Nation’s Notes on the Bible

Abraham: Compromise and Conviction
Everyone needs a set of convictions by which to live. Convictions are not merely strong opinions, let alone decisions or preferences of the moment. Convictions are fundamental beliefs that some things are true and will always be true. New information can--and often should--change our opinions. A conviction is formed over time, is tested, and once it takes hold it cannot change without changing the person. Convictions are part of one’s character.
A person without convictions is a adrift in the world and “tossed by every wind of doctrine.” A person with too many convictions is rigid, inflexible, and fanatical. A person with false convictions is a menace to himself and to others. But a soul with sound convictions is a blessing to the world.
But are there times when a person of conviction should compromise with a world that does not recognize his convictions?
Two stories from the later life of Abraham give us a clear demonstration of how to discern when compromise is okay, and when on the other hand conviction is simply not up for negotiation.
Genesis 23 -- Abraham buys a burial plot.
Abraham’s beloved wife, and the mother of the son God had promised to him, has died. At this time Abraham is living in the southern region of Canaan near the city of Arba, later (and still today) known as Hebron. God has promised that this land and the whole expanse of Canaan has been given to Abraham and his descendants by the promise of the LORD, God Most High. Yet to this day he lives as a nomad, as a squatter on open land. He holds no earthly deed to any real estate in the land God has promised him.
Now with the death of Sarah Abraham has a new problem. He needs a place to bury her. In her burial he needs to honor her faithful life, and he also needs to give testimony to the promise of God, and to his ultimate hope in the raising of the dead.
Up to this point Abraham has never invested a penny in real estate. All his money has gone into stock (livestock, that is). But now he goes to his neighbors and bids to purchase some land that would be a suitable tomb for Sarah and, eventually, for himself and his heirs. He selects the Cave of Machpelah, owned by one Ephron the son of Zohar.
The people of the region are called Hittites (literally “sons of Heth”). It’s possible that these were a tribe of Semitic Amorites who lived in that area that happened to have a similar name as the Hittites. However we know that the Indo-Aryan Hitttes built a powerful empire with its capital in central Asia Minor (Turkey). The Hittites were for a long era the main competitors with the Egyptians for political and commercial dominance of Canaan. It’s not out of the question that the people Abraham was dealing with now were foreign colonists who were in control of that area at the time. In any case, from the long view of history, all those who occupied that area were there only for a short time. There is always someone new to come forward to claim ownership of the land.
With this in mind Abraham insisted on purchasing free and clear title to a place that would be a family burial plot. Abraham was much respected by his neighbors, and the owner of the land offered simply to donate the land, but Abraham declined. He wanted to pay the full price they might demand, so that no one could come back later and say that Abraham had cheated them, or that they were his benefactors. The negotiations are illuminating as to the business customs of the time. He bought it for 400 shekels of silver. That comes out to approximately 2000 troy ounces. Who knows what a shekel of silver (the “dollar” of that day) could buy?
So what then? This: In view of the promise of God, is this not a compromise of principle? After all, God has given Abraham all this land. Why does Abraham not simply claim it?
The short answer is that it wasn’t the time, and conquest and possession was not Abraham’s mission. When God made his covenant with Abraham he specifically told him that his descendants (400 years away) would return to lay claim. “For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (Genesis 15:13-21) Until then Abraham would be a sojourner, not an owner. Though he fought when he had to, Abraham was a man of peace, and his mission was of peace.
When Abraham bought a burial plot it looked like a compromise, an admission that what God had given him did not belong to him. In fact Abraham was practicing his faith. As much for his descendants’ sake as for his own, he accepts the temporary dominance of the world over his possession and buys from them the recognition that he owns at least a piece of it.
In later years his son Isaac, also a peace-loving man, followed his father’s example. He negotiated a the rights to water wells that his father had dug.
Super-Spirituality (by which I mean false spirituality) can take one of two directions. It may be hyper-active, naming and claiming “by faith” everything in the world that the believer wants or thinks he needs. Or it may instead be totally passive, expecting that the whole world will be laid in his lap with no effort whatever on his part.
But the true child of God lives, by faith, a kind of life in the present day that will not be revealed until the Age to Come. The only way the world will see this life is to see us live it. It is a life of hope, of certainty for things that are not yet seen, but will one day be revealed.
In the meanwhile, we do live in the world and have to deal with the world. It is not a compromise of principle to do things that keep peace. It is not a compromise of principle to provide for your family by ethical and honest means. Jesus gave us a very clear word on this when approached about paying the half-shekel tax (Matthew 17:24-27). This tax was not one of the “traditions of men” Jesus condemned; it was commanded in the law of Moses (Exodus 30:13,38:26). Jesus explained to Peter (in a parable) that he personally was actually exempt from the tax, but would pay it “in order not to be a stumbling block to them.”
Having said all this, there is a time when compromise is impossible. Sometimes we simply must make a stand and trust God for the results.
Genesis 24 -- Abraham gets a bride for Isaac.
Abraham had another problem. His son Isaac was 40 years old, and still a bachelor. Not good if this is the seed through whom a great nation would spring.
Some have blamed that on Isaac being a mamma’s boy, and to some extent that may have been true. Still, the bigger problem was that the pool of suitable young ladies in South Canaan was extremely small unless Isaac married a Canaanite. Not going to happen!
Abraham could do nothing about Isaac’s introverted personality. What he could do is to take the search for a bride to another region.
Abraham’s instructions were clear and well-defined, and he put his servant under oath to carry them out.
“You will not take a wife for my son Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
At this point the servant sees a potential drawback. What if he goes and finds a suitable woman, and she refuses to come with him? He is under oath, so it is literally do or die. But if the other parties refuse to comply with his restrictions, where does that leave him? It’s a valid point. The servant wants to know what part of this is negotiable and what is not. Where does the servant’s liability end? What if they instead invite Abraham’s son to come up and claim her himself? Would that be acceptable? The patriarch would have none of it.
“See to it that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for mg son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.”
Abraham acknowledges that the servant has a valid concern. He is asking a lot from his servant, and he is asking a lot from the as-yet unknown young woman. God is faithful, but people are not. So he gives him the limits, and he grants an escape clause. If the bottom line is that she won’t come, the servant is released from his oath.
The whole story that follows of how the servant went back to the land of Haran and brought back Rebecca is wonderful and charming and worth the retelling--but I’m not going to do that here.
I wish simply to draw attention to the conviction in Abraham’s words and in his instructions to the servant. The parameters of his conditions are determined by his conviction that the promise of God is true.
If the promise of God is true, then Isaac must not marry a Canaanite. The line of promise must be kept purer than that.
If the promise of God is true, then Abraham’s son must not leave the land of promise to go back “home.” That land will never be home again.
God who made the promise will provide a suitable bride.
But if the people involved will not cooperate, God’s plan notwithstanding, then there will still be no compromise here. Conviction cannot be made a matter of convenience.
So what then? What if the servant comes back empty handed? Abraham pre-releases his servant from his oath, but that does not mean he considered the whole proposition a throw of the dice. God is the one who made the promise, and God is the one who established the conditions. Therefore God would be the one to provide. As it had happened on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22), so it would be now. Man is practical and operates on probabilities. God is God, and with him all things are possible.
Read the whole story. From a human point of view it is a chain of improbable but happy coincidences. But from Abraham’s point of view--the viewpoint of faith--it is the working out of the plan.
***
So how did Abraham (and how do we) know the difference between righteous and unrighteous compromise? Put another way, what is the difference between the vice of obstinacy and the virtue of tenacity?
Righteous compromise actually accomplishes God’s purpose, and requires faith. But it is not good either to try to force God’s will on other people; or to passively wait for God to come through in an emergency when he has already provided the means for deliverance. If you’re refusing to budge because things aren’t happening the way you want or expect them to happen, that’s just being obstinate.
There does come a time in every believer’s life, however, when he has to stand on his conviction of what is true and right, and let the results rest in the hand of God.
Just about anything is negotiable in this world, but not morals, and not faith. God is sovereign, Jesus Christ is Lord, and either we believe or we don’t. When we don’t believe God is going to come through, we makes other arrangements and try to hedge our bets.
Like the guy in the Catholic hospital who was visited by the chaplain as he lay dying. Administering the last rites, the priest adjured him, “Do you renounce Satan?” And the dying man replied, “This is no time to be making enemies!”
But I digress....
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