Have you ever wondered why some of the stories that are in the Bible are there? Take the story of Abraham rescuing Lot for instance. Why is it there? Is it just to serve as a illustration, a foreshadowing, of Lot's foolishness (which will become epic foolishness in the years to come), that Abram had to go to rescue him? Is it a random story to demonstrate Abram's honor and familial ties? Abram's dedication to the Lord through his tithe? Maybe it's all of these, and more.
For the first time I noticed three little words at the beginning of Ch. 15: "After these things". Before I had always taken them for granted. I thought it meant, "Sometime, after these things, awhile after, chronologically coming behind", etc. That's not what those words are really getting at, I'm thinking. In recent years I've become more aware of how things are juxtaposed in Scripture for a purpose. Case in point: a d-group lesson I taught some time ago. It was on John 6, which tells both of the feeding of the 5,000 as well as Jesus teaching on the Bread of Life. The people were following Jesus around, very closely and in huge throngs, because the miracle He had performed in the feeding of so many people. (Imagine, this is a people who often lived from one meal to the next, so to see a man just "magically" produce enough food for 5,000 and then some would be an enormous and incredibly impressive miracle.) Because of this very circumstance, Jesus had the opportunity to speak truth to them, what turned out to be a very hard truth for them to accept. What that truth is is not the point of this post (go look up John 6 and read about it. It's good!). Rather, my point is that often times in Scripture things are set down the way they are for a point. And, that got me to thinking about this passage.
Two significant things happen in this passage, one perhaps seeming not-so-significant. First, Abram rescues Lot when he is taken as part of the booty from Sodom. Then, Abram takes a tithe of what he rescued from the enemy and gave it to the Lord, through Melchizedek (who only appears again in Hebrews), and then the Lord appears to Abram and makes His covenant, fleshing out the promise of blessings from Ch. 12. Perhaps, Lot being rescued might not have seemed so important in another setting, but it is because of the "spoils" of war that Abram brought back that he made a tithe. That tithe set up two things: first, the mysterious appearance of Melchizidek, who was both priest and king, who was a type for Christ, and whose order of priesthood has been set aside for Christ's priesthood (very important and different from the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament). It also showed Abram's devotion to God: he could have kept the spoils. But instead, he made a tithe of everything, and the rest he allowed his allies to take or return to the kings; he would have none of their things lest it seem these foreign kings had made him rich and not the Lord. And after this, God told Abram: "Fear not. I am your shield; your reward shall be great." And his reward? God's covenant. His blessing. The promise that Abram would have a son, even in his old age, and that through this son would come a nation, and through that nation, the Messiah.
One last interesting thing about this passage: had you ever noticed before that God tells Abram that his descendants would be enslaved but that after that time they would inherit the very land where Abram was a sojourner? Pretty cool, huh? Totally sets up Exodus, doesn't it?
Tomorrow's Reading: Genesis 16:1-17:27
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