MR. FACING-BOTH-WAYS

The main focus of this passage is less on the destruction of the cities of the plain than upon Lot as a tragic example of a compromised faith and what the Bible will describe later as the love of ‘this present world’ (see below).1 The chapter opens with Lot ‘sitting in the gateway of the city’ (1), which indicates that he has attained a position of authority in Sodom and exercises a degree of power. That being so, given what we have already noticed concerning the moral corruption of the city, Lot appears as a pathetic figure from the beginning. Every detail of the following narrative serves to confirm this impression, from his hopeless appeal to the baying mob, addressed as ‘my friends’ (7), to his willingness to sacrifice his daughters (8), the failure to convince his sons-in-law, who ‘thought he was joking’ (14) and the telltale hesitation when leaving the city (16). Finally, there is the revealing request to be allowed to take up residence in a small town (20), which suggests a deeply embedded attraction toward the kind of urban culture of which Sodom and Gomorrah are examples. Derek Kidner’s verdict is apt: ‘Not even brimstone will make a pilgrim of him: he must have his little Sodom again if life is to be supportable’.2

The seductive power of a world organized without reference to God, often in direct and explicit rebellion against Him, is a theme that recurs throughout the New Testament. Scripture warns that professing Christians will be unable to resist wordly attractions apart from a radical faith in Christ and the fellowship of a believing community which models an alternative way of being a human family. Lot’s tragic compromise has its New Testament analogue in Demas, of whom Paul writes with sadness, that ‘he loved this world’ and had ‘gone to Thessalonica’.3

Do you recognize within yourself the attractive power of the world? What must you do to guard against that power without becoming a social outcast or oddball?