Kelly - Genesis 34

Certainly one of the more interesting stories of Genesis! And again, competely colored by my reading of The Red Tent.

What strikes me today, though, is the role that racial purity plays in the story. Throughout the Old Testament there's a tension between keeping the descendents of Abraham pure and separate from the surrounding peoples (as when Isaac's wife is procured from among his own kin) and accepting the role of foreigners in the land (as in the book of Ruth). This story is very strongly about keeping separate from the people around them.

We do the same things....sometimes we're about being apart from this world - Christians are different with different values than the world around us - and sometimes we're about assimilating this culture into our Christian life. This tension plays out in the way I raise my children, in the ways we approach visitors to the church and the neighborhood around us, and in the political discourse on TV.

We are the people of God - we are different. As a professor I had once stated - "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you Odd." But we are also called to be in the world - a light to the nations, the salt of the earth. It's a difficult tightrope to walk.