The Story of Lot and Sodom

[Uriah_Betrayed]

Does anyone have an explanation why Lot was seen by God as a righteous man not deserving of dying in the destruction of Sodom and Gorromoth?

By his actions instead of outright refusing the demands of the mob to hand over the two disguised angels he instead tries to bribe them with his own virgin daughters. I’m in total confusion how Christians or Jews can see a man who makes such an offer as righteous or heck any different from the residents of Sodom.

And then again by deed Lot’s entire family proves to be immoral. Lot’s wife disobeys the orders of the angels and dies because of it, Lot himself becomes intoxicated by his daughters and has an orgy with them. Why did any of these people deserve to live from the cities destruction?!

 

[bmullins]

There is a lot more to the story than what you’ve simply proposed above. There is the entire intercession on the part of Abraham where he asks God to spare the city if they can find this amount or that amount of righteous people. In that we learn that God does indeed listen to the intercessory cries of others for the city. Next it ignores the fact that the daughters were never in danger of being used, the crowd outside were not interested in girls. Lot was ‘buying time’ for the strangers, by offering the crowd something they would never take… stalling so to speak. They of course turned him down, being of the wrong sexual orientation to seek after intercourse with young women.

Lot was rescued for Abraham’s sake, that God might be glorified through it. The entire story screams of a shadow of the new testament, in which we are saved not by our own merit (we too are like Lot, we are full of errors and are not worthy of being saved from the imminent destruction) but through the power of our family (our brother and Father ) we too can be saved though we don’t deserve it.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

We cannot judge LOT by Christian moral standards, we cannot.
Back in those times, you protected your guests, as a matter of hospitality,
by any and every means necessary. The above poster is correct: Lot surely KNEW that these men in that mob were NOT interested in his daughters. They wanted the Male Guests, whom they did not know were ANGELS ((by the way, scripture warns US repeatedly that WE OURSELVES have dealt with angels, being tested by God in this manner, without our knowing it, so we have to be VERY VERY careful how we treat ALL people, even “street bums,” because on the day of Judgement, we may get a HUGE surprise!!).
Peace and love,
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+

 

[Uzziah1]

Does anyone have an explanation why Lot was seen by God as a righteous man not deserving of dying in the destruction of Sodom and Gorromoth?

By his actions instead of outright refusing the demands of the mob to hand over the two disguised angels he instead tries to bribe them with his own virgin daughters. I’m in total confusion how Christians or Jews can see a man who makes such an offer as righteous or heck any different from the residents of Sodom.

And then again by deed Lot’s entire family proves to be immoral. Lot’s wife disobeys the orders of the angels and dies because of it, Lot himself becomes intoxicated by his daughters and has an orgy with them. Why did any of these people deserve to live from the cities destruction?!

The demand by those who are fundamentalistically-inclined that these stories be viewed as historical is the problem.

Notice, for example, that when Lot is drunk with wine and sleeping in a cave, he is a picture of the “Dead Man with Wine Blood” in the “House of the Rock” – Eucharistic Christ! – and that when two daughters lay with him, that is a picture of the people of the Church “marrying” Christ! And that when this produces “Gentile” offspring, that is a picture of the Gentile Church coming out of Christ’s death.

An apparently ugly story thus comprises a picture of a beautiful thing.

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

We cannot judge LOT by Christian moral standards, we cannot.
Back in those times, you protected your guests, as a matter of hospitality,

Yes I realize I’m putting people from the OT under the light of Christian morality, but I was under the impression that God’s morals were absolute. I’m sure God wouldn’t give me a pass if I offered my virgin daughters to a mob of gay rapists; even if I felt confident that they wouldn’t accept the offer.

Also I would really like an answer to why this family is supposedly righteous yet their daughters sleep with their drunken father and the mother disobeys the orders to not to look toward the city.

Notice, for example, that when Lot is drunk with wine and sleeping in a cave, he is a picture of the “Dead Man with Wine Blood” in the “House of the Rock” – Eucharistic Christ! – and that when two daughters lay with him, that is a picture of the people of the Church “marrying” Christ! And that when this produces “Gentile” offspring, that is a picture of the Gentile Church coming out of Christ’s death.

An apparently ugly story thus comprises a picture of a beautiful thing.

I’m sorry but that streches Christian interpretation of the OT far too thin for my taste. First I do not like to think of the gentile Church as the same lines as “the offsprings of incest”, nor would I compare the Eucharist to an orgy…

Finally isn’t the point of the scene where Lot sleeps with his daughters to show what horrible people the tribe of the ammonites came from giving Judea an excuse to why they’re allowed to conquer and exterminate them?

 

[bmullins]

Also I would really like an answer to why this family is supposedly righteous yet their daughters sleep with their drunken father and the mother disobeys the orders to not to look toward the city.

I want to point out again, that as I said above, Lot was not saved because of his righteousness or his families. Lot was saved because of Abraham!

[bibledrb] Genesis 19:29 [/bibledrb]

God didn’t remember Lot’s righteousness, he remembered Abraham. There is a big difference there. It was Abraham whose ‘faith’ was remember, not Lot.

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

God didn’t remember Lot’s righteousness, he remembered Abraham. There is a big difference there. It was Abraham whose ‘faith’ was remember, not Lot.

This is what I’m having trouble with then. Why is Abraham’s faith enough to save someone elses life? I’ve been arguing that Lot and his family aren’t all that much better than the citizens of Sodom in the first place (Lot offering daughters, Wife disobedient, daughters commit drunken incest), so why is the faith of Abraham enough to save them?

 

[Uzziah1]

Yes I realize I’m putting people from the OT under the light of Christian morality, but I was under the impression that God’s morals were absolute. I’m sure God wouldn’t give me a pass if I offered my virgin daughters to a mob of gay rapists; even if I felt confident that they wouldn’t accept the offer.

Also I would really like an answer to why this family is supposedly righteous yet their daughters sleep with their drunken father and the mother disobeys the orders to not to look toward the city.

I’m sorry but that streches Christian interpretation of the OT far too thin for my taste. First I do not like to think of the gentile Church as the same lines as “the offsprings of incest”, nor would I compare the Eucharist to an orgy…

Finally isn’t the point of the scene where Lot sleeps with his daughters to show what horrible people the tribe of the ammonites came from giving Judea an excuse to why they’re allowed to conquer and exterminate them?

There’s actually another “wine-sodden sleeping drunk” in the Old Testament – Noah! He, too, is a picture of the Dead Man with Wine for Blood, Christ.

 

[bmullins]

This is what I’m having trouble with then. Why is Abraham’s faith enough to save someone elses life? I’ve been arguing that Lot and his family aren’t all that much better than the citizens of Sodom in the first place (Lot offering daughters, Wife disobedient, daughters commit drunken incest), so why is the faith of Abraham enough to save them?

Simply put, grace. You are saved by God’s grace. No one deserved the salvation that was being offered, and no one deserves it now. But God is merciful and saved Lot, because Abraham had faith. It was a shadow of things to come. Through another persons intercession the rest of us, who do not deserve it at all, are offered the same salvation. We are able to walk out of our own Sodom’s and into the life to follow, if we simply listen to the advice of his messengers.

[bibledrb]Ephesians 2:8-9[/bibledrb]

 

[fred_conty]

Bmullin, you mentioned,
“They of course turned him down, being of the wrong sexual orientation to seek after intercourse with young women.”

Weren’t there any homosexual women or lesbians?

 

[bmullins]

Bmullin, you mentioned,
“They of course turned him down, being of the wrong sexual orientation to seek after intercourse with young women.”

Weren’t there any homosexual women or lesbians?

I’m sure that somewhere in some city, in some town, maybe even that town there were likely some women with same sex attraction, but the story in question doesn’t mention women. It mentions that every man, young and old went out to sleep with the angels. It doesn’t mention women at all, except lots young daughters.

[bibledrb]Genesis 19:4[/bibledrb]

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

Simply put, grace. You are saved by God’s grace. No one deserved the salvation that was being offered, and no one deserves it now. But God is merciful and saved Lot, because Abraham had faith. It was a shadow of things to come. Through another persons intercession the rest of us, who do not deserve it at all, are offered the same salvation. We are able to walk out of our own Sodom’s and into the life to follow, if we simply listen to the advice of his messengers.

Not to be confrontational but does this mean Jews of that time were given an easier burden than us modern day Christians. After all I doubt God would let me into heaven if I was a drunkard who committed incest just because I believed 100 percent that God existed.

 

[Fragile]

The demand by those who are fundamentalistically-inclined that these stories be viewed as historical is the problem.

Notice, for example, that when Lot is drunk with wine and sleeping in a cave, he is a picture of the “Dead Man with Wine Blood” in the “House of the Rock” – Eucharistic Christ! – and that when two daughters lay with him, that is a picture of the people of the Church “marrying” Christ! And that when this produces “Gentile” offspring, that is a picture of the Gentile Church coming out of Christ’s death.

An apparently ugly story thus comprises a picture of a beautiful thing.

 

[Fragile]

Not to be confrontational but does this mean Jews of that time were given an easier burden than us modern day Christians. After all I doubt God would let me into heaven if I was a drunkard who committed incest just because I believed 100 percent that God existed.

Where is there any evidence that Lot was a drunkard?

 

[fred_conty]

This is what I’m having trouble with then. Why is Abraham’s faith enough to save someone elses life? I’ve been arguing that Lot and his family aren’t all that much better than the citizens of Sodom in the first place (Lot offering daughters, Wife disobedient, daughters commit drunken incest), so why is the faith of Abraham enough to save them?

It really isn’t about the sins of Lot’s family or of Lot himself.
It is about the promise that God made to Abraham, that is, of saving Lot and his family.
When a promise is made then it is binding and God binds himself to that promise of salvation of that family irregardless.

Another way of looking at this is this.
God promised to Adam and Eve that he would send them and their prodigy a saviour, a Messiah.
When that promise is made, then it is binding and God binds himself to that promise of salvation of our whole human family.
God does not consider all the future sins of mankind to be any reason to cancel that promise.

And so too for Lot’s family, all their future sins is no reason to cancel that promise.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[fred_conty]

Not to be confrontational but does this mean Jews of that time were given an easier burden than us modern day Christians. After all I doubt God would let me into heaven if I was a drunkard who committed incest just because I believed 100 percent that God existed.

Uriah Betrayed,

About the Jews having it easier than christians, we only have to look at the hundreds of laws that they were under to understand that the Jews had anything but easier than the christians.
Upon looking at their lives, every part and partical was regulated by some type of law.
From what I see, I don’t envy them.

As far as Lot going to heaven after committing sins, it isn’t because of sin anyone goes to heaven but it is because of the mercy and forgiveness of God. In this world God’s mercy and promise exist, in the next world his justice. Anyone could be a drunken sot (which by the way Lot was not), and still get to heaven if they invoke sorrow of their sins, and trust in the loving mercy of our Father in heaven. There is no end to his mercy now when he sees a son admitting his mistakes. As a matter of fact, he will go the extra mile and run to that son to welcome him back for he loves that much and more. Noone, no matter what they have done in the past should ever doubt but rather trust God’s promise.

Just a thought.

 

[Uzziah1]

Uriah Betrayed, in response to my contention that the story of Lot being raped by his daughters while he was in a drunken sleep in a cave, so that they became pregnant by him so that they gave birth to the progenitors of the Moabites and the Ammonites, is really a picture of God’s people “marrying” the Dead Man with Wine for Blood, Christ, in His Church, generaqting His Gentile Church …

I’m sorry but that streches Christian interpretation of the OT far too thin for my taste. First I do not like to think of the gentile Church as the same lines as “the offsprings of incest”, nor would I compare the Eucharist to an orgy…

Finally isn’t the point of the scene where Lot sleeps with his daughters to show what horrible people the tribe of the ammonites came from giving Judea an excuse to why they’re allowed to conquer and exterminate them?

Re your second contention: The NAB footnote added by the NAB OT Committee infers that the OT Committee felt that the story was a piece of fiction added to the Bible text to poke fun at the Ammonites and Moabites by ridiculing their origins.

But that does not say anything about the spiritual meaning of the story. In other words, Why did the Holy Spirit see to it that this “political joke” was included in Holy Scripture?

So, re your first contention …

Much of the OT is really about Christ – at the symbolic, or allegorical, level. In Luke 24, when Cleopas and his acquaintance are walking on the road to Emmaus, Christ appears to them and explains how the OT refers to Him again and again and again. When He appears to the Apostles later in the same chapter, He opened their minds to the same truth

So, it is useful to ask, ESPECIALLY in the cases of the of the bizarre, incomprehinsible inclusions, “How could this refer to Christ?”

There are a LOT of difficult stories like this in the OT, and they all make sense as references to Christ.

Example: Judges 19, the story of the Levite of Ephraim. There a seemingly selfish Levite pushes his own concubine out of the door into the hands of a wild band of sex-crazed bisexuals, to save himself, and they rape her all night, literally to death. The Levite then recovers her body and cuts it up into pieces and ships the body parts to the tribes of Israel.

What in Heaven’s Holy Name is a horrible story like that doing in the Bible?

Answer: It is a picture foreshadowing the sacrifice of Christ, and the distribution of His sacrificed body in the form of the Eucharist!

 

[Paulus2014]

Lot was a coward and a cruel man. Offering his virgin daughters to a mob of rapists is a shameful act even we come back to old Bible times. If he wanted demonstrate hospitality why didn´t offer his own body - I prefer don´t mentionate what part of the body - to the mob?