BIBLE SOAP

 Episode 1:  

The Story Begins

This series which I’m calling, “Bible Soap” will be looking at the lives and loves of people in the Bible from a soap opera perspective.  Every episode title will be from a film, book or television programme related to the subject.  We live in a world of entertainment and whatever your opinions of them, soap operas are significant.  If Jesus was preaching today he would not be telling parables, but applying soaps to the lives of those who were listening to him.

A few facts: 1. “Soap operas go back eighty years to the days of radio drama in 1930s America.  Fifteen minutes serial dramas like Ma Perkins and Just Plain Jane were targeted deliberately at housewives so that soap powder manufacturers could sponsor the programmes - hence the 'soap opera' label which has stuck ever since.  In the 1950s they started appearing on television but radio soaps continue, most famously in this country with The Archers which has broadcast over 14,000 episodes since it first aired in 1951.”

2. “Coronation Street - the world's longest running television drama serial - has only failed to make the annual list of top ten ITV programmes once since 1961.  And Dirty Den's  return to Albert Square attracted more than 16 million viewers in 2003.  EastEnders' biggest audience was 30 million when Den handed the divorce papers to Angie.”

3. John Yorke, former Executive Producer of EastEnders, says that,  'Bizarrely, it's not sensation that gets soap its biggest ratings, it's truth'.  He believes that soaps deal with the real issues of life:

4. EastEnders  essentially tells of the age old struggle between good and evil and all that flows from that: heroism, suffering, loss, betrayal, self-sacrifice, the human struggle with moral frailty; the struggle to bind together as a community; comeuppance and redemption.

Soaps are modern morality plays.  As we see characters struggling to work out how to act, and as we see the consequences of their actions, we think about what we would do in similar circumstances.  And if the soap is being true to life, our circumstances may not be all that different.

The overwhelming message is that the truth will out, but wouldn't it be better if we kept it quiet for just a little bit longer?  That way we can prolong happiness or even create the illusion of it.  Even Marge, mother of the cartoon family The Simpsons,  echoes this sentiment in the advice she gives to her daughter Lisa:  'It doesn't matter how you feel inside, you know.  It's what shows up on the surface that counts.  Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down, past your knees, until you're almost walking on them.  And then you'll fit in, and you'll be invited to parties, and boys will like you. . . and happiness will follow.'

The truth is, we are all driven by what others will think of us if they ever happen to find out about our real selves.  Much of this is to do with the fear of failing to reach others' expectations of us, real or imagined.  Some of it has to do with shame arising from our own real guilt; some of it has to do with assumed shame because of someone else's guilt - as in cases of sexual abuse.  For whatever reason, most of us have something that we would rather hide away.  Of course, God knows the real us.  He was there when Adam and Eve committed the first sin, and then tried to cover it up, and He can see whatever it is that we are trying to hide now.  The good news is that Jesus has carried away all that we had to be ashamed of, even shame itself.  To put it another way, in the words of Bono:

Grace, she takes the blame

She covers the shame

Removes the stain.

What once was hurt

What once was friction

What left a mark

No longer stings

Because Grace makes beauty

Out of ugly things.

From ‘Grace’ by U2

So, we begin with the first family: Adam’s family.  And in Genesis 1 we get them introduced to us:.

We have a husband and wife; sex; babies; work; ecological concerns; no pub or café, but there is food; pets and wildlife and an eviction.

It’s a good start, but so far there are no scandals.  This is a bit like the safe soaps used to be: 'Emmerdale Farm' and 'Take The High Road'.

Then we get a recap and we see how Adam met his wife Eve.  It was love at first sight.  By modern soap standards this is all set to look like a boring story: there is no other woman for Adam and no other man for Eve.  But there is a hint written in that things are not as perfect as first appeared.  Because then there is the mention of temptation .  There may not be any possibility of adultery, but there is temptation on a bigger scale.

There is a tree.   The type of tree isn’t specified, but it is a tree; just a plain ordinary tree.  But it represents a choice.  The choice is whether to keep the unfolding drama as a U certificate, or make it occasionally PG and occasionally 18.

We know what happened.  Adam got married and showed his new wife the tree.  She met a snake and he told her that the fruit of this tree was worth having, despite the risks and so the trouble begins.

What could have a nice pastoral tale that you could have read to your kids becomes an epic tale of deceit, murder, betrayal, and lies on a cosmic scale.  All hell breaks loose – literally – as the story unfolds.

But there is the hint that this is not going to be one of those stories that goes on indefinitely until it loses viewers, like Brookside.  Remember Brookside?  They had to take it off because the storylines were becoming bland and they lost too many viewers.  There is nothing bland in the on-going Bible soap.  In fact, there are times when it could do with being bland.

But the hint that it will end is given.

Soap operas generally don’t have a central character, but this one does.  His presence is hinted at throughout the story and then he makes a spectacular entrance and promises to bring a finale that is out of this world!

But that is a long way off yet.  The story has only just begun.  There was the perfect home ruined by the wrong choice.  There was forgiveness from God in the form of the animal sacrifice and the new set of clothes.

And that sets the scene for us.  The events all take place in the Near East and they carry on as each episode takes us through the Bible right up to that finale that is out of this world.

This was a pilot episode.  The next episode sees a dysfunctional family with a couple of brothers and we don’t know how many sisters; but there is murder and a great cover-up; there is the start of urban civilization; protection rackets.  It really gets interesting – and if Eastenders is depressing, that is because it is based on Adam’s Family.

More next month….

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Episode 2

O Brother where art thou?  

In this second episode of Bible Soap things get progressively darker.  What looked like a happy family with no problems has turned into the start of something that gets worse with every extra child added to the family, or so it seems.

We know that Adam and Eve had two sons.  But we find out later that they had several other children as well.

We only know that Cain was the oldest and Abel was the second oldest.  The only other detail we have is that Seth was born just after Cain killed Abel when Adam was 130 years old.  They would have been a fertile couple, Adam and Eve, and Adam lived another 800 years, so you can imagine they were not living in a 2 up, 2 down.  This would have been a big family!

They must have run out of names eventually for these kids!

But today’s episode deals with the two oldest boys: Cain and Abel.

Sin disrupts relations between God and human beings and between man and wife.  It destroys the bonds of brotherhood. Cain is portrayed as a more hardened sinner than Adam.  He kills his brother and that is a lot worse than eating a protected fruit.  Adam had to be persuaded to sin; Cain could not be dissuaded from sinning, even by God himself.  

When questioned by God about his sin, Adam at least told the truth; Cain lied and then made a joke about it. Adam accepted God’s judgment in silence, but Cain protested and was sent even further from Eden.

The reason for the rejection of Cain's sacrifice is not immediately obvious.  You have to remember though that this is probably not the only time they offered sacrifices to God.  It is likely that this was a regular practice and that in the past Cain's sacrifices had been acceptable.  The contrast between Cain's 'some of the fruits' and Abel's 'fat portions of the firstborn' of his flocks probably gives us an idea why Cain was rejected this time.  Possibly, Abel brought the best parts of his flocks and Cain was not so particular.  But sacrifice is only acceptable to God if it is perfect and costly and he will not be satisfied with second best.

I wonder what He makes of our sacrifices for him?  There are 168 hours in a week.  How many of them do we give to God?

But why does Cain kill Abel?  Abel may have tried to convince Cain of the error of his ways.  He was the first prophet! 

Then when God comes looking for Cain to confront him with his sin Cain questions God’s right to question him!   What right does God have to question us?  That is the essence of modern soaps and everyday life.  It’s my life!  As Jon Bon Jovi put it:

This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

Chorus:
It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just wanna live while I'm alive
It's my life

The questioning of God’s right to judge is seen to be a false hope when Cain goes on to lie and says he doesn’t know where Abel is.  If God has no right to judge, then why lie?  Why cover up what we do?  Yet don’t we all do it!

Life is lived as an escape from God.

The awful Big Brother is back on C4 again.  Contestants on that programme claim that they forget the cameras are there after a while inside the house.  We can forget that God is watching us, but there is that problem that our consciences keep reminding us that God is there.  We never really forget.  But we do tend to rebel.

When Cain rebelled, God switched from mercy to judgment.  Never the best place to be in!

There have been soaps where a popular character has come back from the dead, by popular request, like Bobby Ewing stepping out of the shower for instance, but in this case Abel doesn’t have to come back from the dead.       

Abel was crying out for justice. The sacrifices that Adam & Eve had taught their family to offer didn’t actually take away their sins.  They didn’t alter their basic human nature.

And then comes the justice: last time, Adam & Eve were evicted from paradise, but they were allowed to live just east of Eden.  Now, Cain is told he has to get out of town.  He heads further east and builds a city, which he names after his son Enoch.

There have been theological disputes, murder, and another eviction in this episode.  And it finishes off with Cain being branded.

Whether the mark of Cain was a tattoo, his name Cain, a dog or something else like an electronic tagging device no one knows.  Like the clothing given to Adam and Eve, the mark served a double function.  It reminded Cain of his sin and assured him of God’s protection against potential enemies. So, his protest prayer did not go unheard, because even hardened sinners like Cain may pray for mercy and receive it.

The only moral I want to take from this story is this:  if we claim to love God, if we claim to be Christians, the test is not how many Bible verses or creeds we can recite, but how we relate to one another.

That should tell us something about our standing with God and we should be able to reassure ourselves, or judge ourselves accordingly.

Next time, we get to see Cain’s family and how things go from worse to even worse still.

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Episode 4

Sons and Daughters 

Genesis chapter 5 begins like a ‘Previously on….’ 

In verse 1 we are told Adam is created in the image of God as a reminder that we are not what we were created to be  - as a reminder that family life is not what it was meant to be.  God blessed Adam and Eve and gave them the same name – God named them, indicating their reliance on him.  They had free will, but they belonged to God.  In v3 Seth is born in the image of Adam .  Between these two verses the Fall of the human race has taken place.  Everyone born after this is in the image of Adam. The original command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ was being obeyed, but the result of God’s curse was also being fulfilled in that no matter how long these people lived, each one died.

This genealogy which does get a bit repetitive highlights four points about each of these ten patriarchs: his age when his named son was born, his subsequent lifespan, the fact that he had other sons and daughters and his age at death.  It is the mention of other children that implies that these patriarchs fulfilled the command to ‘be fruitful and increase in number’ and shows how mankind gradually populated the earth.  It was all done by relationships.  Everyone is related to everyone else.

The purpose of a genealogy, which may seem monotonous, is to remind us that we belong.  It is helpful in the most individualistic of lives to know that we do belong:

And so this list lets us know that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.  Even if we don’t have the standard nuclear family, we have the human family to which we belong.

Now I thought, as I’ve called this ‘Bible Soap’ and based it on modern soap operas that it would be interesting to look at the recurring phrase ‘and he died’ and compare it to soap deaths.

Radio Times did a poll with 4,000 readers on the most memorable deaths in soap.  Here are the lists:

:: Most Dramatic Soap Death

1 Trevor Jordache killed and buried under the patio (Brookside, 1993)

2 Richard Hillman driving his car into a canal (Coronation Street, 2003)

3 Steve Owen left to burn in a car (EastEnders, 2002)

4 Everyone in the Emmerdale plane crash (1993)

5 Maxine Peacock hit over the head by Richard Hillman (Coronation Street, 2003)

 :: Most Emotional Soap Death

1 Ethel Skinner with a little help from Dot (EastEnders, 2000)

2 Jamie Mitchell in hospital after being run over (EastEnders, 2002)

3 Alma Halliwell of cervical cancer (Coronation Street, 2001)

4 Dennis Rickman stabbed on New Year's Eve (2005)

5 Matthew and Emily Farnham killed when mum Susannah crashed the car (Brookside, 1997)

 :: Most Ridiculous Soap Death

1 Anne Malone freezing to death locked in Freshco's freezer (1998)

2 Barry Evans pushed off a mountain (EastEnders, 2004)

3 Den Watts in a canalside shooting that turned out to be faked (EastEnders, 1989)

4 Everyone in the Emmerdale plane crash (1993)

5 Cindy Beale dying in prison during childbirth (1998).

Then there was the study done by the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, King's College Hospital, London:

"Death rates of characters in soap operas on British television: is a government health warning required?"

I quote: “This paper has proved what has been long suspected to be the case: Brookside Close, Coronation Street, Albert Square, and Emmerdale are highly dangerous places to live. Characters tend to die young and from a variety of obscure and often violent causes, ranging from the mystery virus in Brookside, which killed three, to a plane crash in Emmerdale, which killed four.”

The list of patriarchs shows that there was a greatly increasing population.  This is a list of the righteous descendants, not necessarily the oldest, or first-born.

All of these people are descended from Adam and it is interesting to note that Cain’s side of the family is only recorded as far as Lamech – the 7^th in line from Adam.  In Seth’s line it is recorded in Genesis 5 that Adam died during Enoch’s lifetime – Enoch was also the 7^th in line from Adam.  Adam obviously kept in touch with his offspring.  And just for interest’s sake, this records that Adam was the first to live and the first to die naturally i.e. because of the curse, not because of violence.  Noah was the only person the list to be born after Adam died.

Then we get to Enoch.  Because of Enoch’s righteous lifestyle he didn’t die but was taken straight to heaven (God took him away).  Enoch is the only man on this list (except Noah) who is mentioned in the New Testament.

There is little said about Enoch, but he is chapter 5’s equivalent of Lamech in chapter 4.  Enoch gets a mention in the New Testament.  He was a preacher of judgment.  But more important than that is the fact that ‘he walked with God’.  These were the holy people in the family, yet Enoch gets singled out for special attention.  They were all followers of God, but Enoch ‘walked with God’.  Everyone else lived, but of Enoch it is not said that he lived after his son was born but that he walked with God.

It is significant that the change takes place after this son is born.  Something happens and he decides to devote himself to God.  Maybe he realises his duty to do right by his son; maybe he recognises his responsibility in an increasingly godless age to bring his children up right. 

He lived half as long as everyone else in those days before God took him – he was only 365 – barely middle-aged!!!  Adam had died 57 years before, according to the record, so death had happened.  The curse of chapter 3 was fulfilled.

What Enoch experienced is what we are promised in the New Testament, not just the ability to follow God, but the privilege to ‘walk with God’ and to have a close relationship with him.

The prophetic ability of Enoch is something that is available to Christians today and for Enoch this ability was to prophesy the coming judgment of God on the world.  We hear of one of his sons, who he names Methuselah.  Methuselah means ‘when he dies, judgment comes’.  If you add up the years in this chapter you will find that the Flood actually came the year that Methuselah died.  He would have been around while Noah was building it, but he wasn’t around for the launch!  Unless he drowned in the Flood!

But he named his son for a purpose!  It’s good to pick appropriate names for our kids.  Even if we haven’t done it, it is good to give them positive messages about how meaningful their lives are.

Then Methuselah’s son Lamech also prophesied through the name of his son, Noah.  Noah means ‘rest’.

The chapter ends with the introduction of Noah.  With Noah everyone faces the judgement that God declared in Genesis 3: ‘You shall surely die.’  What God began in Genesis 1 He begins again in Genesis 6, but with a flawed humanity.  But that’s next time.

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Episode 5

Waterworld 

In this episode I’m covering Genesis 6-9.  These chapters in the Bible are all about the Flood.  This is Bible Soap, so the focus is on families and society, which means I’ll skip a lot of the details. 

Noah lived at a bad time.  In fact, so far, with the exception of the first couple of chapters of Genesis it has all been bad.  But things were getting worse:

What is interesting is how things got to this state.  The beginning of chapter 6 would make a typical Stephen King novel.

In the ancient world, stories were told of sexual liaisons between the gods and human beings; and the semi-divine offspring of such unions were said to have abnormal strength and other powers.

All the myths of the Titans and Hercules and the like come from this understanding of heavenly beings and humans producing demi gods. 

The Nephilim are not necessarily the result of these unions, because they appear again when the Israelites are spying out the Promised Land.  No one survived the Flood except Noah’s family!  But they are a strange bunch anyway.  Nephilim means ‘fallen ones’.  They were the violent people of the ancient world.  The terrorists I suppose you could call them.

This is the beginning of occultic activity and it results in God deciding to destroy everything and everyone He had created.  The world had reached the point that it was beyond repair.

This is quite a contrast with the beginning of the story.  But in all of this mess lived Noah.  Noah was the only good guy in all this mess. 

And the sequence of Noah’s salvation is interesting because it follows the general pattern of salvation today.  The world was totally corrupt, but Noah found grace.  It is by the grace of God that salvation comes to us.  Then Noah is declared righteous.  He was blameless in his generation and he walked with God. 

We know he had at least three sons, but that is all the Bible tells us.  There could have been more sons and there could have been daughters, but they didn’t make it, so they don’t get mentioned.  We just hear about Ham, Shem and Japheth.

Noah was a preacher!  But not one convert! 

And so they all have to go!  This is what TV soaps do for ratings!  God decides He doesn’t like the cast, so He wipes them all out so that we can begin again with a new selection of characters, but as it is Adam’s family, there has to be at least one survivor. Even though the whole world had lost interest in God, He was still watching! 

That’s worth bearing in mind!

I don’t want to go into details about the Flood itself, just to mention in passing that it was a worldwide flood,. The word used in the original Hebrew is only used here and it is related to the Assyrian word for destruction.  It covered everything!

So, Noah got in the boat a week before the Flood came. Imagine the fun his neighbours would have had that week!  It is interesting that God doesn’t say ‘Go’ into the ark, He says ‘Come’ into the ark.  God was going to be in there with him. 

Then, 371 days later (check the Bible for details) God told Noah to go out of the ark and so they left and found themselves in a totally different environment.  The neighbourhood was completely changed.  The trees and green fields had been replaced by mud and rotting corpses and quickly forming fossils.

And in this new environment God told Noah and his sons ‘be fruitful and multiply’.  It was looking a bit empty!

We hear two more accounts of Noah after the flood.  The first thing he did was make an offering to God.  Everyone remembers that the animals went in two by two, but the detail tells us that Noah took 7 of every clean animal.  He knew he was going to need a few spares to make an offering when it was all over.  He was thanking God for his salvation, which is no bad thing.

The other mention of Noah is not so good and happened some years later.  Noah lived for 350 years after the Flood and during that time he planted a vineyard and he got drunk. 

I don’t want to look at the detail of what happened next with one son finding him naked and running off to tell his brothers, who do the decent thing and cover him up.  It is enough to say that this incident shows that although God cleaned up the neighbourhood He didn’t wipe out sin.  As long as there are people on this planet there will be sin.

Noah and his descendents carry on the sin infection and things spiral down once again, so next time we get the big anti-God rebellion headed up by Nimrod and we find Adam’s family back to square one.

One point to pick out of this whole incident is the patience of God.  He told Noah to build a boat and 120 years later the Flood came.!!

God decided when the final opportunity had passed!  There is a limited time on this offer.  It’s a bit like a DFS sale.  It keeps on being extended, but one day God will shut the door and the offer will be ended.  Make sure when that time comes you are on the right side of the door!

Episode 6

Towering Inferno 

We are now a long way from Eden!  This idyllic story that began in a paradise-garden has shifted to a silt-covered earth with changeable weather and a once again limited cast.  In chapter 10 we get an increase in cast members, but we don’t focus on many of them.  Some people you will recognise because they named countries, or tribes, or cities after themselves. 

Chapter 10 of Genesis sets Israel within the context of the world .   There is a list of seventy nations (probably a symbolic round number, which represent all the peoples of the world, and is not a complete list of all groups known in ancient Israel.  It reads a bit like a family tree.  This Table of Nations describes the relationship between the different peoples.

The list was included for a theological reason - to relate the chosen line of Shem to the other non-elect lines.  

The scene moves to Babylon.  Babylon was famous for its temple tower or ziggurat, whose foundations were in the underworld and whose top was in the heavens.  

The view of Genesis is that, so far from reaching heaven, Babel’s tower could hardly be seen from there - God had to come down to see it (5).  Babel means ‘gate of god’, and Babylon considered itself closer to God than anywhere else on earth.  It regarded itself as the religious, intellectual and cultural capital of the ancient world, the showpiece of human civilization.  Verse 9 disagrees: Babel does not mean ‘gate of god’ but ‘confusion’ or ‘folly’, and far from human wisdom, Babylon’s ruined ziggurat, shows human impotence before the judgment of God.  

Put in modern terms the building of the city and tower may be seen as a human bid for self-achieved security on the basis of technological progress.   

The worst thing that could happen to this world is that God be removed from it!  This is Soap-world – a world without God.  It is the script-writers who determine what happens in Soap-world, and what are humans but fallible sinful humans living in opposition to God.  It is humans writing scripts about life as they see it, but life with no purpose, because it is life without God!

Things that are accepted as normal today are considered sins by God.  And it is interesting to watch soaps in terms of sin and righteousness because they do follow the Bible quite well.  Even the false Christians – Dot Cotton and Edna Birch and Revd Ashley Thomas  are living like false Christians mentioned in the New Testament.  The human race is very biblical!  And the tower of Babel incident sums the attitude up nicely.

Chapter 11: 2 suggests that this was a group of people who went to Shinar  – not everyone.  These were the family of Nimrod (10: 8-11).  He didn’t just build Babylon, he built Nineveh as well.  These were the chief cities of two of the great empires in the ancient world.  Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria.  The Assyrians took the 10 northern Israelite tribes into captivity; and Babylon was the capital city of the Babylonian empire – the southern tribes were taken into exile in Babylon.  That makes Nimrod the founder of the main enemies of Israel.  So he is the focus of today. 

The literal translation of 10: 9 is,  “Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a tyrant in the earth. He was a tyrannical hunter in opposition to the Lord. Thus it is said, 'Nimrod the tyrannical opponent of YHWH.'”

So he was a typical man – he lived his life opposed to God!  His name means ‘we shall rebel’.  The translation suggests that what he hunted was not animals but people.  He was a troublemaker.  The soap baddie of his day!

But he was  the founder of a Dynasty .  The first kingdom in history.  This makes this bit fit in closer to an American soap rather than a British or Australian one. 

It is interesting to look for signs of God in modern soaps.  Occasionally, but very rarely, people have conscience problems.  And we know God gave us a conscience.  But mostly it seems that people can get away with murder and other sins, without any consequences.  This takes us to the thinking of the book of Ecclesiastes in the OT.  Life is lived without reference to God.  And in 11: 4 the emphasis is totally humanistic.  God’s name is forgotten.  It is “our” name that counts.  It’s all about me!

Following the genealogies of chapter 10 this incident happened about 100 years after the Flood. 

Writing shortly after the time of Jesus, Josephus, the Jewish historian, said this about Nimrod:  “He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!” (Ant. I: iv: 2)

Nimrod built his tower to the heavens, which could mean ‘in honour of the heavens’.  It was in Babylon that the worship of stars originates, so the Zodiac has its origins here.  Star signs are bad for you!  Very anti-God.  The power behind the Zodiac is known as the ‘day-star’, or as he is better known – Satan.

The book of Revelation in the New Testament identifies Babylon as the source of all false religions (Rev.17: 5).

So this is where the soap really begins.  We have a bad environment and this time when God judges He just confuses the languages.  There are no more world-wide judgments – just a few local ones.  From this point on life becomes life as we know it.  There is no getting thrown out of a paradise garden; no worldwide Flood; no new languages to learn.  Bad things happen and the consequences are faced or avoided.

It is from this community that God calls Abraham and it is Abraham’s family that are the real stars of the Bible soap.  When we meet Abe he’s married to his sister (well, half-sister) and he’s following the voice of God through the desert.  It can only get better!

But back at Babel, we have the incident of the languages.  This is how the human race is divided – not by colour or race, but by language! 

It was God’s intention that we should all speak the same language, but put a group of people together and they will try to form a society without God – look at communism, look at the UN.  People united without God, wondering why it doesn’t work. 

God’s plan for the end is that there will be one language so that in eternity we will all be able to communicate – Zephaniah 3: 9.

And just so you know that no one gets left out, on the day of Pentecost everyone heard the gospel preached in their own language .  This was God’s reversal of the judgment in Genesis 11.  The gospel has to reach every language, so it is translated into every language – even 21^st century English.  And that way we have no excuse for not hearing it and for not understanding it.

Next time we begin with Abraham and his mixed-up family!

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Episode 7

Finding Neverland

So far we have had disobedience, murder, deception, drunkenness, nudity and rebellion.  That sounds pretty much like life today.  And now God’s way of dealing with it is to call one person out of all the mess and start again.  I find something like this in soaps: Weatherfield is not Manchester, it is a separate location; Walford is not London, it is a separate location; Emmerdale is not Yorkshire – well, that’s where that breaks down!  It is Yorkshire.  But the point is that for all we know about the ancient world, Abraham is the exception.  The soaps are set in mini societies within the bigger society and what happens within soap world reflects what is happening outside, but there are significant differences.

And so Abraham is a man of his times even though he lives separately from his neighbours.

He was the son of Terah. Terah decided to move from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan.  On the way he settled in Haran, named after his son who had died in Ur, and then Terah died.

And out of the blue, without warning, God speaks to Abe and tells him to carry on in his dad’s plan to go to Canaan.  And when he gets there God tells him that one day all of this will be his .

Abe is normally pictured as a solitary figure wandering after the voice of God with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot.  In reality, he was a great leader with an army (14: 14).

Chapter 14 shows that he could have conquered the Promised Land by force, after he defeated the coalition of leaders who ruled the land, but he chose to wait for God’s timing.

So who was he and what was life like for Abraham, the hero of the faith?

The Family Man

Well when we first meet him he is married to his half-sister Sarah (20: 12).  He has no children, so he made his nephew Lot his heir until Lot left home and went to live in Sodom.  Then he made his chief butler his heir (15: 2 ).  But after 11 years of waiting, he had a son, Ishmael.  Now Ish wasn’t the son of his wife Sarah, he was the son of Sarah’s housekeeper, Hagar.  It seems that they worked on the theory that ‘God helps those who help themselves’, so Sarah gave Abraham her housekeeper and she became pregnant and had a son. 

Happy Families!

But then, Sarah throws Hagar and baby Ishmael out, but then they are allowed back home again when God tells Hagar to go back home.  13 years later Isaac is born.  And Hagar and Ishmael are thrown out again – this time for good.

Some years later, God tells Abraham to kill Isaac as an offering to him, and Abe is about to do it when God tells him it was just a test to see how loyal he was.  Isaac is very relieved, after grave doubts about his dad’s loyalty!

Then Sarah died, at the age of 127 and Abraham bought her a burial plot.  At that age he guessed that his own time was probably nearly up, so he sent Eliezer, his chief butler, to find a wife for Isaac.

And some time after Isaac’s wedding Abraham gets married again – to Keturah; and he has 6 children with her.  He wasn’t that close to death after all!

So Abraham dies at the age of 175, which the Bible describes as (25: 8).  He had 2 wives and one concubine and 8 sons – we don’t hear about any daughters.  But only one of these sons is important – Isaac.  More about him next time!

That is Abraham’s family.  He didn’t have too many wives.  He didn’t have that many children really, considering the times in which he lived.

But what about Abraham the spiritual man?

 The spiritual man

Abraham grew up in Ur of the Chaldees.  This was a city devoted to Nannar, the moon-God.  It was a place of idol worship.  We don’t know why Terah chose to leave the city.  But God demonstrated to Abe that there is a major difference between a living faith in a dead god and a living faith in a living God.

The moon-God never spoke, but God speaks to Abraham on 7 recorded occasions.

I like to look for evidence of God in soaps, but all I find is faith in a dead religion.  Ashley,  the vicar of Emmerdale was struggling last week, because ‘the Church’ won’t let him perform a homosexual wedding.  He has no problem with it because he has no standards of his own, but as his mother-in-law said, it’s his job and 'the Church' pay his wages, so he has to do what they tell him.  Ashley doesn’t seem to be part of 'the Church' and he doesn’t seem to have a mind of his own, or a Bible for that matter.  I wonder what would happen if someone bought him a Bible! 

But Abraham had a God who spoke to him!  That marked him out from all the rest!

And what did God say to him?  This is what is interesting because in those days God acted more like a director.  He gave the directions and the actors had to do what he said.  But as with any director and actor relationship it wasn’t absolute.  So God could tell Abraham to do something, but He didn’t make him obey.

So, God tells Abe: Genesis 12: 2-3.  This sounds like things are going to work out well for Abraham.  He’s going to have good neighbours.  Everybody needs good neighbours.  I used to watch Neighbours in the days of Scott & Charlene and that line about good neighbours being good friends seemed out of place because they were always shouting and fighting.

But what did Abe find?  Well, he went to the Promised Land of Canaan and the first thing that happens is there is a famine.  God has told Abe to go there, but there is a famine, and remember that Abe believes that ‘God helps those who help themselves’, so he heads for Egypt and gets into all kinds of trouble.  He lies about Sarah being his sister (she was, but he was scared they’d kill him if he says he married her).  And so God has to step in to save this cowardly hero of the faith (Genesis 12: 17).

Then there is a complete change in character as Abe goes to save Lot – this is where his army comes into play in Genesis 14.  He takes on the coalition forces of 4 strong kings in the land who have taken Lot captive in a battle.  They defeated 5 kings in battle.  Abe goes up against them with his 318 men and beats them. 

This is the first recorded battle in the Bible and it is very understated, but Abe was quite the hero here.  And when it’s over Melchizedek, king of Salem, wants to reward him, but Abe says (14: 22-23).  Earlier, when he left Egypt in disgrace, he had no problem taking what they gave him (12: 16).

He has grown!  He now realises that he should depend on God.  And so God makes a covenant – an agreement – with him.  He confirms that the land of Canaan will be given to his descendants.  And God makes a covenant with him that in return for faithful service to God he will have untold numbers of descendants and great blessings. (Genesis 17: 1). 

The whole circumcision thing is initiated here and God promises 99 year old Abe a son by the following year.  This time God emphasises that Sarah is to be the mother .

And by this time Abe is a spiritual giant!  God has decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but because nephew Lot is living there, Abe pleads with God for mercy.  But there just aren’t enough good men in either city to justify saving it, so only Lot and his immediate family are spared.  But at least God was prepared to listen to Abe.  He definitely seems to be getting the hang of this faith in God!

And then he blows it again!!  He moves to Gerar and again tells everyone that Sarah is his sister (Genesis 20: 2).  

So the king takes a fancy to this 90 year old woman and adds her to his harem.  And God steps in again to save the day, by preventing Abimelech from sinning .

And again Abe takes a reward for his bad behaviour (Genesis 20: 14-15).

But at least Abraham finishes on a high point.  By today’s standards it would be classed as child abuse and Social Services would be in as quick as a flash to declare that the old man is not fit to look after children.  But!!  The reality is that Isaac is probably about 30 years old by this time and when Abraham offers to sacrifice him to God he is not a helpless child.

It is for this act of self-sacrifice that Abraham is remembered.  When he is referred to in the New Testament as a man of faith; the father of the faithful, it is because of this act of faith.

There are no more low points after this.  Abraham has demonstrated his absolute faith in God.

Abraham was a man.  An ordinary human person.  He demonstrates to us, not what God can do with a superhero, but what God can do through any one of us.

His life is worth studying in depth.