Genesis 18-19

Genesis 18-19 discusses the troubled city of Sodom, which is plagued by sin and has lost all sense of righteousness. In addition, Genesis 18 tells the story of Abraham’s hospitality to the Lord and his two angels, who reward Abraham’s wife, Sarah, with a baby even at her old age. In Genesis 19, however, we see God punish the city of Sodom for its lack of righteousness and pure addiction to sin. This is clearly evident when the two angels go to visit Lot and are surrounded by the other men of Sodom once inside of Lot’s house. They demand Lot to hand the angels over so that they may have sex with them. This is clearly wicked and sinful in every way imaginable. However, what’s even more depressing from this story is how Lot responds in fear and offers to give up his daughters to them. Even though Lot isn’t trying to participate directly in the Sodom culture, he is subconsciously conceding that giving up his daughters to rape will solve the solution, which is obviously sad. As we see, the Lord rains down fire and sulfur on Sodom, killing everything within its walls to rid the place of sin. Still, that same idea of being gradually sucked into sin is also subconsciously manifested among the two daughters, who intentionally get Lot drunk so they can have sex with him and get pregnant in order to keep the lineage going.

                Now, I know most people out there, particularly non-believers would view this punishment as ridiculously harsh by God. However, here’s what we have to understand whether we are believers or not. God’s purpose, in everything he does, is to set an example of righteousness that we as humans (sinful creatures) must strive to follow. Notice how I say follow and not a word like “be”. This is a crucial point as the Lord has only ever enabled one person to have the capacity to be “perfect”: his son. He knows that we won’t be perfect. He’s knows that we will make mistakes. However, as painful as reading Genesis 18-19 might be and how the punishment may seem unfair, it sets an example for us to follow and avoid the pitfalls that engulfed desolate Sodom in flames as we strive for forgiveness and separation from our sins.

Speaking of examples, I thought I’d mention one of the examples who I’ve been looking up to as a role model lately. Tedashii is the name of a Christian rapper who I saw in concern a couple of months ago in concert at “Questapalooza”. Tedashii grew up with a caring mom and people around him that had supported him all the way to college at Baylor University. He always people saying that he was a “good kid” and he always considered himself to be a Christian. However, it wasn’t until he was at Baylor that someone spoke out and said that he wasn’t doing things in a godly way. Now, for many people, if someone calls you out about your religion, you generally don’t respond very kindly. Instead of that, Tedashii took it as a challenge to preach God’s word in a unique way through rap and serve as a positive influence to the young generation as well as become a more devout follower of Christ.

This is the cover of his new album "Identity Crisis". http://www.jesusfreakhideout.com/cdreviews/covers/identitycrisis.jpg