Genesis 19

I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

One other thing. Please give your own interpretation and refrain from responding to someone else. Perhaps we can do that in another thread.

OK. Very briefly:

1. The wages of sin is damnation/death.
2. Homosexuality is contrary to God's will/wishes.
3. Having left a life of sin, turning back / returning to it invites death/damnation.
4. The Israelites didn't really like their neighbours.

Do I pass?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
OK. Very briefly:

1. The wages of sin is damnation/death.
2. Homosexuality is contrary to God's will/wishes.
3. Having left a life of sin, turning back / returning to it invites death/damnation.
4. The Israelites didn't really like their neighbours.

Do I pass?

No judgement as I only wanted to get people's take on it. I will offer my own later in the day. I will say that mine will be quite different from yours.

This chapter typifies for me why it's difficult to take much of the Bible seriously.

Two girls (among many interesting themes) get Dad trashed on successive evenings and bed him?

I'm not sure what teaching incest points toward.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

It's history. Why do you assume there is a "message." Do you mean what is the moral of the story? If anything, God is keeping his promise to Abraham. Nothing more.

Hospitality and welcoming the stranger is God's will. People, having undergone traumatic events, will seek to cope, adjust, or find a future in behaviors that may run contrary to the "laws of moral behavior." God provides a way out in the most unlikely situations with our most unlikely or even sinful behaviors.

Originally posted by kirksey957
Hospitality and welcoming the stranger is God's will. People, having undergone traumatic events, will seek to cope, adjust, or find a future in behaviors that may run contrary to the "laws of moral behavior." God provides a way out in the most unlikely situations with our most unlikely or even sinful behaviors.

I'm still baffled by this chapter. I'd like to hear more of your take if you feel up for it, kirksey. Thank you.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

Lot was a man that knew GOD, but was not an example of one that served the LORD. Even when it was time to go, he hesitated. Nor did he teach his wife or his daughters to really know the LORD. If his daughters would have known and served the LORD, they would not have acted as they did.

Originally posted by kirksey957
Hospitality and welcoming the stranger is God's will. People, having undergone traumatic events, will seek to cope, adjust, or find a future in behaviors that may run contrary to the "laws of moral behavior." God provides a way out in the most unlikely situations with our most unlikely or even sinful behaviors.

Is that a lesson from the text? I think that's reading into the text what is not said by the text or inferable from it. It in no way tells us God wills that we be hospital to strangers. If that were true, we could infer that God wills that we give are children over to rapists in similar situations.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

The lesson learned from Chapter 19 of Genesis is that the Bible has some weird-ass stories that don't make a whole lot of sense and are open to dozens of interpretations which is extremely dangerous seeing as hundreds of milllions of people use it as a guide to daily life. Lot was a disturbed man who found the safety of two complete strangers so important that he offered his two virgin daughters to a crowd of gang rapists that they may have their way with them. God saw it fit that this "good" man and his family (except for his wife whom he vapourised) be spared whilst the remaining population of men, women and children be burned to ash and cinder. And for what? For being fags? For being rapists? What? You suck, God.

Originally posted by Coletti
Is that a lesson from the text? I think that's reading into the text what is not said by the text or inferable from it. It in no way tells us God wills that we be hospital to strangers. If that were true, we could infer that God wills that we give are children over to rapists in similar situations.

Please let us stick to an open discussion about what the passage means to us without judgment or criticism of others. Maybe we can do that later.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

Simple enough. Two angels came to Lot's house. The people of Sodom surrounded the house and demanding that the angels come out so the men could have sex with them. Lot declined and offered his two virgin daughters for the men to have sex with instead because the angels were his guests and therefore deserved protection. The daughters were married, so I am not sure how they were virgins...maybe Lot lied to the men outside? Or maybe they get married later in 19:14. This may have happened because the angels told Lot they'd save any sons-in-law he had, and Lot wanted these guys saved.

Genesis 19:9 is confusing to me:

And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

The men refused the daughters and tried to break into Lot's house to rape the angels, and the angels struck all of them blind. Then the angels told Lot to get his family out of town because God was going to smite the city. The sons-in-law thought Lot was lying, but the women of the family left with Lot. God told them not to look back for fear of being 'consumed', and to go to some mountain. Lot begged God not to make him go to the mountain because the mountain was dangerous; I guess Lot didn't know how to rough it. Lot asked to go to a nearby city, Zoar, instead. God said ok and Lot went to Zoar.

Lot and his family got to Zoar the next morning (or some morning). God nuked Sodom and Gomorrah and the nearby plains with heavenly smiting. Lot and his daughters dutifully looked away, but the wife looked at the smiteage and got turned to a pillar of salt.

19:27-29 confuse me; who is Abraham, where is he, and what is his significance?

Lot freaked out and ran off to the mountain with his daughters and they lived in a cave. The daughters got Lot drunk and one after the other had sex with him and got pregnant. From this incestuous event came the Moabites and Ammonites, whoever they are.

*EDIT* - Oops sorry. Too long. How could I summarize all that in 4 sentences? I'll try.

Angels come to Lot's house and Sodomites want to rape them. Lot says no and offers his virgin daughters, but the Sodomites refuse and try to break in. The Angels strike the Sodomites blind and tell Lot to get his family out of there, and Lot does, though his new sons in law think he's lying and don't come. Lot and his womenfolk go to Zoar, God nukes Sodom and Gomorrah, the wife looks back against God's orders and gets turned into a pillar of salt, Lot and daughters go to mountain and live in cave, daughters get Lot drunk and have sex with Daddy and get pregnant in order to preserve his line.

That's the best I can do.

Interpretation of the message? There's a message? It seems like a pretty clear narrative to me - a simple description of the events that took place. The message is that these things occurred.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I would like to challenge people to come up with an interpretation of the message of the 19th chapter of Genesis and I ask that it be succinctly with no more than 4 sentences.

Don't try to bugger Angels, God wanted us not to find out what Gomorary was (hence not evidence of it) . Lots girls probably volunteered to go out, and God seemed to have a penchant to remember his heroes just in the nick of time.