Day 18 – Abraham & Lot

• The story of Abraham continues today, and opens with a problem he has to deal with, in regards to his nephew Lot. What was the conflict that Abraham and Lot had?
• Abraham knew where God had told him to go. With that in mind, why do you think he let Lot choose where he wanted to go first? When you have a fight with a brother or sister about some possession, when was the last time you offered to let them have first choice?
• Was Lot’s choice a wise one? Perhaps you could think of reasons why and why not.
• Abraham saw that Lot had taken the path to the fertile lands, but Lot was also walking towards the decidedly sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. We’ll read about these sinful cities and their punishment a little later in Genesis. Yesterday we saw Abraham making some poor choices and not trusting God completely. What about today? Think about God’s words in verses 14-17. Are they words of approval?
• The second reading today is in the book of Nehemiah. He was an instrumental figure in the history of the Jewish nation and we’ll think about him more much later in the year. For now, how does Nehemiah describe Abraham? More importantly, how does he describe God?
• The book of Acts is wonderful, and we’ll be reading it in depth towards the end of this reading plan. It describes the time after Jesus returned to Heaven and how the Christian church started to spread throughout the world. In today’s passage in Acts we read about a man called Stephen. He’s talking to all the high priests about who Jesus was, and how the Old Testament pointed to him. In verses 7:2-5 he’s specifically talking about Abraham. He reminds them (and us!) that Abraham had to have immense faith. He was about 80-90 years old, he had no children, his wife was way past the age most women are able to give birth, and God is saying that he is going to be the father of a great nation!
• Abraham himself wouldn’t lead his family into the promised land. That will happen many, many years later. If you know your Bible, you may already know who does. A bonus chocolate bar at Eureka next Friday to the first person who can name him in on the WhatsApp chat! Abraham had to show patience as God chose, in His good time, when to act. Have you ever had to show real patience, or wait a long time for something to happen? How did you keep going?
• This isn’t, by the way, the last we hear of Lot. We’ll read about him again tomorrow, and find out what happens to him next week. Be warned though… it’s a bit grim.

I expect your notes take some time to write up, and as such you might want to end today’s readings and notes at this point. That’s fine if so. If you fancy, however, it’s well worth reading the rest of the summary of the Jewish history as told by Stephen in Acts 7. Stephen gives a superb explanation of the story that we’re going to be reading about this in more detail over the next few months.