Lot has Been Kidnapped by Canaanites!

Short hiatus due to oversleeping, homework, and general laziness. But we're back! Friday's usually NT day, but I'm gonna stick with Genesis for today just because.



[Genesis 14: 1-12]
A big long list of countries goes to war with each other and ends up capturing Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot had unfortunately decided to camp out. Oddly enough this isn't even the real reason that Lot picked a stupid place.

[Genesis 14: 13-14]
One of Lot's buddies escapes and goes to tell Abram that Lot got himself kidnapped. Abram goes into hardcore favorite uncle mode and suits up a private militia that he apparently keeps on hand at all times and trained them himself from people born in his camp. I always forget exactly how rich Abram had to have been from the Bible description and from the fact that he has a private security force with him. We like our Bible characters poor so that people with lots of money will feel bad and give it to our cause, so you don't hear Abram's wealth mentioned much.
It's also notable that Abram kept some muscle with him even though God promised protection. More than once when expressing my desire to get a concealed handgun license I've been chided for a lack of faith because the person in question "trusted God to protect them." I find this argument absurd, because I know for a fact that anyone who tells you this probably wears a seat belt and looks both ways before crossing the street. There is a dangerous, unbiblical mindset (moreso in Charismatic circles) that faith can be measured by lack of precaution and reckless behavior. This is where you get people not protecting themselves as faith in God's protection, or not preparing for their sermons as faith in God's inspiration, or not practicing decent hygiene or medicinal habits as faith in God's healing. You see it the most in the medical sense, where taking medicine or getting a flu shot is offensive to Christians who have deluded themselves into thinking that God's protection means that you don't have to take care of yourself.
Abram kept a small military force with him because he's a rich guy wandering around foreign countries and knows he's going to get jumped a time or two. This did not violate God's promise because we are expected to handle ourselves as best we can. It paid off in this respect because now he's able to go on a rescue mission and get Lot back. If he had disbanded all his security because "Well, God said I'd be successful" he probably would have not lived this long anyway and definitely would have been able to save Lot. Reckless stupidity disguised as faith can get people killed.

[Genesis 15: 16-17]
Abram wins. 'Cause Abram's a bad enough dude to rescue Lot.

[Genesis 15:18-24]
There's a casual mention here of Melchizedek, a priest to whom Abram paid a tithe of all of his earnings. Typically when God makes a covenant with man, there's a priest who mediates. There wasn't a lot of information on the period from Adam to Abram, but you could see God Himself as the priest of that time; during most of the Old Testament the Levites take the job of priest; nowadays we're back to God Himself (Jesus specifically) as the high priest with all of us being lower-ranking priests, mediating our own relationship with God. Melchizedek was the priest over God's covenant with Abram, and we don't know a lot about him. Some think he was a king of a literal Salem (though there's little to no historical evidence of this,) and some think he was a manifestation of Jesus Himself (I lean towards that interpretation, but I'm not sure.)
Regardless, Abram gave him a tenth of the spoils from the battle. There are always those who say that tithing is unbiblical because we are not under the law anymore, but here we see Abram tithing before the Levitical law came into existence. While it may not necessarily be a hard and fast "exactly ten percent or I curse your income" law like it was during the old covenant, the practice of tithing and the principle behind it are still alive and well. The tithe exists as a sign that God is first. Nothing cuts to your mind and heart quicker than money, so making sure God gets the first portion of your income keeps you in a position of acknowledging God first, and remaining aware and thankful that it all comes from Him anyway.
Also, the king of Sodom tried to thank Abram by giving him all of the spoils from the war, but Abram refused and only took enough to feed his people. His logic for this was that he didn't want the king of Sodom to get the glory of making Abram rich. The text hasn't really gotten into it yet, but Sodom was about as about as wretched a hive of scum of villainy as you could get. To have his name and wealth forever associated with the king of such an evil place would have put a sour taste to his legacy forever. Sometimes your integrity is worth taking a convenience or financial handicap.