In Genesis 13 Abraham demonstrated again his generosity, demonstrated a mindset rooted in God’s abundance rather than selfish scarcity. Despite Lot’s choices Abraham continues to believe the best about his nephew. Abraham was human though and no doubt hurt and confused by Lot’s choices. In all of this God was teaching Abraham more about the promises.
Introduction
In Gen 12 we are introduced to the promises. A foundation piece of God’s purpose. The gospel was preached to Abraham says Paul in Gal 3:8. As the family of faith in Jesus we all, Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or slave all of us share the same portion of the promises. That’s Gal 3:26-29, a rightly celebrated passage that connects us today with the father and mother of the faithful who heard those words around 4,000 years ago.
But Abraham was human and the second half of Gen 12 shows Abraham unable to cope with life in the promised land heading to Egypt. Worse he conspires to deceive the Egyptians about his relationship with Sarah to save his own skin with little regard for what it meant for her.
After God intervenes Abraham is banished from Egypt but somehow keeps all wealth he received as dowry for Sarah. Genesis 13 is a new beginning, a restarting:
He returned to the place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. This was the place where he had first built the altar, and there Abram worshiped the Lord Gen 13:3-4
Sometimes we need a reset, to go back to the beginning and start again. That’s normal for people of faith. Discipleship doesn’t start with perfection and it will require a reboot from time to time. Abraham had made a mess of things big time. The father of the faithful needs to start over.
Strife in the family of promise, peace in the world
Oh the irony – the blessings Abraham and Lot both received down in Egypt caused strife as we read in Gen 13:6-7
But the land could not support them while they were living side by side. Because their possessions were so great, they were not able to live alongside one another. So there were quarrels between Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen
Notice what might be a tough little point there at the end of v7:
Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at that time
Before Abram retreated to Egypt because the famine was impossible to survive we are told in Gen 12:6
At that time the Canaanites were in the land
Remarkable – the Canaanites survived the famine. They didn’t need to quit and flea to Egypt. And now when we have friction between the households of Abram and Lot the narrator casually drops in that there are now TWO groups of locals living there in apparent harmony.
Why is it that sometimes that:
the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light? (Luke 16:8)
Conflict happens everywhere. I’m sure the Canaanites and Perizzites (an uncertain designation might mean country folk as opposed to city dwellers[1]) had disagreement and conflict. But conflict seems doubly distressing when it occurs between the people of promise. It hurts more because it should happen less when we should be exemplars of love.
Separation & repetition
Well Abram seeks to deal with the conflict. He was the senior person, Lot was his nephew. Abraham takes the initiative in Gen 13:8-9
Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no quarreling between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself now from me. If you go to the left, then I’ll go to the right, but if you go to the right, then I’ll go to the left.”
Conflict escalates. We know that is true. The easiest course of action is to stand for what is right, prove we are right and conflict escalates. Our Lord in Matt 5:9 said:
Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called the children of God.
Making peace is hard. It requires sacrifice. Abraham, the older wiser, the one who was entitled to the best, made peace. I think this is a demonstration of why God wanted to work with Abram. His potential shines through. He sacrifices for peace. He goes beyond what is fair in proactively creating a solution.
Offered the choice Lot makes the wrong one in Gen 14:10-11:
Lot looked up and saw the whole region of the Jordan. He noticed that all of it was well-watered (before the Lord obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, all the way to Zoar. Lot chose for himself the whole region of the Jordan and traveled toward the east.
Because we know the previous 12 chapters we might pick up the echoes, the ominous notes in these verses. Lot is making a decision based on what he sees – like Eve looking at the forbidden fruit. And like the failures in early Genesis he travels east. East is always a bad sign…Notice that the narrator says the plain of Jordan was like Eden and – for his later Jewish readers who might be attracted into making similar bad decisions – like Egypt.
A fundamental difference of mindset
As Brueggemann writes
The matter of dividing up the wealth is a place at which the power of the promise and the ideology of scarcity come into urgent conflict.[2]
Almost every economic model whether it is capitalism or communism assumes at its core the given of scarcity. There is only so much to go around. And this reality leads to some positive outcomes. Because there are limited resources we have to be efficient. We innovate new ways of doing things to create more. Economic growth and with it improved living conditions have scarcity as a core part of the engine room. Lot like all humans understood scarcity. By selecting the good land he would prosper. But there is only so much good stuff to go around.
Abraham had a different mindset. He understood the power of the promise. The power of love. Scarcity is not a constraint with God. We are not free market Christians – there is no such thing. We don’t accept the thinking of scarcity. As John the Baptist commanded in Luke 3:11:
The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise.”
We are never called to accumulate wealth, to follow good earthly economic principles. Wealth is not an evil – Abraham had it – but it is a tool. As Jesus said foolishness is
storing up riches for [ourselves], but not [being] rich toward God (Luke 12:21)
Children are masters of applied economics. Young children. They understand and intuitively apply the theory of scarcity. Mine. Me. No sharing. They get applied economics without any training at all. Scarcity – selfishness comes easy to us from our earliest to our last days.
The alternative to this scarcity mindset is love. Love sees God’s abundance. Love knows that love shared is love multiplied. And children also have a natural disposition to love. Both tendencies are there and parents try to teach their children to love, to share, to multiply love rather than continue their masterful application of scarcity thinking. Our heavenly father similarly wants to grow our disposition to love.
Love is special. 1 Cor 13:4-7 reads
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Abraham was demonstrating love. He was patient with Lot, he wasn’t envious or proud. He definitely wasn’t self-serving or angry….
Slightly different context but similar principles in James 4:1-2:
Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask
The tension and conflict between Abraham and Lot’s families where was it coming from? Selfishness. Our natural tendency to think of me rather than love which means you.
Our God has provided us with a powerful weekly prompt to remember his love. To remember that while we were unlovable sinners Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). As Martin Luther King Jnr said:
We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. Jesus discovered that.[3]
We cannot transform people with more jealously, more selfishness. But with love we can. Sure love won’t always work to build peace. Love won’t always be effective. But it is the only possible way that might work.
Showing love repeatedly
Abram could have felt well Lot chose to leave so let him go. He could have washed his hands of Lot. We have people in life who walk out, who make bad choices, who perhaps hurt us or benefit at our expense by taking the good stuff first.
In Gen 14 – the very next incident – Lot is caught up in a regional power dispute and taken off as a slave. And Abram on hearing the news said ‘’ah well what goes around comes around’. Or maybe he said ‘God is punishing him for getting mixed up with the Sodomites’ or something something, something. But no. Abram says nothing judgmental about Lot at all. Rather he puts his own life and resources at risk by going to war to rescue Lot and everything associated with Lot.
Once he saves Lot he gives him a good talking to and then….oh wait – loves doesn’t. He restores Lot but doesn’t judge him. He lets Lot carry on.
In Gen 18 when the angels announce they are off to check on Sodom, Abraham intervenes on behalf of Lot. Look at what he says in Gen 18:23-24
Abraham approached and said, “Will you sweep away the godly along with the wicked? What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it?
Abraham doesn’t say ‘my ‘backsliding relatives and selfish nephew Lot’. No Abram things of Lot and his clan as godly (or righteous[4]). I think Abraham initially assumes there are that many people and then begins to do the maths of doubt as he cuts the number down just in case. When he gets to 5 righteous he stops. I reckon Abraham knew there was:
- Lot
- His wife
- Two unmarried daughters
- At least two married daughters
- Sons in law
And figured 5 would easily cover it.
He is confident that despite Lot’s decisions, despite him being incorporated into the city of Sodom that his absent nephew maintains his faithfulness. That’s an example to us when perhaps we can’t understand why members of our family perhaps aren’t around us the way they used to be.
Abraham was there for Lot. If loves believes all things, Abraham believed all good things about the spiritual health of his nephew and the broader household.
Comfort in failure
I cannot prove this but I think Abram believed Lot was his heir, that Lot would be the offspring through whom the promises would continue. Later in Genesis 15:2 he will think that his headman Eliezer of Damascus was his heir in line with custom of the time since without Lot he has no male relative to inherit. Then in Gen 16 he thinks it might be Ishmael the son of Hagar after the disastrous scheme he and Sarah enter into to try and get a child which is from Abram.
For Abram then when Lot leaves his expectations of the promises takes a big hit. He understood how God’s purpose would work. The near-term and long-term future of his ecclesia was secure if you like. But now he doesn’t know how things are going to go. Uncertainty. Doubt. What do the promises even mean if we can’t see a way forward?
God is good. And God knew what Abram needed. Back to basics. Reaffirmation of the fundamentals. God repeats the promises to Abram but not identically to Gen 12. There is no mention of your name being a blessing or anything like that. God says:
After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, “Look from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west. I will give all the land that you see to you and your descendants forever (Gen 13:14-15)
Lot lifted up his eyes to take the goodly part of the land. Lift up your eyes says God – I’m giving you every single scrap of the land. No need for choosing – this is the abundance of God not scarcity. God continues in Gen 14:16
And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone is able to count the dust of the earth, then your descendants also can be counted
You might not understand how Abram. You might think God’s purpose has gone backwards because the congregation has shrunk or there is this or that going on but no. My purpose says God is not being derailed. It will go on and be bigger than you actually understood it before. Abram was told he would have a seed not that they would be incredibly numerous. Abram feared the purpose of God was threatened and shrinking. God says no – it is even more expansive than you previously realised.
That’s our God. His love, the abundance of love it totally exceeds all human thinking and expectation. It stands in marked contrast to the natural tendency to selfishness, to thinking we can build the house, we can accumulate and prosper. God’s purpose is not frustrated by the mistakes, the limitations or the fears of his family.
Go walk through the land
Abram is given an instruction in Gen 13:17
Get up and walk throughout the land, for I will give it to you
In the OT period walking through the land was a symbolic act. It was a demonstration of ownership, the sandal was used to significant land acquisition and ownership[5] (we get a hint of this in Ruth 4 but more again from contemporaneous literature).
Abram was commanded to demonstrate his faith in the promises in a very practical way. He did not understand God’s plan. We know that because in two chapters time he thinks his chief assistant is the heir and means of fulfilling the promises. God will deal with this misunderstanding later, for now Abram has to rebuild and God intervenes to provide some reassurance and command a practical action on Abram’s part which was simple but profound.
Just walk through the land. Live like you believe the promises. Live like you will be in the kingdom for sure. Don’t doubt but rather as Phil 1:6 says:
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Conclusion
Abraham’s life is very difference to ours. He lived in the middle bronze age – a world away from ours. But our God is the same. So 3 points:
- We need to have a love mindset not a scarcity one.
- Continuing to love others even when we feel let down
- We need to live like the kingdom is a reality now
by Daniel Edgecombe
[1] The name “Perizzites” appears to have derived from the Hebrew terms פְּרָזִי (peraziy, “resident of the open country”; see Deut 3:5) and פְּרָזוֹת (perazoth, “open country”; see Ezek 38:11). Rather than designating an ethnicity, “Perizzite” could simply describe a person who lived in the open country and unfortified towns. On the other hand, they might have been a Hurrian subgroup11 Joshua A. Crutchfield, “Perizzites,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), 131.
[3] Martin Luther Jnr King, Loving Your Enemies, (1957) Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute (stanford.edu)
[4] ”An adjective meaning just, righteous. The term bears primarily a moral or ethical significance” Warren Baker and Eugene E. Carpenter, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003), 937.
[5] “Sandals were the ordinary footwear in the ancient Near East, but they were also a symbolic item of clothing. This may have been due to the fact that land was purchased based on whatever size triangle of land the buyer could walk off in an hour, a day, a week or a month (1 Kings 21:16–17). Land was surveyed in triangles, and a benchmark was constructed of fieldstones to serve as a boundary marker (Deut 19:14). Since they walked off the land in sandals, the sandals became the moveable title to that land. Casting a sandal was a symbolic, legal gesture employed in those situations where a levir refused to accept his responsibility to a widow. She in turn then removed his sandal, the symbol of ownership and inheritance, and cast it at him. This signified his loss of inheritance rights to the lands of his relative (see Deut 25:9 and Ruth 4:7–8). Land transfers in the Nuzi texts also involved replacing the old owner’s foot on the land with that of the new owner” Victor Harold Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, and John H. Walton, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), Ps 60:8. ALSO see the sandal as “a symbol of ownership” (Manor, “Levirate Marriage,” 133)”” June Yang, “Sandals,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Living Faith 