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Here is a draft of a message on Mark 9:2-9:

NRSV Mk. 9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Surfing is a sport that confounds popular wisdom. Most outsiders can marvel at the beauty of the ocean and the obvious joy that riding waves brings to the sport’s enthusiasts. But to most outsiders surfing seems inherently too dangerous. The most common question asked of surfers: Aren’t you afraid of getting attacked by a shark? Most surfers laugh at this question. Of course no surfer desires to experience a shark bite. Most surfers would prefer to not even see a shark! But the bottom line is this: surfers don’t worry about sharks because they are in the water to ride waves. If you interview a few surfers, you discover the secret of these aquatic daredevils. They will confess that catching their first wave served as a life-changing event. The moment that they caught their first wave they were forever transformed. When a surfer catches a wave, she has a mystical experience in which she becomes one with the ocean. The board lifts up, the wind rushes through the ears, time stands still, and the surfer feels as though she is flying. This initial experience keeps every surfer coming back to the beach for more.

Our biblical text describes a life changing, paradigm shifting, high altitude encounter with the divine that forever shaped Jesus’ disciples into world changers. Mark 9:2-9 narrates a glimpse into the future resurrection of Jesus. Christ followers remember this moment as Transfiguration Sunday.

Our text follows on the heels of Jesus’ sublime conversation with his disciples at Caesaria Philippi. For the first time, the disciples openly started to grasp the identity of Jesus. Moreover, Jesus began to teach them about the necessity of his death and resurrection for God’s mission to bring wholeness and salvation to humanity. Jesus ups the stakes of discipleship by declaring that only those who embrace a life of unbridled commitment to God may be reckoned as his true followers. This commitment involves a willingness to risk even life itself for the sake of the Gospel. The good news about Jesus centers on his death on the cross. In fact, Jesus cannot be understood apart from his crucifixion, but neither can discipleship. Following Jesus is thus fundamentally a call to die to self and embrace a sacrificial existence so that God can deploy us in the world for the sake of his mission.

High Altitude Encounters are Purposeful
Since the Gospel is clearly not for the faint of heart or for the lukewarm, Jesus offers his disciples a glimpse into the full truth of his identity by inviting a representative group to accompany him up to the top of a high mountain. He selects Peter, James and John. These men were the leaders among Jesus’ earliest band of followers.

Jesus takes them to the top of a mountain because for the ancients mountains represented the abode of the divine. The gods and goddesses of old inhabited holy or cosmic mountains. Moreover as the God of the Scriptures began to reveal himself to God’s people in Israel’s scriptures many significant encounters occurred on mountains. Abraham had taken Isaac to the top of mount Moriah in anticipation of sacrificing him. Moses received the Ten Commandments and many of the laws of the Torah at mount Sinai. Elijah returned there centuries later to find rejuvenated faith. Mountains were places of revelation and commissioning for God’s service.

Once Jesus, Peter, James, and John reach the pinnacle of the mountain something astonishing happens. Before their eyes, Jesus shifts in appearance from an earthly one to a heavenly one. Jesus glistens with a supernatural glow. Our text is unable to describe it with human language, but it is obvious to the disciples that they are in the presence of someone who is no mere man. Moreover, they also discover that they are no longer alone with Jesus. Moses and Elijah are conversing with him. These are two towering figures of the Old Testament Scriptures. Moses was the mediator through whom God revealed the Torah for God’s people; Elijah was greatest of the prophets.

The disciples are dumbfounded and scared by the experience. But it is not over. There is one more addition to the gathering on the mountaintop. Suddenly a cloud envelopes them and they hear a voice, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” Though unstated, this is the distinct voice of God. The words here echo the words spoken by God at the baptism of Jesus. God’s affirmation about Jesus alludes to Old Testament Scripture and declares the true nature of Jesus’ identity. This affirmation by God informs the disciples that Jesus is indeed God’s agent to make manifest the Kingdom of God on earth. As son, Jesus is the long-awaited, heaven sent, and spirit empowered figure to declare God’s salvation to the world.

Reflect for a few moments on the multi-sensory experience of the transfiguration. The disciples saw the transformation of Jesus, the appearance of Elijah and Moses, and the arrival of the cloud. They felt the change in temperature and probably the mist present when the cloud enveloped them. And they heard the voices of Moses, Elijah, and of God himself. The experience at the top of the mountain was indeed a high-altitude encounter with the divine. But there is more!

Notice what is added to God’s words that were not present at Jesus’ baptism. God adds an exhortation: Listen to him! If we miss the significance of the exhortation, we will misunderstand the Transfiguration. The experience of the disciples is revelatory about Jesus but more importantly it is prescriptive for their lives. The defining moment of the Transfiguration is found in God’s call to obedience. The true meaning of Jesus is to move beyond recognizing his identity and to realign our lives around his words and life. Every experience that we have with God is a reminder of the necessity of a moment-by-moment walk with Jesus as we follow him into the world on mission.

Don’t Chase Religious Experiences as Ends of Themselves
The response of Peter to the Transfiguration is humorous. Peter suggests that he build shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But Peter and disciples learned a valuable lesson. The experience ends as quickly as it began. There was to be no lingering on the mountain. Jesus leads them back down the hill and back into the real world in which he begins his journey to Jerusalem and the cross.

This move from the mountain top back into the valleys of life is a crucial lesson for us. Too often we face the temptation of trying to re-experience past encounters with God by returning to past places or practices. Or our highest vision for a life with God is one in which we pursue one religious experience after another as ends in themselves. Jesus ordered his disciples to remain quiet about what they experienced until after his resurrection. There was work to do and a mission to fulfill.

The lesson is clear. Every new experience of God’s grace is a propellant for our going into the world to share the good news. When we are blessed with a time on the mountain top, let us hasten back into the valleys of life to bring a hopeful message to those who are hurting and desperate to hear a voice of hope.

Mountain Top Experiences Prepare Us for the Future
Jesus’ first disciples had a mission to fulfill; so do we. It is a high calling. Ultimately Jesus is not calling us merely to work to make a difference in the world. The call of Jesus is more radical. Jesus is calling us to give ourselves fully to God’s mission of making a different world.

Surfers keep going back into the water because they can remember their first wave. That memory drives them back into the oceans of the world despite the dangers implicit in surfing: sharks, undertow, powerful waves and the like. It is no coincidence that the Transfiguration marks a milestone in the Gospel of Jesus. When the disciples faced the adversity and dangers of living as Jesus’ people in the world, they could look back on defining mountain top experiences to find strength, courage and purpose for the future that God invited them to shape. Our own experiences of God serve in the same way. We can live courageously in the present based on our past mountain top experiences in anticipation of the good future that God promises.

How is God calling you to engage the world outside the walls of this place in the community where you live? It is in your daily life that you will see the fruit of any high altitude encounter with God that you may have. This is the Jesus way.

What do you think?

Israel continues to exist as God’s people only as a result of God’s gracious saving actions in the deliverance from Egypt. The story of God’s people is rooted in grace. Israel’s life before God is one of response to grace. This is the heart of covenant. God reaches out and offers Israel a special relationship. The Creator God who delivered Israel from Egypt now invites God’s people to discover the purpose of their deliverance. Israel’s response to God’s grace may be summarized by the phrase faithful obedience. Through faithful obedience, God’s people begin to embody an ethos that reflects God’s character before the watching world. The call of God on his redeemed people is a call to holiness, but it is a holiness in the service of mission. The Sinai Covenant serves as a testament to God’s people of the centrality of mission, holiness, and community. The Sinai Covenant instructs and shapes God’s people into a missional community that reflects God’s character to/for/in the world.

The Sinai is the third explicit covenant in the Pentateuch. Several scholars, Frank Moore Cross and his student S. Dean McBride, Jr., have observed that five explicit covenants (Noah, Abraham, Sinai, Phinehus, and Moab) are embedded within the Pentateuch, which give these books an even greater interconnectedness. These five covenants form a chiastic structure with the Sinai covenant at the center:

A Noahic Covenant (Gen 9:9-17)

B Covenant Grant to Abraham (Gen 17:1-14, cf. Gen 15:1-21)

C Sinai Covenant (Exod 19:1-Num 10:10, esp. Exod 19:1-34:28)

B’ Covenant Grant to Phinehas (Num 25:11-13) – Ps 106:30-31

A’ Covenant in Moab (Deuteronomy, esp. 29:1-32:47)

The outer bracket (A and A’) focuses on the issue of stability. The Noahic covenant is with all living things and guarantees the stability of the heavens and earth. The covenant in Moab is made between God and Israel and serves to sustain Israel’s life in the land without Moses through the presence of God in the Torah. The inner bracket (B and B’) focuses on issues of land and priesthood. God’s land grant to Abraham guarantees Israel land whereas God’s grant to Phinehas (the savior of Israel at Baal-Peor) provides for a perpetual priesthood for Israel’s life in the land. The Pentateuch then centers on the Sinai pericope which focuses on Covenant and the institution of the proper worship of God.

Covenant is the rubric used by God to communicate his vision for God’s people’s life and work in the world. The idea of covenant is not unique to Israel. It is drawn from the wider Near Eastern culture of the day. The use of covenant is another example of the way that God incarnates himself into the culture as a means of communicating to humanity and redeeming discrete human cultures. God borrows an element common to a culture and uses it as a platform for communicating the divine will for humanity. Covenant teaches God’s people the true nature of reality—in particular the transcendence of God and the high value and worth of all human beings including women and other persons whom cultures tend to marginalize. At the center of the covenant’s portrait of God stands God’s holiness. The covenants also reveal God’s desire for men and women to live in an exclusive relationship with God rooted in trust and faithful obedience. God is holy and desires his people to likewise reflect his character in their corporate life together and in their engagement with the nations.

In particular the Sinai covenant and its recapitulation on the Plains of Moab in Deuteronomy offer God’s people a polity for shaping life according to God’s will. In Genesis 12:3, God called Abram to lead a family that existed as agents of blessing for the nations. The Torah as a whole details what this looks life. It is crucial to read the various laws, lore, and instructions for worship within the missiological framework provided in Genesis. The goal of the Sinai Covenant is not obedience, but the creation of a missional community that would reflect God’s character in the world, to the world, and for the world.

© 2011 Brian D. Russell

This week I will be teaching a course in tandem with this year’s Kingdom Encounter at Asbury Theological Seminary. Alan and Deb Hirsch are the featured speakers.

COURSE DESCRIPTION/GOALS
This course is being offered in tandem with Kingdom Encounter 2011 featuring Alan and Debra Hirsch. This course will explore the role of biblical interpretation within the missional church movement. Using the writings and teaching of Alan Hirsch as a representative of the missional church, students will reflect critically and theologically on a missional approach to the Bible. Focus will be on empowering participants to contextualize the Scriptures for the proclamation of the Gospel to the world and the renewal of the Church with special attention to the student’s ministry context.

STUDENT COMPETENCIES
Having successfully completed this course, participants should be able to:
• Articulate the significance of context (social-location), and especially the missional, theological and ecclesial contexts, for engagement in biblical interpretation;
• Dialogue critically with the writings and ideas of Alan and Debra Hirsch as representative of the broader Missional Church movement;
• Assess critically the role that the Bible serves in the missional church;
• Reflect critically and practically on the promise and prospects of a missional hermeneutic
for proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st century; and
• Understand key issues in communicating the message of the Scripture in pre-Christian or
post-Christian contexts.

I am requiring the following texts:

Let me know if you have questions.

Here is a draft of a brief message on 1 Thes 5:1-11:
1 Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

What is the difference between good teams and great teams? The best teams know the winning formula. In soccer, Manchester United is world renowned for coming up with huge goals late in games when lesser sides would have folded and accepted defeat. In the NFL, the New England Patriots have demonstrated consistently for more than a decade the ability to win the biggest games often by the slimmest of margins. In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers led by superstar Kobe Bryant have won championship after championship. All of these teams across the sports spectrum share a key trait that undergirds their success: they all expect to win. They play confidently. They know that they will experience challenges and adversity, but they face such times with the assumption that they will prevail. Basketball legend and six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan has said, “I felt that I had that winner mentality instilled in me….”

The key to courageous living for Christ is cultivating a deep-seated confidence that in the end love wins. God’s mission to establish his eternal reign of healing, hope, reconciliation, justice, and mercy is a done deal. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has secured the future for good. But hardships and tribulations remain for the present. Paul’s message today is simple. We are destined to win. We need to believe this. We need to embrace this. We need to live this out before a watching world.

In our Scripture lesson, Paul moves to wrap up his First Letter to the Thessalonians by affirming our hope in Jesus Christ. Paul writes to remind the earliest Christians in Thessalonica that the future is securely in God’s hands. This truth is the grounding for living fully for God in our daily lives.

The future is absolutely secure. God will bring human history to a decisive and just end. The biblical promises and metaphors of an eternal era of peace and righteousness will come to fruition. God’s victory through Jesus’ death and resurrection has paved the way for the future of God’s dreams. Paul’s teaching in our Scripture lesson assumes this.

Perhaps surprisingly Paul opens his exhortations with a stern warning against the temptation to focus on trying to figure the time and season of God’s climactic actions. History has proven Paul’s words to be necessary and applicable throughout the ages. The security of the future is good news. But knowing the day and hour is unnecessary and irrelevant. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said, “But about that day and hour no one knows neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (24:36). Yet rather than reflecting deep on the security of knowing that the God’s ultimate victory is a done deal, many focus instead on trying to figure out when the end will occur. The obsession with figuring out the times and seasons leads to disappointment when human predictions prove wrong and loss of focus on doings God’s work in the world today. It is enough for us as followers of Christ to know that human history is moving toward a remarkably good and just future.

So what is the purpose of Paul’s focus on the coming of Jesus at the end of days? Paul desires for us to live profound and courageous lives as his people before a watching world. The message of our secure future is meant for encouraging and building us up so that we can serve as vital witnesses to the power of the Gospel in the presnt. To this end he gives a two-fold positive exhortation.

First, in light of our secure future, Paul says, “Be ready.” Rather than working to figure out when the end will arrive, Paul suggests a different approach. We are to live each day with the assumption that Christ may come. How would our lives be different if we truly thought that today might be the last day of the present age? How would our priorities be different? How would we spend our resources? How would we divide up our time? Paul declares that our lives must be lived with a sense of urgency. Now is not the time for complacency or resting on our laurels. The Gospel is humanity’s only true hope. Each of us has a role to play in advancing God’s mission of extending his blessing, grace, and mercy to all. To be ready is to live each day with no regrets because we gave our all for the sake of the Gospel. Paul uses the metaphors of light/darkness and sobriety/drunkenness to capture the mood.

Second, Paul says, “Live well.” This is not a prosperity message. Paul is not calling us to affluence and security in the present. Paul is calling us to a life lived well for the sake of the Gospel. We are children of the day. Therefore Paul deploys the familiar triad of faith, love, and hope. In verse 8, Paul describes these as armor. Paul is under no illusion that the Christian life is easy. Yes, our future is absolutely secure¬—Jesus died for us so that we may abide with him now and forever. But we will continue to face hardships, persecution, and challenges. Such times serve as opportunities for offering a profound witness for the Gospel. We are not to shrink back in fear but to shine like stars on a dark night (Phil 2:15).

No matter the score, by the end of the fourth quarter, God’s love will prevail. This is the hope that Paul announces. Now is no time for clock watching or for computing how much time is left. Rather we are to be ready daily and live fully for God’s mission in our day. Let us live courageously by faith, be known to the world by love, and serve tangibly as voices of hope to others who desperately need what only the Gospel can provide. Amen.

Here is a draft of some reflections on Philippians 2:1-13

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Ours is an age of self-promotion and radical individualism. Emerging generations have been tuned to assume the rightness of personal expression and autonomy. Focus on self in all of its glory is the expected norm of our culture. Yet none of this is new. Deep within us is a desire to control, to exert our own will, and to exalt ourselves over others. Some of us may be overt in expressing this; others may be more subtle or even passive-aggressive. But it is present nonetheless. In his devotional My Utmost for His Highest Oswald Chambers sublimely defines the nature of sin as “my claim to my right to myself.”

The apostle Paul is writing to encourage the Christ followers in Philippi to live lives worthy of the Gospel as citizens of heaven (1:27; 3:20). In our Scripture lesson, Paul opens with a series of “if” statements to capture the imagination of his hearers and to remind them of the tangible benefits of following the way of Jesus. Paul assumes that the Philippians have indeed experienced encouragement, consolation, sharing in the Spirit, compassion, and sympathy. He lists these out as a means of exhorting the Philippians to aspire for a higher life, but profoundly the way to a higher life is intimately tied to turning away from our own desires for status in favor of the life modeled by the Lord Jesus. Paul calls on the Philippians to “make my joy complete” and then sketches out an ethic that is other-centered, promotes unity, and tangibly embodies the same self-less intentionality that Jesus brought to his earthly mission.

To illustrate this life Paul includes in his letter a poetic hymn about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The poetry of verses 6–11 serves to unpack what it means to embody the “same mind that was in Christ Jesus” (v. 5).

First, Jesus’ life calls us to move from a life of exploiting our own rights to one in which we are willing to relinquish our rights for the sake of God’s mission. Jesus’ incarnation is the model. Verse 6 is perhaps the most profound text in all of the New Testament. It reminds us of Jesus’ mindset in embracing his humanity: “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” Jesus enjoyed all of the prerogatives and status that belong to the divine. But in the ultimate counter-cultural move, Jesus subverts all human notions of what divinity entails and fully embraces our humanity. This is the essence of Jesus’ self-emptying. He willingly sets aside the status and rights of being God and instead takes on our flesh and blood for the sake of God’s mission to offer healing, hope, wholeness and reconciliation to all Creation. As we ponder God’s mission in our day, this text invites us to think carefully about what rights and notions of status that we need to let go of in order to live fully as the people whom God created us to be.

Second, Jesus’ life calls us to move from a focus on self-preservation to a life shaped by the cross. There is a line that marks the demarcation point between bondage and freedom. It’s the difference between the life that God calls us to live and the status quo existence of the masses. The cross is the key. It wasn’t merely that Jesus was obedient to the point of death–it was that Jesus willingly embraced death on the cross. Crucifixion was reserved only for slaves and rebels against Rome. The Son of God died a death associated with persons of the lowest status. If we want to lives that demand explanation, we must die up front to self and our notions of status so that we can truly live.

Last, Jesus’ life points clearly to the paradox of sacrifice. In God’s economy, you gain life by losing it. You receive by giving. The highest calling is servanthood. Our temptation in life is to pursue endlessly our fifteen minutes of fame. Too many among us grieve over our perceived anonymity as though a life of profound meaning and worth is found only in receiving the acclaim of others. Abraham Lincoln said, “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”
The lesson here is simple: let God exalt you. God the Father responds to Jesus’ obedience by “super exalting him.”  Jesus was already God, but this text asserts that God has given him the name that is above all names. How did Jesus reach this pinnacle? Not by self-promotion. Not by asking for it. But through the life of a servant who was fully obedient to God’s mission in the world.

Paul concludes with a powerful exhortation to a cross centered life lived out in community. In verses 12-13, Paul roots the power to live in a Christ worthy manner in God. It is God who works in us. But God’s transforming power is subtle in the sense that it requires receptivity. It is not a call for us to try harder, but rather for us to die more fully to our old modes of existence. Moreover Paul’s concluding words are addressed not to individuals alone but to a community of Christ followers. The way of Jesus is not a solitary existence but one embodied in community. This is the point of Paul’s letter. The world needs to experience the reality of the Gospel. For the believers in Philippi, this meant a unified witness for the sake of the city. I suspect that Paul would give the same exhortation to us in our day.

The Ethics of God’s New Missional Community

In our understanding of God’s people we have continually used this definition: God’s people are a missional community that reflects God’s character to/for/in the nations. In the stories of Genesis 12–50, it is easy to see mission and community, but what about character and holiness? In the above section, we have recognized the importance of God’s faithfulness to his promises as a key theme. This included observing times when God is faithful despite the actions of God’s people.
Genesis 12–50 is fundamentally about God’s faithfulness in the progress of his mission to bring blessing to the world through Abraham, but there are clear hints of the expectation by God of a distinct conduct and lifestyle for the success of God’s mission.

In Genesis 17, God cuts a covenant with Abraham in which God gives the rite of circumcision. The chapter opens, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him, saying, ‘I am God Almighty; walk continually before me and be blameless. I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly multiple your numbers” (Gen 17:1-2). Genesis 17 is a significant moment in Abram’s life because God gives him the new name Abraham to signify a new epoch in his life and by cutting an explicit covenant with Abraham. These opening verses raise an expectation of a lifestyle that is congruent with God’s character. The combination of “walk” (Heb: hlk) and “blameless” (Heb: tmym) occurs elsewhere in the Pentateuch to describe Noah, “This is the story of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the peoples of his day, and he walked continually with God” (Gen 6:9).

Genesis 17 does not give detailed information about what was expected of Abraham. The only regulation mentioned in Genesis 17 is the necessity for future generations to circumcise all males within their households. Otherwise, we must wait for the Sinai Covenant (Exodus 19:1–Num 10:10) to encounter specific ethical and cultic regulations. As we discovered in the previous section the emphasis in the book of Genesis is on God’s faithfulness. The next passage however serves to establish further the force of God’s exhortation:
“Then the LORD spoke, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him that he may guide his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen 18:17-19).

God is poised to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness found in those cities. Due to his relationship with Abraham, God reveals his intentions. In response, Abraham will intercede successfully on behalf of his nephew Lot (18:22-33). With the negative example of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah in the immediate context, verses 17-19 clearly present a contrast between God’s expectations for Abraham and the lifestyle/ethos of Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, this verse establishes an expectation that part of Abraham’s vocation was to “guide” his children in the way of the Lord. This clearly suggests that Abraham was to instill an ethic of faithful obedience into his household.

This text is critical for understanding the interconnectivity between mission, holiness, and community. In this context we clearly see all three elements. Abraham’s family (community) was to embody a distinct ethos (holiness) as part of embodying the promise of serving as a blessing for all nations.
Genesis 22:16-18 “[The angel of the LORD] said, ‘I swear by myself, utters the LORD, that because you have done this—you have not withheld your only son, indeed I will truly bless you and expand the number of your offspring so that they are as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore. Moreover your offspring will inherit the gate of their enemies and all nations of the earth will find blessing for themselves in your offspring because you heeded my voice.’”
Abraham’s willingness to follow God’s command to sacrifice Isaac epitomizes faithful obedience. This text embodies the tension between God’s promises as unconditional and the necessity of human response. In the context, we need to read God’s words to Abraham as an affirmation of his faithful obedience. God already promised Abraham all of the things included in the text. It is clear that Abraham’s obedience was not the cause of the God’s promises, but Abraham’s obedience points the way forward for God’s people. It is the desired response to God’s prior grace.

Genesis 26:2 The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land about which I am speaking to you. 3 Live in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your offspring I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to Abraham, your father. 4 I will multiply your descendants as though they are the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will find blessing, 5 because Abraham heeded my voice and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.”

In Genesis 26:2-5, God directly extends to Isaac the promises initiated with Abraham. God’s appearance occurs during a time of famine and serves to assure Isaac of God’s presence with him lest Isaac flee to Egypt. Verse five is critical for our reflection on the ethics of Israel’s ancestors. God cites Abraham’s obedience as the basis for renewing the promises for Isaac. God promises Isaac land, many descendants, and the mission of serving as an instrument of blessing. Abraham’s willingness to heed or listen to God’s voice functions as the model for Isaac to follow. Obedience enhances the ability of God’s people to advance God’s mission in the world.

In Genesis 39, Joseph models faithful obedience despite his circumstances. By Genesis 39, Joseph is serving as a slave in Egypt in the household of Potiphar an officer under the Egyptian Pharaoh. The narrator describes Joseph as handsome. His good looks attract the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife. Joseph resists her by asserting his faithfulness in serving as a steward for Potiphar. Moreover in verse 9 he adds, “How can I do this great evil and sin against God?” Joseph’s goal is witness. He will not act in ways that dishonor God. This is the essence of a holiness rooted in mission. Joseph understood that his actions directly impacted the way that others would perceive his god.

We don’t want to over-interpret these passages, but the implications are clear: holiness matters. Faithful obedience enhances the missional success of the people of God. Too much is at stake in God’s mission to disregard this aspect. Scholars often debate a key question about the Abrahamic covenant: Is it conditional or unconditional? Perhaps the best answer is, “Yes.” God’s call of Abraham and his descendants is certainly an unconditional offer of promise and blessing. God offers unmerited favor and promises to Abraham. Yet, this unconditional offer nonetheless requires a human response to enact it. Genesis 12–50 is more interested in demonstrating the grace and faithfulness of the LORD who called the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the necessity of a holy community is clearly implicit and adumbrates a more thorough treatment beginning in the book of Exodus.

What do you think?

© 2010 Brian D. Russell