Saturday 6 May 2017

Just a bad Lot?

For if God… rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless… then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials… 2 Peter 2:4-9

…Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked… Genesis 13:12-13

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. Genesis 19:36

What are we to make of Lot?

He doesn’t appear much in the Bible, but most of what we read isn’t very impressive. In Genesis 13 he parts company with his uncle Abram because the two men need space to expand their growing flocks and herds. Abram invites Lot to take his pick of the land, and he opts for the Jordan valley because it was “well-watered, like the garden of the Lord” (13:10) – disregarding the fact that this meant heading in the direction of Sodom, a byword for wickedness and depravity.

After God’s judgment falls on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) he is rescued by angelic visitors. His wife (hankering after the attractions of Sodom?) looks back as they escape and is turned into a “pillar of salt”. Lot (how are the mighty fallen!) ends up living in a cave with his two daughters – by whom he proceeds to father sons.

True, that last bit happened because the daughters were (understandably) desperate for children and, in the absence of men about the place, conspired together to get Lot drunk so they could have sex with him. Not entirely his fault, you could say – but the very fact that he could so easily be got drunk doesn’t exactly impress.

That’s Lot, then. At best, weak; at worst, immoral and corrupt. End of.

But no, in fact that’s not the end of the story. In 2 Peter 2 he is described as “a righteous (!) man… distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless… tormented in his righteous (!) soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard” (verses 7-8).

And we can’t help asking, How could Peter possibly say that! It seems to flatly contradict the Genesis story. For those of us who believe that the Bible – the whole of it, not just the “easy bits” – is God’s word, it’s a genuine problem.

There are two things we absolutely mustn’t do when we hit a problem like this.

First, we mustn’t turn a blind eye and pretend it’s not there. Honesty demands that we look such difficulties fairly and squarely in the face. (That’s one reason, by the way, why I decided to tackle this blog, in spite of misgivings).

Second, we mustn’t scratch around looking for solutions which can only end up unconvincing. I looked at various commentaries, and none of them came up with an explanation which makes you say “Yes! Of course – that’s it!”

(It’s worth noticing – though I’m not sure it helps us much – that at the time Peter was writing there was a tradition in Jewish literature which upheld Lot as a model of righteousness. If you happen to have an Apocrypha to hand, look up Wisdom of Solomon 10:6. Was that the strand Peter was drawing from? If so, it means that he was “upgrading” a statement from outside scripture into his letter. You might say, Well, why not? But that doesn’t alter the fact that what Peter wrote and what we find in Genesis seem to be in clear disagreement.)

There is no easy answer. Assuming that the whole Bible is indeed inspired by God, the best I can offer is this…

Lot was indeed a deeply flawed man – but his heart was right. Yes, he really did hate the corrupt morality which he was surrounded by in Sodom. But he lacked the strength to break free from it, and in the end it almost (but for the grace of God) overwhelmed him.

Putting it simply, 2 Peter 2 gives us the real Lot, the Lot known to God, while the Genesis narrative gives us – well, the other Lot.

Any good?

Before we dismiss that suggestion as over-simple, let’s remember that all of us, however long we have known Christ, are deeply “conflicted” people. We too fail. We too lack moral and spiritual backbone.

But so, come to think of it, did Abram. And Moses. And David. And Solomon. Not to mention Simon Peter, who wrote these words. Each of us is still incomplete. We are all “works in progress”. Perhaps we are closer to Lot than we like to think.

Whatever… there are certainly two very clear lessons we can draw from the sad story of Lot.

First: it’s desperately hard to maintain our godliness and purity if we choose to immerse ourselves in the godless culture of our day. A warning to any of us?

And second: quoting verse 9 exactly, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. That, at least, is good news!
Whoever has ears to hear, let’s hear…

Thank you, O God, that you alone know the hearts of each one of us. Forgive me when, like Lot, I am weak and fall into sin, and please give me a new determination to be holy and Christlike. Amen.

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