This week’s lesson is entitled “Faithful During Distress” and “Faith and Doubt”. I take a look at how God is faithful during our distress and faith and doubt as it relates to God’s faithfulness. Specifically, in this lesson, I show how God is faithful to Abraham. Have you ever heard the saying “somebody prayed for me”? That was Abraham on behalf of Lot. If it were not for Abraham, Lot and his family would have perished along with everyone else in Sodom and Gomorrah. In this lesson, God is faithful to Abraham and merciful and compassionate to Lot and his family. In this lesson, I focus on how hospitality is an important and central theme in this text. That’s really important because so many people focus on the homosexuality in this text. Homosexuality isn’t the central issue. Although Lot shows hospitality to the angels there is little else (in my view, nothing else) to give him credit for. In fact, given Lot’s offer of his own daughters to the men of the city he was just as guilty of the same violence as the sodomites.
The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed because God heard the outcry of their collective violence and inhospitality and the violence with which they treated aliens in their midst. Lot was saved not because of his own actions, but because Abraham intervened, interceded, and pleaded on his behalf. I like how Townsends Commentary explains “with Lot’s rescue, the emphasis is on God’s compassion. Lot acknowledged that he was saved because he had found favor in God’s sight. This is also true for us. If it had not been for the Lord who was on our side, where would we be”? If you have or had praying parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, perhaps you too can identify with Lot. If it had not been for God on our side, where would we be?
In this first lesson of the new school year our focus has transitioned from covenants to demonstrating how God is faithful. The focus of this week’s lesson is faithful during distress and faith and doubt. It is Abraham’s faith that is highlighted and we see Lot’s doubt as he hesitates to leave a city soon to be destroyed. Some of the ideas surrounding this week’s text include the terms Faithfulness, Hospitality, and Angels.