he wasn’t talking to you

One of the important rules of interpreting the Bible that gets broken too often is the rule of the original context, namely, what did this text mean to the author and their intended audience. All too often we can be tempted to skip this and go straight for the jugular of ego-driven Christianity; ‘what-does-this-mean-to-me?’ Personal application is always necessary, but never first.

Personal application is always necessary, but never first.

The Lord spoke to Abram, not me & not you

Gen 12:1 states, Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

The author is retelling an experience that Abram had with the LORD. First and foremost we are to observe and learn what God is doing with Abram. What is he saying, doing, setting up and revealing? Maybe God will use this scripture, quickened to your spirit, to tell you to go from where you are to where God is sending you, but that is not the primary, or even secondary, purpose of this scripture. We are meant to discover that God is the one who initiates a relationship with Abram.

The LORD said to Abram…

Genesis does not tell us that Abram was searching for God or crying out night and day for wisdom and direction. As far as scripture reveals, Abram was doing nothing, just living his life. Extra-biblical sources suggest that Abram’s father ran an idol business; carving or casting idols to sell. Whether he did or not, what scripture shows us is that Abram was not hearing God speak due to his diligence in seeking him out, nor was God speaking to Abram because he had somehow earned it. We are simply told that the LORD spoke to Abram instructing him to go.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy

Exodus 33:19

As scripture continues to unfold we find that God himself says that he has mercy on whom he will, and shows compassion on whom he will. The choosing of Abram was God’s choice to make and in no way does God’s choice reflect any virtue on Abram’s part. No, it simply highlights the sovereign mercy of God. Consider the hard teaching of Paul in Romans 9:13-20.

13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”

gods choices are sovereign and not up for debate

On one hand, as Paul anticipates, it would be easy to get self-righteous and point a crooked finger at God and accuse him of acting unfairly towards those he has not ‘chosen’. But who are we to speak back to God? Paul is right. God chooses whom he will and he speaks to whom he will and in Genesis 12 he speaks to Abram. What we should be marvelling at here is the mercy of God to choose anyone at all! God is totally self-sufficient, lacking nothing and needing no one. God engages Abram in a conversation that leads to a covenant, not for his benefit, but for Abrams… and ultimately for ours. God speaking to Abram in Genesis 12:1 is a huge tell in regards to the nature and person of God. It reveals so much about his willingness to choose whom he will but to be strategic in how he does it. He wasn’t just choosing Abram, he was choosing all of the families of the earth to be blessed through Abram. This was a global strategy, a universal act of mercy. In verse one God tells Abram to go and then follows it up with five I will statements before the end of verse 3. This is going to be God’s show, God’s plan, God’s activity, God’s story, God’s act of sovereign mercy and grace to a world that he loves.

I will sow you… I will make… I will bless… i will bless… i will curse… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed

Genesis 12:1-3

informative before instructive

This encounter that Abram has with the LORD, which is recorded in scripture, is like so many others (if not all others) in that its primary purpose is to inform the reader of something that has happened, it’s not to instruct the reader but to inform them. The Holy Spirit can and will speak directly to our hearts, making a verse in scripture personal and in season. This is the subjective experience of revelation; it’s wonderful! Revelation like this nourishes the soul just as we would expect, for we are not ones who live on bread alone, but on every word that precedes from the mouth of a God who speaks (see Matthew 4:4). But these personalised moments where God speaks directly to our spirit are exactly that; personal. Sometimes it’s corrective, instructive, directive or a simple expression of the LORD’s affection. This is what is happening to Abram. God is speaking to him and we are observing his story unfold as we read. It’s likely by now you’re starting to wonder… what is he on about, what’s the point here? Well, here it is.

God told Abram to go; not lot

In verse 4 we see the radical obedience of Abram to follow this voice speaking to him, telling him to ‘go’… and Lot went with him. God told Abram to go, but not Lot. Nothing good happens to Lot after this. Lot eventually separates from his Uncle Abram and chooses the best-looking pasture (Genesis 13), he gets abducted in war, rescued by Abram, and then has to flee Sodom when God sends judgement, only to lose his wife in the fray. Lot ends up, poor, alone, and living like a hermit in the mountains with his two daughters. Doesn’t sound like he was blessed, does it?

This is where the personal revelation one person receives, in this case, Abram, can not automatically be applied to anyone else who decides it sounds good. You cannot simply ‘claim’ something as a promise from God if God did not promise it to you personally. The ‘blab-it-and-grab-it’ preaching (or prosperity preaching or word-of-faith preaching) that tells you otherwise if doing the body of Christ a disservice by failing to learn from Abram and Lot, and by failing to recognise that God’s sovereign decision to bless one man in a specific way at a specific time does not automatically apply to anyone and everyone who ‘claims-the-promise’. This failure happens in our own lives when we read scripture ‘looking’ for application and instruction before we’ve fully digested what the writers, and the Holy Spirit who lead them, are wanting to inform us of.

failing the copy-and-paste method

The failure of Lot (and to an extent Abram) to recognise that God had spoken to Abram and not him is what I call the copy-and-paste method. It assumes that if someone else can, then I can. What this does is fails to ground itself in a personal promise or revelation. It fails to be anchored in something the Lord has said directly. Remember Gen1:1 – the LORD said to Abram.

7 brothers try to copy-and-paste… and fail

The Apostle Paul operated under the incredible guidance of the Holy Spirit, had divine wisdom, incredible insight and discernment and was fearless in his pursuit of the mission God had assigned to him. It was not unusual for miracles, signs and wonders to surround Paul’s ministry; healing the sick, casting out demons, and even raising the dead! One time, seven brothers, the sons of Sceva the High Priest, saw Paul casting out demons in the Name of Jesus and they decided to apply the copy-and-paste method. Have a read…

Acts 19:11-16

¹¹ And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, ¹² so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. ¹³ Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” ¹⁴ Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. ¹⁵ But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” ¹⁶ And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. (emphasis added)

It doesn’t matter what God says to someone else if He hasn’t said it to you. It doesn’t matter what revelation another believer has of the authority of the name of Jesus and the power entrusted to them by the Holy Spirit if you are not personally convinced that the LORD has given such things to you as well. Such things must be known deep in a believer’s soul; it must be a revelation, the bread that we live on.

The seven brothers got off lightly compared to Lot. They got their egos beat, Lot lost everything. You cannot follow Jesus by imitating the obedience of others without knowing personally the one you’re following. Jesus said his sheep know his voice and follow it (John 10:3-27). Abram knew the voice of God. This is probably the one thing that made him such an incredible man of faith, his distinguishing feature, hearing and knowing the voice of God – which was all God’s doing anyway, an incredible act of Mercy.

Build your life on the words of Jesus, not his followers

Lot’s big mistake was assuming a promise to Abram was a promise to him. How many people shipwreck their faith through the disappointment and pain that follows such assumptions? Too many. How many ‘brothers’ get beat up in life trying to follow leaders without having a personal conviction of the promises of God? Too many. We must build our lives as followers of Jesus first and foremost on his words and his promises. This is what the ‘apostles teachings’ were that the early church was founded on, the words of Jesus.

What made Abram remarkable was that he heard and obeyed. What made Lot and the sons of Sceva suffer is that they tried to obey a voice they hadn’t heard for themselves, so there was no revelation, no conviction and certainly no faith. When we read scripture we must be careful not to be like Lot or Sceva’s sons and assume we can ‘claim’ every so-called promise in the Bible and focus instead of building our lives on the words of Christ and the revelations that the Holy Spirit gives to each us, just as Abram did.

²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Matthew 7:24-27