It is a sunny day in Alaska, and it is time to return to what gives me light, studying scripture.  I am cataloging the imperatives in scripture, specifically the commands spoken by God.  Last time, Abram and Sarah learned to wait on God’s promises.  Let’s move onto the Isaac and Jacob stories.  In this latter part of Genesis, God talks less, but he certainly is active.

Gen 24:2 – “Put your hand under my thigh.”  Abraham commands his servant to take an oath that he will continue the family line by finding an appropriate wife for Isaac.

Gen 24:12 – Lit. “Make it happen before me-Please! and Do kindness.” Many translations have something like, “Give me success… show kindness”.  This prayer uses the imperative form but in an inviting or even pleading way.  The English translations make the servant sound like he is asking for success in his actions, but the more literal translation is a request that God would do stuff.

Gen 24:60 – “May you increase to thousands” in NIV is lit. “become thousands of ten thousands.”  The only verb is the imperative form of the “being” verb.  Rebekah’s family blesses her with the entreaty to multiply.

Gen 25:30-31 – Jacob and Esau are born and the treachery begins.  “Now feed me… Sell me your birthright.”  The word Esau uses for feed is more of a term for cattle.  Esau is so hungry he would eat like a beast.  Interestingly, this is the first recorded dialogue between the brothers.  Certainly, the boys talked before, but their first recorded words are words of power: feed me, sell to me.  Also, Esau says his imperative with an interjection grunt that means “Now please.”  Jacob straight up demands selling.

Gen 26:2-3 – “Do not go down… sojourn in this land.”  God speaks to Isaac and tells him how to thrive through the famine.  Egypt is off limits, but possessing the Promised Land is off limits too.  Isaac is forced to depend on the not so good graces of the inhabitants of Canaan.  The locals fluctuate from hot to cold as God grows Isaac’s wealth.

Gen 27:19 – “Get up… sit… eat of my game.”  The treachery is at a climax.  Jacob under a false name tells his ailing father what to do.

Gen 27: 29 – Isaac blesses, “Be master of your brothers”.  The trickster wins.

Gen 27:38 – “Bless me too, my father!”  It is interesting that the following blessing, which doesn’t sound nice, contains no imperatives.  Nothing is certain.  It is not as strong as Jacob’s blessing.

Gen 29:15 – “Tell me what your wages should be.”  Laban sounds so generous and accommodating.  How’d that work out?

Gen 30:1 – “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Jacob has a good answer for Rachel, “Am I in the place of God.”  Husbands are not God over their wives.

Gen 32:26 – God says, “Let me go.”  The whole Laban saga has no direct quotes from God.  God shows back up to wrestle Jacob before crossing into Esau’s territory.  God wounds Jacob’s hip and then commands to be let go.  Jacob disobeys.

Gen 32:29 – “Tell me your name, please.”  Jacob is changing.  He uses the article that makes his command more of a request, “Please tell me.”  He hardly uses that phrase in all of his other commands, but in his first conversation with God – after getting injured – he is starting to see his place.

Gen 35:1 – Lit. “Arise… go up… dwell… make an altar.”  God is directly commanding Jacob where to go and what to do.  Notice that God has changed the commands from Isaac to Jacob.  In 26:2-3 the command was to sojourn and wander in the land.  God has told Jacob to lay hold of it and make it holy.

Gen 35:2-3 – Jacob responds to this new command by telling his people, “Get rid of the foreign gods… purify yourselves… change your clothes… let us go.”  Jacob is the leader of his party.  The boss is saying God is changing things, so get ready.

Gen 35:11 – After Jacob gets to the land God restates an old command, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  These two verbs are from 1:28.

The rest of Genesis 35 wraps up the lineage of Jacob and Jacob begins being called Israel at 35:21.  After Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin the name Israel sticks with the narrator. The Isaac and Jacob sagas continue the commands of God.  God speaks less, but in some ways he does more.  I am curious.  Is God just more silent, or are no commands issued because they would have fallen on Jacob’s stubborn ears?  It takes many years before the father of Israel learns to say please.  Most importantly, God has issued the command for Jacob to dwell, not just wander around, the land.

I am sort of addicted to this.  I have been thinking all week about getting back to this geeky exploration of scripture.  In short, I am cataloging every imperative issued by God – and some special humans – in scripture.  Last week we looked at the big wild west beginning of Genesis 1-11.  Now let’s look at the Abraham saga.

Gen 12:1 – Lekh-Lekha is how God starts the journey with the children of Abraham.  The emphasis is on “leaving” and less on purposeful sending.  A Texas-ism would be “Git outta here!”

Gen 12:2 – “So that you will be a blessing” uses an imperative form for “be a blessing.”  All the other verbs have been about what God will do, “I will show you… I will make… I will bless.”  But, when it comes to Abraham’s future, God lays claim to that future with a command, “You will be a blessing.”

Gen 12:19 – Lit. “Behold!  Your wife, take and go.”  I won’t always look at commands coming from humans, but since Pharaoh was worshiped as god, I wanted to point this one out.  The first real royalty in scripture issues commands to cover up his disgrace and ignorance.  Also, Abram made a really strange call with the sister-wife thing.

Gen 13:14, 17 – “Lift up your eyes and look… Arise, walk.”  God commands Abram’s vision and then his legs.  God shows him how good it can be before telling him to walk a long way.

Gen 15:5, 9 – “Look toward heaven and number the stars… bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat…”  Last time God talked about the promise the commands were attainable. “Look at the land, walk around.”  Deities in the ancient world granted lands and kingdoms all the time.  But at this second declaration of God’s promise to Abram, God calls for the impossible.  Technically, in 2015 we haven’t counted all of the stars.  We use statistics.  With this impossibility comes a sacrifice.  This is Abram’s first recorded ritual.  It is when God does or foretells the impossible that Abram is told to begin religion and ritual.

Gen 16:6, 9 – Abram says, “Do to her as you please.”  What a callous man Abram has become.  He has lived years under a seemingly unmet promise.  Then when he finally finds some hope, his family falls apart.  After Hagar flees, the angel says to her, “Return to your mistress and submit.”  That sucks.  That word “submit” is the same word for “dealt harshly” in v6.  The angel has commanded Hagar to go back and potentially experience the same thing.  She is the first suffering servant.  But notice, God restored relationship.  He commanded the family be put back together.

Gen 17:1 – “Walk before me and be blameless.”  This is a huge shift in Abram’s – now Abraham – and God’s relationship.  It all began with the same verb for walk/go in Gen 12:1, but now things have escalated to “before me” and the added command “be blameless.”  There are a lot of “commands” in the rest of chapter seventeen, but none of them are true imperative forms.  Being blameless sort of covers everything else.

Gen 19:5 – “Bring them out so we may rape them.”  I chose the verb rape.  It is “know them” in the biblical sense.  This is a scary weird passage, and it is God’s second biggest destruction time.  Bad choice Sodom guys, bad choice.  Be hospitable and not rapists.

Gen 19:12, 15, 17, 22 – These imperatives don’t come directly from God but the angel/messengers who are about to blow everything up.  “Bring them out… Up! Take your wife and your two daughters… Escape for your life. Escape to the mountains… Be quick! Escape.”  All good advice.  They have to command Lot four times to get out of Dodge.

Gen 21:12 – “Whatever Sarah says to do, do as she tells you” is in the ESV, but more literally, “Listen to Sarah.”  Sarah is right about the promise.  Listen to her.

Gen 21:18 – “Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand…”  Hagar was so distressed she was abandoning her son.  God intervened and told her to get back to raising.

Gen 22:2 – “Take your son… go… offer him as a burnt offering.”  These commands seem counterproductive to creating a great nation.  God’s first command for Abram to exit his homeland was hard but people migrated a lot. This command just seems foolish and mean.  Abraham is called the father of faith.

Gen 23:4 – “Give me property among you for a burying place.”  This is a big shift for Abraham and his way of life.  He has been living as a wandering herdsman.  Now he owns land.  Just like last post, this command “give” is more of an invitation.  The negotiations on the land have all the pleasantries of ancient bartering.  But, this is the first time that God’s promise of the land contacts the reality that people are already living their and own it.

Abram to Abraham.  Hagar to Isaac.  God’s commands in these stories focused on moving people around.  “Go here… Run there.”  In our current day of massive displacement, refugees, and immigration, it is comforting to know that is how God began his people, Lekh-lekha.

I’ve had a plan for a while.  I want to catologue all of the commands in scripture.  Just the commands.  For simplicity sake I am only going to look at imperative forms of verbs.  Let’s see what happens.

Gen 1:22 – “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill…”  The first command is to the swarming and flying stuff.  Last time I played golf after a rainstorm, the mosquitoes were still obeying.

Gen 1:26 – “Be fruitful, multiply, fill… subdue, and rule”  Same commands as before plus two.  Humanity gets the words cabash and radah (don’t mock the transliteration, this is a hobby).  Remember, in the ancient world there was always a chance that the wild things would eat you.  So far humanity has not been overcome by the other living creatures.  Although, the plague came really close.

Gen 4:23 – “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say…”  I won’t always point out imperatives coming from humans, but Lamech is a jerk.  He is the first human to order people around.  Essentially, “Hey wives, shut up and listen.  I kill who I want and take vengeance on who I want.  I am not to be messed with.”  Don’t leave your babies with Lamech.

Gen 6:21 – “Take with you every sort of food that is eaten.”  This is the first super-imperative.  See an imperative doesn’t need a pronoun.  If you look at kid on the sidewalk and say, “Come here”, it means the same thing as pointing at them and saying, “You, come here.”  The difference is emphasis.  A more literal translation is “You there! You take with you…”  God is telling Noah that it is really really important that he gather these food animals.  I wonder why?

Gen 7:1 – “Go into the ark.”  That’s a good command to follow.

Gen 8:16 – “Go out from the ark.”  Also a good command to follow.

Gen 9:1 – “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth…” Subdue and rule are missing, but v2 description of everything being scared of humans sort of implies it.  Still, something changed between Gen 1:26 and 9:1.  Oh yeah, God killed all the stuff because of human wickedness.  I guess fear is appropriate.

Gen 9:7 – “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth…” Same phrase as before.  The ESV I have feels like you need a note saying “you is plural”.  So was 9:1.  What’s going on is now that the human race has a reboot, God makes sure to be more direct (way more clear than sin crouching at doors with Cain in Gen 4).  In vv4-6, God sort of puts the fear of God into Noah and crew when it comes to murder.  Essentially, “People killing people is really bad, but don’t stop making more people.”

Gen 11:3, 4, 7 – I had never read these with this filter of who is issuing commands, but it is funny laid out like this:

“Come, let us make bricks” v3

“Come, let us build a city” v4

“Come, let us go down there and confuse their language” v7

God. Is. Boss.

On the grammar side of things, these aren’t true imperatives.  It is more of an invitation.  “Come with us” vs. “Hey!  Come with us.”

So there you have it.  All the commands in Genesis 1-11.  This is the wild west of the bible when God does whatever God wants and humans think they can too.  What really sticks out to me is that every time a human starts using imperatives, “Do what I say”, things end up badly.  God’s commands are creative and life saving.

I like biblical studies.  I like Greek and Hebrew words.  But, that stuff is worthless if it doesn’t translate to changing lives.  So, from time to time I hope to help us all digest a challenging passage of scripture.  I may digress into word studies, but my goal will always be to bring it around to a big picture application.  So what passage will I digest first?  1 Corinthians 8:1-13. (I won’t post the whole passage when I do stuff like this. I suggest looking it up on biblehub.com)

“But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do” 1 Corinthians 8:8.

Sounds like, “Eat whatever you want.”  Christianity can be seen through a very libertine lens.  God gives us grace.  Therefore, do whatever you want.  We know we are supposed to avoid sin, but for the “no better if we do” things it is up to our discretion.  Right?  Should I eat Mexican food or BBQ?  That’s for me to decide.  Sometimes 1 Corinthians 8 is used on a corporate level.  Should we have contemporary music or hymns?  At least, that is how I have heard this passage used.  Often, this passage is used to talk about alcohol.  So, how can this passage mean something to us today?

First, I want to clarify what is going on before we start applying this passage.  Let’s identify the characters:

People with “rights” (v9). I will call them “Strong” = People that know idols are junk because there is only one God (v6-7a)

“Weak” people (v9) = People that have a lower developed conscience and have a history with idols (v7)

Both of these parties are likely not very Jewish.  In the early church, Jewish Christians were still freaked out about hanging out with Gentiles (Acts 15).  You could probably forget about un-kosher food left over from a pagan temple.  Plus, Corinth was a Gentile hub, not a Jewish (this is only important in that it helps us understand why Paul doesn’t go off into a Law vs. Spirit throw down like in Galatians).

Since it is highly unlikely that Paul is answering questions raised by a Jewish party, we can imagine the conversation going like this.

Setting: Corinthian house church meeting.  Center-stage is the table for the communal meal centering on the Lord’s Supper.

Strong Person (the host): I want to eat some meat.  Gnom, gnom, gnom.

Weak Person: Gasp.  That meat was sacrificed to idols!

Strong Person: So, what?  Idols aren’t anything.  And besides, these are just the leftovers sold in the market.

Weak Person: But, it seems wrong to me.  God doesn’t want people worshiping idols.

Strong Person: This is a snack, not worship.

Weak Person: (whispering to friends) I don’t know if we should meet here again next week.

Do you notice how the labels play out?  The person who is acting morally superior is labelled weak.  They don’t sound weak.  The labels should provide a tone and attitude to Paul’s caution against causing a brother or sister to be “destroyed by your knowledge” (v11).  Instead of being aggressive, someone labelled weak should be conciliatory.

Strong Person: So, what?  Idols aren’t anything.

Weak Person: But, it seems wrong to me.  And you may be right, but it just weirds me out.  One day I may think like you, but can you help me by not eating idol meat at the Lord’s Supper?

Strong Person: I’m sorry.  Sure I will stop.  My freedom is less important than us getting to fellowship together.  But, I hope one day you will feel free like me.

Now our weak person is acting weak, and our strong person is acting out of servant leadership.  The strong person gives up his freedom.  The goal is to preserve fellowship.  Now, think about times in your life where someone has made a request for you to constrain your behaviors or you have attempted to constrain others.  For example, “Don’t watch shows like that”, “Please turn that music off while I’m around”, “Don’t dress that way in church”, “I can’t be around alcohol”.

First, clearly establish if there is sin at hand.  If someone is asking you, “Please don’t murder while I am around” you aren’t dealing with 1 Corinthians 8.

Second, evaluate the attitude and tone of the request.  Is the weak person acknowledging weakness?  Is the strong person emulating Christ’s strength?  How can both parties acknowledge their roles?

Third, preserve fellowship.  This is why Paul says we “sin against Christ” (v12).  In Corinth, the church was becoming fractured over this idol food stuff.  Freedom is not the most important thing in the church.  Fellowship and unity is a big deal (John 17:21).  Libertinism is not what Jesus modeled (Phil 2:5-11).

You may have a big question now, “What if in step two, the weak person thinks they are the strong or vice versa?”  This is usually where this passage gets muddled.  Someone champions 1 Corinthians 8 to say, “Everyone should be cool with me drinking alcohol” or “Good Christians just don’t do things like that.”

This passage only directly applies to a time when someone needs an extra moral layer that is not a sin one way or another.  If this “weak” person is boastful about getting their way or the “strong” person is bemoaning “silly rules”, then you may as well throw out the whole passage.  Everyone needs to go read Philippians 2:1-11 until your eyes fall out.