BIAY Day 8 - Grappling with God
Genesis 18-20, Psalm 7
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
Welcome to Week 2 of reading the Bible this year. If you are creating a Legacy Bible, I want to encourage you. Remember, you don’t have to come up with definitive answers to challenging passages. You can share observations of what you see in the text, you can jot down a question, or you can simply underline a key verse and keep moving. Today we’ve got some challenging ones, so I want to give you permission not to have all the answers. Creating a Legacy Bible to share or simply reading through the Bible in a year isn’t about resolving all our questions. It’s about engaging the Word of God, learning what God wants to teach us this time around, and being okay with having some open questions that we’re still working on.
These are too dense and rich to go into detail about, of course, but here are some observations and thoughts. I’d love to know yours in the comments.
Laughter and cover-up - I love that Sarah laughed in Genesis 18:10-15 at hearing the reaffirmation of the promised heir. What a human response to an impossible assertion! Even more human is lying to cover it up when caught laughing at the impossibility of the Lord’s Word.
Invited to grapple with God - In the second half of Genesis 18, we have one of the great texts on prayer and ethics in the Bible as Abraham is invited to grapple with the Lord concerning His coming judgment upon Sodom and Gommorah. Abraham argues with God about the presence of good people in a wicked society and what difference that should make. I can’t help but think of Jesus’ teaching on salt in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13). According to God and Abraham’s conversation here, that preserving effect of the presence of God’s people can be profound indeed. Importantly, God invited Abraham to speak with Him as he did, and God concluded the conversation when He was done with the lesson.
Judgment for wickedness - We are pretty sure we know why Sodom and Gommorah were destroyed, but it’s important to read and observe, not only read and assume. When we observe, yes, we do see sexual morality that is at odds with traditional Christian belief. But we see more, and it’s worth not missing that. The story includes the community’s hospitality—it’s treatment of strangers. The men who are threatened with sexual assault (not simply activity, but violence) are travelers. They know no one in town and are therefore vulnerable to the mob. It was the community’s responsibility to care for them well until they continued their journey. Instead of care for their wellbeing, they are threatened with sexual assault for the townsmen’s gratification. An ugly scene indeed, and apparently typical for this place.
Psalm 7 seems to speak for Lot and Abraham. There’s a line attributed to the 4th century church father Athanasius: “Most of Scripture speaks to us; the psalms speak for us.” Psalm 7, among others, helps us speak honestly and unfiltered to God.
Questions:
When have you laughed at God? When has God had the last laugh?
Have you ever grappled with God as Abraham did? What did you learn from that experience?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you to inviting me to authentic engagement with you. Help me learn what you want to teach me. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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