Seventh Question...

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I like the Weekending page on this one. It's by Ruth Bell Graham. REALIZE Three steps to sin: 1. Contemplation 2. Rationalization 3. Consent PS-Sin always affects others.

Onto the next question...and this one is a little tricky. Genesis 18 There is an account of the Lord appearing to Abraham. It implies that one of the three men that came to visit Abraham was, in fact, the Lord. Now, since Jesus had yet to be born, I can only assume that the Lord they speak of is God. So, keeping that in mind, later in this passage Abraham is speaking to the Lord about Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord is relaying all the sins of these people and Abraham says to the Lord..."Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" This was after the Lord said he would destroy these places. So, was this God he was standing there talking to or not?

-- jackiea (jackiea@hotmail.com), May 08, 2000

Answers

Dear Jackie: --It certainly was. A wonderful irony in this book is the fact God allowed Abraham to speak to Him on even terms. He was clearly very fond of Abraham. Maybe because the Patriarch had consented to sacrifice his only son to the Lord, no questions asked.

-- Eugene Chavez (rechavez@popmail.ucsd.edu), May 08, 2000.

Some believe that two angels and one of the Persons of the Trinity, having taken on the appearance of men, appeared to Abraham (Genesis 18). Others believe that the three "men" who appeared were the Persons of the Holy Trinity. There is even a famous old Trinity icon that shows the three (looking like identical triplets) sitting to partake of the food Abraham served them. [You can see it here. (http://www.heavenlyvisions.com/trinity.htm)]

You may ask, "Why are they pictured with wings, as though angels?" I imagine that the concept comes from the mysterious flow of words in chapters 18 and 19. Here is what the author of Genesis says:
18:1 ... the Lord appeared
18:2 ... three men ...
18:3 ... "My lord" ... [not "lords" JG]
18:5 ... So they said ...
18:8 ... he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
18:9 ... They said to him ...
18:10 ... The Lord said ...
18:13 ... The Lord said ...
18:16 ... Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom ...
18:22 ... So the men [two of them? JG] turned from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord ...
18:33 ... And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham ...
19:1 [the verse after 18:33] ... The two angels came to Sodom in the evening ...
19:15 ... the angels urged Lot ...
19:16 ... the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand ...
19:18 ... and Lot said to them ...
19:21 ... He said to [Lot] ...

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), May 10, 2000.

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