Lot has moved from outside Sodom to dwelling in the city
itself. Apparently he was now wealthy
enough that he no longer needed to be with his flocks and herds. We have already been told of the wickedness
of Sodom so why has he moved into the city?
In verse 13 we get a strange phrase, Abram the Hebrew, which means
something like “other side.” Abram
doesn’t live inside the places where conflict is occurring, he lives on the
other side. He leads out his “trained
men” to rescue Lot, these trained men would have been a private army of sorts,
probably providing security for the nomadic family and their flocks and
herds. Here we meet the mysterious
Melchizedek who receives tribute from Abram for what reasons we do not
know. The king of Sodom assumes that
Abram has done this for spoil but Abram wants nothing of Sodom’s wealth and
filthy lucre. He owes that wicked place
nothing at all and nothing he has gained came from such a place.
It doesn’t seem the royal official lacked faith in
Jesus. He sought Him out and implored
Him to come heal his son who was at the point of death. Jesus accepts the man’s faith and then calls
him to even greater faith by sending him away without accompanying him. The official goes at Jesus’ command in faith
that this will work. His faith is rewarded
in the healing of his son. To whom then
does Jesus address His remarks about signs and wonders? It would seem that this comment was aimed at
the Jewish people who were there and in this particular way of healing they see
something else about Jesus, that He is not like a wonder worker, He need not be
present for healing to occur. His powers
are not limited by geography. Faith is
rewarded.
Jesus is a better high priest because he ministers not in a
copy of the heavenly place here on earth but in the heavenly place itself. There is a Platonic ideal concept in this
passage that tells us that the writer must have been stepped in Greek
philosophical thinking and must have assumed that his readers were as
well. In the new covenant, made possible
by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the law is no longer external to God’s
people. We have been given new hearts
and the law is written there. He has put within us the desire to do as He
wills. As we are beneficiaries of a
better covenant, shouldn’t we be better people, people of greater faith, people
who are heavenly minded? Like Abram, we
are dependent not on the world but on God alone. Like the royal official we are to walk in
faith and not by sight. Jesus is greater
than anything else we could hope for or imagine, He is able to work across
space and time in our lives today.
In every condition, in
sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.
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