Men in the Bible: A Man with Little Foresight And the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of…
Men in the Bible: A Man with Little Foresight – How short-term advantage led to long-term captivity
And the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out and joined together in battle in the Valley of Siddim against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of nations, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. Now the Valley of Siddim was full of asphalt pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled; some fell there, and the remainder fled to the mountains. Then they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way. They also took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. – Genesis 14:8-12
We are still considering the personality of Lot, Abraham’s nephew. If there is any indication that all we had earlier shared about him was true, particularly his immaturity as well as lack of wisdom and foresight, that was validated in the scenario that played out in our reference passage today.
Lot thought he was being smart by choosing the prime land for himself and leaving his uncle, Abraham, with the not-so-attractive second best. He could have allowed his uncle to choose first, but he took that privilege onto himself. He impetuously chose where he wanted to settle, leaving Abraham to contend with the seemingly lesser option.
However, the incidents that ensued afterwards only revealed how unwise he was, as what he considered a land of peace and abundance was only a troubled land. Despite the lush green that he saw, which made him decide to settle in that part of town, the settlement was only a time bomb waiting for the right time to blow off, and blow off it did not long after Lot settled there. A more grounded person would have known better.
For Lot, however, he only went to camp with trouble because not long after settling, a long-brewing war broke out among the kings in that region, and even though he was not part of the skirmish, Lot and all his assets were taken captive by the rampaging kings.
No doubt, when he was choosing that place to stay, he must have thought that he had hit a jackpot. But that turned out to be a calamity. He must have thought he would become abundant and prosperous in his new location, but he only became a captive instead. All because he lacked foresight. We should not be like him.
Men in the Bible: A Man of Considerable Goodwill Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen…
Men in the Bible: A Man of Considerable Goodwill – How leadership trust made obedience possible for an entire household
Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very same day Abraham was circumcised, and his son Ishmael; and all the men of his house, born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. – Genesis 17:24-27
Our meditation today shall center on the character of Abraham. He was a man of great and considerable goodwill. Why was this so?
When God told Abraham to circumcise himself and all males in his household as a sign of the covenant with Abraham and his descendants, Abraham was already 99 years old at this time. Imagine the kind of pain he must have endured for days, if not weeks, after cutting his foreskin. His whole body must have been shaking in pain, seeing that there were no pain relievers and anesthesia in those days.
As if that was not bad enough, God also asked Abraham to circumcise all the male members of his household as well. Imagine how easy it was for Abraham to inform his 13-year-old son, Ishmael, and the other male adults and youths in his house about what he was going to do to them. Circumstance them all by cutting off the foreskin of their penises. Even the most loyal of the men in his household must have been alarmed at the announcement.
On a good day, such an announcement was enough for all the males in the house to conspire to kill their master for what he was about to do to them, or, less extreme, they might have run away from the house and town to go settle down somewhere else.
However, interestingly, we did not find any account of such an occurrence. From the young Ishmael to all the male servants, everyone calmly waited their turn to be administered the painful cutting of circumcision. There was no complaint, no cursing, no revolt. Everyone cooperated and calmly endured the pain.
Let’s bear in mind that the circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his children. There was no talk of the slaves and servants being partakers. So what might Abraham have told his staff to make them cooperate? That no one rebelled and rallied the others to resist the inhuman treatment Abraham was about to subject them all to.
If there is anything, this shows that Abraham had a considerable goodwill with his staff and members of his household, such that no one refuted him or rejected his overtures for them to be circumcised, but they all bore the pain with grace. If he did not enjoy goodwill in their eyes, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for him to get them all to participate.
The esteem with which they all regarded him helped to make the exercise bearable and the experience less stressful for everyone, Abraham more than anyone, as he would be grappling with his own pain whilst trying to rally them for their own circumcision.
Employees in the Bible: Hagar and the Cost of Losing Emotional Intelligence – A leadership and workplace lesson from Genesis 16 on status, favour, and self-control
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. – Genesis 16:1-4
We are opening our staffers or employees in the Bible subseries in this digest by considering the example of Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. From the passage above, we can see that Hagar lacked emotional intelligence, judging by her reaction to her mistress, Sarah, after she became pregnant as a surrogate for the couple.
From the scriptural excerpt above, we can see how Hagar came to have her status upgraded from a servant in Abraham’s household to an important member of the household through surrogacy. Before the idea of her being a surrogate mother for her master and mistress was mooted, Hagar was a maidservant whose only pleasure was to do the bidding of her lords. By the norms of that time, she arguably had no right, and her owners probably had the power of life and death over her.
Therefore, it was surprising that after Abraham and Sarah made her a surrogate for their child, and she became pregnant, a feat her mistress, Sarah, could not achieve, Hagar started despising her mistress and became ungovernable. Her reason? She was now pregnant; therefore, she was a better woman than her madam. She started behaving rudely and showed no regard for her benefactress.
This attitude betrayed a lack of emotional intelligence on the part of Hagar and also depicted her as a not so smart person, because someone wiser and smarter would have continued to honor and respect her bosses, and would not allow success to get into her head as to start to see herself as better and superior to her mistress by whose favor she had her profile elevated in the first place, and whose idea it was that Hagar be their surrogate.
How often do we see this same scenario played out in people we know or hear about? Someone who, before an encounter with a benefactor, had nothing or little to their name. However, by virtue of their encounter or association with a benefactor, which resulted in attaining a higher status than they used to have, they then start to despise or disrespect the person whose influence or contribution was key to their becoming.
That is not a very smart thing to do. We can all learn from the example of Hagar.
Cain: The First Angry Man and His Poor Choice of Emotion
And the Lord…did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?” – Genesis 4:4-6
We are continuing our exploration of the person and character of Cain, the son of Adam and Eve. Today, we will be considering his emotional constitution; he was an angry man. In fact, he was the first (hu)man in recorded history to be described as angry and sad, the synonym for a fallen countenance.
As we had read earlier, Cain got himself into this rather undesirable position because he was not deliberate in his relationship with and service to God. While his brother, Abel, went out of his way to pick the choicest among his produce as sacrifice to God, Cain did not observe such diligence. Rather, he probably chose the worst of the pack among his livestock for the sacrifice he was offering to God, which must have angered God so much that He in turn rejected both Cain and his sacrifice.
The mistake that Cain made then is easy to make nowadays when most of what we know about God is what we hear in religious gatherings, not from a disciplined study of His ways in His word. Cain probably assumed that since God was not there to see him, he could get away with just giving Him whatever he wanted. After all, it was of his own volition that he wanted to offer this sacrifice to God, not because God Himself asked for an offering.
He must have gotten wiser later when God rejected his hapless offering and dismissed him from His presence. This divine rebuttal made Cain very angry and sad, such that it showed in his expression and attitude. It is interesting to note that even his father, Adam, who was let down by his wife in the fruit-eating saga, did not become angry at her or divorce her on account of this. Or what offense was worse than the one Eve did, pressuring her husband into eating the forbidden fruit, and by so doing incurring the wrath of God?
But, Adam, even while he must have been disappointed at the turn of events and felt aggrieved by the punishment God meted out to him, he did not become angry as to cast away his wife or maltreat her for what she did. Instead, he maintained a mature disposition and even christened her a good name.
However, in the case of Cain, he reacted poorly to rejection and went down in the annals of history as the first man to be labeled as angry and sad; a poor choice of emotion indeed. Instead of asking himself some hard questions, why God would accept his brother’s offering and reject his own, he chose the easy route of anger and the path of least resistance of sadness.
Anyone can easily get angry and become sad when things are not working their way. But it takes a higher level of consciousness to choose peace over anger, joy over sadness, and a positive attitude in response to a negative development. Cain was just like most of us in this regard, and it cost him badly.
Adam – A Man of Easy Persuasion So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable…
Adam – A Man of Easy Persuasion
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, – Genesis 3:6-7
For someone whom we had earlier discussed as firm and resolute in his ways when considering his encounter with God during the partner searching episode, Adam proved to be a man of easy persuasion not many encounters later during his interaction with his wife, Eve, who got him to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil at the center of the garden.
Perhaps, some may be disappointed at Adam, and many still blame him to date, for easily succumbing to the request of his wife. From what we had earlier read, even Eve put up a semblance of resistance in her engagement with the serpent by trying to make it realize why they were not supposed to eat the fruit from that tree. However, immediately she took it for herself and ate, it was a no-brainer that Adam was going to follow suit.
It is pertinent to note that Adam was the one God expressly forbid not to eat from the fruits of both the tree of life as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-16). There was no record of God telling the woman this as she was not around when God was making the garden and putting Adam in charge. This presupposes that Adam should have shown more responsibility in his stewardship of the first warning God communicated to him.
However, perhaps he felt more affinity towards the woman whom he spent more time with than God, or because the woman’s pressure proved too unbearable for him, we may never know. What we do know is that Adam allowed himself to be persuaded into fouling the instruction of God and acting in disobedience. And that proved costly not just for both of them, but for their offspring after them from that time onward.
By not demonstrating leadership in what he was persuaded to do by his partner or responsibility towards a charge God committed to him concerning the trees, Adam painfully failed his first test of obedience and leadership. By benefit of hindsight, he must have later learned that it was not everything his partner pressured him to do that he should do, particularly when such was in direct violation of the command of God. We live life forward, but learn it backward.
Another lesson we can learn from God is His disposition to a balancing act. He is not a God of extremes. Even though some who profess to follow Him go to extremes in His name or make extreme claims on His behalf, extreme is not a label that one can pin on God. He balances the acts.
Understanding God: He is Not Moved by Sentiments
Another lesson we can learn from the personality of God is that sentiments do not move Him. Therefore, He cannot be deceived into making a wrong judgment or call, as humans tend to do.
Understanding God: He is A Creator
He is a Creator. This is not to be interpreted loosely, particularly in the light of our contemporary use of the word. God is the ultimate Creator, as He created all things, even the ends of the earth (Isaiah 40:28).
Understanding God: God of the Beginning
There is no better way to begin this journey of exploring the people and entities in the Bible than to start with God. He is not just the beginning but is the origin of all things.
Women in the Bible: A Paragon of Beauty
What made Sarah’s beauty so compelling that kings and nations took notice? Explore the deeper layers of grace, favour, and mystery surrounding one of Scripture’s most unforgettable women — and discover why her story still provokes wonder today.
Men in the Bible: A Man of Ambition and Adventure
Terah may not have reached Canaan, but his courage to start a life-changing journey laid the foundation for Abraham’s destiny. Discover how ambition and bold steps mark a life of significance.
Men in the Bible: An Impetuous and Impudent Man
A revealing glimpse into a man whose choices exposed deeper issues of character, showing how hastiness and entitlement can quietly shape a destiny, and why his story still speaks to us today.
Men in the Bible: A Man with Little Foresight
Sometimes what looks like a smart choice can hide the seed of a mistake. This reflection from Scripture invites us to think again about how foresight — or the lack of it — shapes a man’s story.
Men in the Bible: The First Man to Tithe
Before laws, temples, or traditions, one man honoured God with his substance. Abraham’s tithe was not commanded, demanded, or enforced. It flowed from reverence.
Fathers in the Bible: A Destiny-Shaping Father
What makes a man a truly aware father? Discover how one man’s prophetic foresight shaped his son’s destiny and changed generations forever.
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