Because the Lord has so richly blessed Abram and Lot they
are forced to separate from one another.
Their riches are so great that their herdsmen are arguing with one
another, they are competing for scarce resources. Abram is an incredibly generous man, offering
his nephew choice of where he would prefer to be and willing to take whatever
is left. Lot chooses by what he sees,
fertile land well-watered, and goes in that direction. He is also enticed by the cities he sees,
notably Sodom and pitches his tents, makes his dwelling near this city. The Lord shows Abram all the land his
descendants will be given and the promise of countless descendants is
made. Abram simply trusted the Lord with
all things.
Jesus is coming from a non-Jewish region and is near the Sea
of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis, a Gentile area that most Jews
avoided. The region of the Decapolis was
where the man with the legion of demons was located. They bring to Him a deaf man with a speech
impediment. Jesus took him away
privately and did some interesting things, put his fingers in the man's ears, spat,
touched the man's tongue, sighed and prayed specifically in command form. The healing was complete at once. Again, as typically we are told in Mark's
Gospel, Jesus instructed people to keep quiet about this healing and, just as
typically, no one paid any attention to His command. He indeed did all things well, He still does.
As Jesus has gone to the Gentiles in the Decapolis, so does
Paul spread the Gospel among Gentiles.
He did, however, go up to Jerusalem to check in and share his message
with the leadership of the church, the apostles, to make sure he wasn't sharing
a false Gospel. He doesn't bow the knee
to anyone but it was important that his Gospel was not leading anyone astray. Some have come into the church in Galatia as
well as other places Paul has worked to establish churches and have attempted
to compel the converts to be circumcised, just to make sure they are in the
covenant. Paul says that even in
Jerusalem, even before the apostles, the recognized pillars of the church, no
one compelled Titus to be circumcised.
If that were required it would surely have been enforced by the apostles
and clearly the question came up while they were there. This issue was settled, or should have been,
back in the counsel in Acts 15. At the
time of the covenant promises in our first reading was Abram circumcised? Let's not add anything to the responsibilities
of a convert to the faith, whatever that might be.
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