Embedded in the Western mind is this couplet of dramatically destroyed cities. Almost two chapters of Genesis (18 and 19) are devoted to these matters. In the 18th three figures of some majesty, some presence arrive at the center of Abraham’s world. Two of them would trek urbanward arriving in the evening at Sodom’s gate where Abraham’s nephew, Lot, was sitting, watching, passing another of his days.
As it turned these trekkers were heading for Lot and his family. They were the mission. Behind the scenes, judgment had been passed upon the cities abiding in that plain, but God would spare this family. In a quick-gist of the backstory the lifestyles of Sodom and Gomorrah had become wicked to the point that Heaven, that God took note. At some point those city dwellers crossed a behavioral red-line, a line necessitating judgment which God did by destroying them with burning sulfur, but he rescued Lot’s family first.
Here is a lightning rod of a verse for me from Genesis 19.
24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. (Genesis 19:24 – NIV)
Automatically rising in my mind were some skepticals, some squinty-eyed reactions. “Hold on a sec” type red flags flicked up all over the place in my mind.
- “Did God really pour burning sulfur down?”
- “Was the event an asteroid?”
- “Was there volcanic activity over there?”
- “Is this to be taken literally?”
- “Is it figurative?”
The answers to these types of questions are better left to people with the relevant expertise but they still announced themselves. In my decades I have been too much influenced by those who want to teach about science but do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm (kind of relates to 1 Timothy 1:7). I have learned to discard the false confidences of those who read the Bible, decide what literal is, and mislead on matters about the natural world. As part of this some parts of the Bible of necessity shift from literal to figurative.1
When one begins the journey of parsing Biblical passages into literal and figurative camps one can edge out onto a slippery slope. Wisdom demands these uncomfortable steps. Personally, I am adherent to the reality of God, of Christ, sin, redemption, and much more. In matters of the early chapters of Genesis I have shifted to a figurative value not a literal. I need the comfort, the stereovision of God and the world observed. I cannot go full naturalistic discarding all mystery, all supernatural, God. Neither can I go full-literal discarding the confluence of the scientific disciplines.
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