and preferences of everything else, which is exactly what Jesus was getting at in Matthew 12:30 when He uttered the famous line “he who is not with Me is against Me”.

I believe the reason we as Christians tend to fade into obscurity in our culture is because we lack these qualities.  We are not “all in”, as it were, for the cause of Christ.  Rather, we are “some in”.  We give to The Lord some of our time, some of our finances, some of our passions, and some of our effort.  But we are endlessly swayed and distracted at the drop of a proverbial hat by a myriad of other worldly desires.  This results in the kind of alarming survey numbers regarding evangelism that Lifeway uncovered in their investigation.  Do you think the word alarming is inappropriate when applied to the issue of Christians not sharing the gospel?  Then perhaps the commands of Christ are not the top priority in your life.  Think about it.

What does Jesus mean with His statements about hating relatives and planning for construction/war?

It has been well stated that Jesus of Nazareth was not merely a good man.  Either He was who He claimed to be, God in the flesh, or He was completely insane.  The controversial and provocative statements He made, the unquestioning loyalty He demanded, and the self-sacrifice He expected, if delivered by just a man, are the words of a lunatic.  Luke 14: 25-35 is a good example of this.

In this passage Jesus, His disciples, and large crowds are apparently walking along.  Seemingly on the spur of the moment Jesus turns and begins to talk to the crowds.  What follows is a series of what appear to be random disconnected statements and rhetorical questions that would not seem out of place in the ravings of a madman, if someone took the time to transcribe them.

First He says you have to hate your family if you want to be His disciple.  Then He ups the ante by saying that you have to carry your cross to your own execution to be His disciple.  Out of nowhere He switches gears to talking about planning for a large construction project, in this case the building of a tower.  Jesus turns right around and drops lessons in proper preparations for war by a king.  And then He ends with a command to give up all possessions.

So what gives?  Is Jesus off His rocker?  Of course not.  Rather, there is a unified theme and undercurrent running through this whole sequence that beautifully serves to illustrate and expand upon what we have already looked at in Genesis.

What Jesus is teaching here is nothing less than a complete dissection of the human experience.  Our mental faculties can be divided into two groups; emotions and feelings contrasted by logic and reason.  To be a disciple of Jesus means to have the entirety of your emotional spectrum completely absorbed by Him, to the point that there is nothing left for anyone else that doesn’t run through Christ first.  At the same time, to be a disciple of Jesus means to devote every fiber of your thinking capacity to the contemplation of Him, to the point that there is nothing left for any thoughts that are not first informed by Christ.

If you are not prepared to give 100% in both areas in your pursuit of Christ then the harsh truth is that you are not worthy of Him.  And if you find yourself unable to surrender every single worldly possession to God (e.g. cars, televisions, books, jobs, spouses, children, even life and health) then the harsh truth is that you are not worthy of Him.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that you run out tomorrow and trash everything and live on the street.  It means that you are prepared to go to that length if He asks it of you.  You are prepared to give up everything for the sake of Jesus.

What does He mean with His reference to salt in the same passage?

This is the sobering reality that is the capstone to what has come before.  If a prospective disciple of Christ is not willing to give Him all of their emotion and all of their reason in a carefully considered and precisely measured intention to completely divorce themselves from the world in whatever manner is necessary to draw closer to God then they are as good as salt that is no longer salty.  In other words they are useless.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to ask a rhetorical question: what do you do with useless salt?  What do you do with seasoning that isn’t even good enough for a manure pile, let alone dirt?  You throw it away of course.  The implication is that the person who claims to be a disciple of Christ yet who does not follow the pattern established in the first part of this passage of absolute devotion to God will be tossed out along with the rest of the trash.  And since we know from verses such as John 6:37 that Jesus will not allow anyone who truly comes to Him to be cast out the only logical conclusion is that the useless person we are describing was never really a part of Christ to begin with.  This should be nothing less than a sobering wake up call for anyone who identifies as a Christian.  If you are feeling provoked, convicted, and/or condemned at this moment, like I am as I write this, then I encourage you to consider that it is Scripture and the words of Jesus that is provoking you.  If this teaching lands on you without emotional impact then I encourage you to consider whether you are really a Christian or not.