Cultural Weakness: Genesis 26:6-11
God wants us to help the people around us rise above the flaws our culture breeds within us. We are His hands and feet. We are His agents of change. We are His plan for bringing His kingdom to this earth.
Because of the famine, Isaac moves to dwell among the Philistines. He goes into the region of Abimelech, tells them Rebekah is his sister, and trouble ensues. This story reads like the stories of Abraham.
There are people who claim this is evidence of generational sin, that Isaac learned this behavior from Abraham. It’s certainly possible. I’m sure Isaac heard his father and mother talk about the time they went to Egypt. I’m also certain, though, that Abraham and Sarah shared the consequences of that act with Isaac. If Isaac heard Abraham’s story, he also heard the trouble it caused.
I believe the root of this sin is cultural. Nomadic cultures and Bronze Age cultures saw their connection to society through a different lens. These cultures emphasized might. Their leaders were often the strongest people or the ones with the most resources. The strong would raid or outright attack weaker communities to claim resources for themselves. We saw this when Abraham had to rescue Lot.
Survival often meant not making yourself a target and going unnoticed. This would be especially true for a nomad sojourning in someone else’s country. A nomad has far fewer communal resources for defending themselves compared to the people actively living in the community with connections to rely upon. This story is evidence of a particular type of sin propagating easily in a particular culture. Isaac and Abraham acted the same way because the action makes sense to a nomad forced to live among civilization.
This distinction is important because it highlights the importance of understanding one’s culture. Every culture has morals and ethics that make it great. Every culture has values that make certain kinds of sin easier to commit because they feel more justifiable to members of the culture. Being a part of a culture means having inherent blind spots where sin can grow and fester if we leave it unwatched.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. Remember the story of the tower of Babel? When the people gathered, the culture they formed allowed them to think themselves as greater than they were. They became blind to the effects of their pride and arrogance. In the same way, the nomadic culture of Abraham and Isaac justified the use of lies to allow them to dwell among civilization while attracting as little attention to themselves as possible. This does not make the lie right.
God knows we dwell in culture. God understands our cultures are imperfect because they are composed of imperfect people. God calls us to resist the inherent flaws within our culture. God wants us to help the people around us rise above the flaws our culture breeds within us.
