Their Sin is Very Grave

When we left Abraham a couple weeks ago, what was happening? It's been a couple dozen years since he heard the call of God and made the great trek to Canaan. He got separated from his nephew, his household expanded, and he's been clinging to the promises. He's had a son with a slave-woman, and now that he's been inducted into the covenant of circumcision to discipline his flesh, he's been promised a son with his wife Sarah despite their extreme old age. That promise was reiterated when, in the guise of strangers, he showed hospitality to the Lord and his angels. Now, after a mighty lunch, he's escorted them onward and found them looking down into the valley and its plain, just beyond the edges of Canaan (Genesis 10:19), at a cluster of cities anchored by Sodom and Gomorrah. God has let Abraham in on a secret: Sodom and Gomorrah have been accused of serious sin, and God is launching an investigation before proceeding to judgment. Abraham has, ever since, been haggling with God over standards of evidence sufficient to convict a city as a place, and secured a promise that, should Sodom have even ten residents whose hands are clean, the city itself will be acquitted.

So far, we've been content to just trust that something isn't right down there in the cities. Abraham, for his part, has simply contented himself with the general label of 'wicked' for the cities – that Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim were “evil, unclean places,”¹ and that “the men in those parts were exceedingly evil and wicked.”² But how? We've heard that “the men of Sodom were wicked” (Genesis 13:13), but what do the rumors say? For apparently, it wasn't just one thing – the tradition warns us against “every lawlessness of Sodom.”³

One of the first things we learn about Sodom, Gomorrah, and their neighbors is that they're nestled in a rounded plain within the Jordan River Valley, and that this rounded plain is “well-watered everywhere like the Garden of the LORD” (Genesis 13:10). It's lush, it's luxurious, it's an Edenic environment. Based on this description, later Jews understood that the cities were blessed with “the never-failing lavishness of their sources of wealth, for, deep-soiled and well-watered as it was, the land had every year a prolific harvest of all manner of fruits.”⁴ The prophet Ezekiel remarks that “Sodom... and her daughters,” the other cities, therefore had “excess of food and prosperous ease” (Ezekiel 16:49). They enjoyed tranquility, they were at rest, they were secure and undisturbed by outside forces most of them time; and they never needed to worry about where the next meal would come from, because they had seemingly everything they wanted, ripe for the picking.

But “from abundance came extravagance” in their way of living: this care-free access to food, coupled with the wealth gained from trading other natural resources like the nearby copper deposits and the bitumen occurring in the region, allowed for a self-indulgent consumption of the food and goods they had.⁵ Therefore, “plunging like cattle, they... applied themselves to deep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding,” and became “brimful of innumerable iniquities, particularly such as arise from gluttony.”⁶

Naturally, Ezekiel adds that Sodom and her daughters “had pride,” that “they were haughty” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). It was later said that the Sodomites were “overweeningly proud of their numbers and the extent of their wealth,” so that they “showed themselves insolent to men and impious to the Divinity, insomuch that they no more remembered the benefits that they had received from him.”⁷ For “the beginning of pride is stubbornness in withdrawing the heart from one's Maker, for sin is a reservoir of insolence, a source which runs over with vice” (Sirach 10:12-13). And that's what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. They had forgotten God and become fundamentally irreligious. They credited themselves with the blessings. Even when delivered from the hands of their enemies through Abram, even when hearing him point them to the teachings of Melchizedek, the people failed to glorify God; they patted themselves on the back and boasted in their successes as a city.

Despite the abundant plenty which the cities had, they “did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49). You might hear of a good Samaritan stopping to help the man beaten on the road to Jericho, but there are no parables of the good Sodomite. Charitable giving and human kindness were so foreign there that one Jewish paraphrase of the story claimed that “they oppress the poor and decree that whoever gives a morsel of bread to the needy shall be burned by fire.”⁸ Sodom and Gomorrah give neither handouts nor hands up; they won't give you a fish, and they won't teach you how to fish. They'll watch you starve through their window as they fill up their fourth plate, and not a tear will cross their eye as you beg for scraps. They could save you with ease. But they won't.

In like manner as their own poor and needy were beneath their notice, the people of Sodom infamously “did not receive unfamiliar visitors” except “unwillingly” (Wisdom 19:14-16). As later readers came to understand it, they habitually “hated foreigners and declined all [social] intercourse with others.”⁹ They became notorious for “unqualified hatred and mistreatment of strangers,”¹⁰ a reputation later said to be a cultivated way of avoiding having to share any of their property with outsiders to their little world.¹¹ And honestly, it wasn't unheard-of, in ancient cities like this, for city authorities to be so suspicious of visitors as potential enemy agents or spies that they'd arrest, interrogate, and even kill strangers on sight, depending on the prevailing mood.¹²

God says that what reached him is “the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah” (Genesis 18:20), and an 'outcry' was usually in the face of injustice, oppression, violence – like when Abel's blood “cried out” to God after Cain's murderous violence (Genesis 4:10), or the Israelites' cry for help when forcibly enslaved in Egypt (Exodus 2:23; 3:7). Isaiah cried out that the “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrah” had “hands full of blood” (Isaiah 1:10, 15), and later rumor had it that “the people of Sodom were evil, one toward the other, and they were very guilty... of the shedding of blood.”¹³ So one commentary puts it that in Sodom you'd find “heinous moral and social corruption, an arrogant disregard of basic human rights, a cynical insensitivity to the sufferings of others.”¹⁴ It's already sounding like St. Paul's hard-hitting litany, that “they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice..., envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness” (Romans 1:29) – that the people of Sodom are “insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil..., foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:30-31). For “the inhabitants of Sodom acted insolently and became notorious for their crimes.”¹⁵

But we've also heard from the outset that the men of Sodom were “great sinners against the LORD” (Genesis 13:13), and in Genesis, references to sins 'against the LORD' tend to mean sexual sins (Genesis 20:6; 39:9).¹⁶ Cities throughout history have often been places which fostered various kinds of sexual license,¹⁷ and rumor had it that Sodom and Gomorrah were “guilty before the Lord of revealing their nakedness.”¹⁸ Jeremiah suggests that to be “like Sodom” is to “commit adultery and walk in lies” (Jeremiah 23:14); centuries later, Jews heard how the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “were polluting themselves, and they were fornicating in their flesh, and they were causing pollution upon the earth.”¹⁹ Jewish teachers consequently warned their people against being “sexually promiscuous like the promiscuity of the Sodomites.”²⁰ No wonder Jude remarks that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities... indulged in sexual immorality” (Jude 7), or Peter calls them “those who go after the flesh in the lust of defilement” (2 Peter 2:10). It was said that “they committed fornication without restraint, and were continually inflamed by their frenzied passion for the objects of their lust.”²¹

Here, in fact, is where things get controversial, because it was widely rumored that in this frenzied passion, the people of “Sodom... departed from the order of nature.”²² Beyond just fornication and adultery, Jews warned that there were further depths to sink to until “your sexual relations will become like Sodom and Gomorrah.”²³ We hear how the Sodomites “pursued different flesh” than one would expect (Jude 7), because “they had overturned the laws of nature and had devised novel and illicit forms of intercourse,”²⁴ a testimony to “the force of the lust which mastered them.”²⁵ The priest-prophet Ezekiel had already heard God say that, as a result of Sodom's pride, they “did an abomination before me” (Ezekiel 16:50). To a priest, that was technical language from the Holiness Code of Leviticus, where the only time 'abomination' appears in the singular is about one particular offense: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman: it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22); “if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination” (Leviticus 20:13).²⁶

What we find rumored about Sodom and Gomorrah is that “from extravagance came foul lusts,”²⁷ an “unnatural and unholy lust,”²⁸ the devil having provoked the men of the cities “to an unnatural and fruitless passion for men.”²⁹ One Jewish writer at the turn of the age declared that “they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied themselves to... forbidden forms of intercourse,” namely, that “not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbors, but also... little by little, they accustomed those who were by nature men to submit to play the part of women” in “unnatural... intercourse.”³⁰ His description sounds like St. Paul's assessment of a culture which, refusing to acknowledge natural law as reflecting the authority of a loving Creator, “their foolish hearts were darkened” so that “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves..., for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men” (Romans 1:21, 26-27).

Clearly, this is far from the only thing rumored to be awry in Sodom or in Gomorrah. But it so stood out to those who heard about it that it ultimately became known, euphemistically, as “the deed of the Sodomites,”³¹ as “the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah.”³² This was “just one of their sins, but it was the sin that illustrated the extreme degree of their sinfulness,”³³ connecting to their “special brand of injustice” by showing just how curved in on itself their civic life had become within their defensive walls.³⁴

So that's the testimony outside Sodom. That's the outcry that's risen before the Lord in heaven. That's the claim that there's a bunch of wickedness and uncleanness and sin against God going on there. But what God has said to Abraham is that it's not enough for Sodom to be lambasted in the rumor mill. These accusations warrant an investigation. In fairness to Sodom, God has sent his angel detectives to sniff out the truth of the situation. And if God aims to wait and see, then Genesis likewise invites us to get an eyewitness peek inside the infamous city.

So “the two messengers came to Sodom in the evening” (Genesis 19:1), a fact often later taken to symbolize “the darkness of its vices,”³⁵ and which surely portends “the moral blackness of the events that follow.”³⁶ What would happen when they got there? “Sodom... did not recognize the Lord's angels.”³⁷ No born-and-bred citizen of Sodom, not one, offered these strangers a place to stay, a warm meal or a roof for the night. They only stared in suspicious fear and anger. The visitors did then gain lodging, but it was a non-native, Lot, who provided it.

Then, “before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter” (Genesis 19:4). Reports of the unexpected visit must have spread fast to bring all the men there to “essentially lay siege to Lot's house.”³⁸ One early reader quipped here, “Extraordinary their unity in evildoing!”³⁹ Sodom and Gomorrah “strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil” (Jeremiah 23:14); they “not only do [sins] but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32). That's what produced this unified mob: mutual reinforcement.

Once gathered, “they called to Lot: 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them!'” (Genesis 19:5). This isn't mere inquisitiveness or even an interrogation of visitors, for which only city officials would be needed. This mob was “intent only on committing crimes.”⁴⁰ When they say 'know them,' make no mistake, they mean it in the way that “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Genesis 4:1). This is “a reference to sexual knowledge.”⁴¹ The men of the city have gathered, seeking this new men like 'fresh meat' among prison inmates, for the sake of sexual intimacy on demand. As a later reader took it, “the Sodomites, on seeing these young men of remarkably fair appearance whom Lot had taken under his roof, were bent on violence and outrage to their youthful beauty.”⁴² This is weaponized sexuality as a tool of “domination and control,”⁴³ a “horrible plan for mistreating the seemingly helpless visitors – not just that they wanted to mistreat them, but the way in which they chose to mistreat them,”⁴⁴ amounting to what multiple commentators label a scheme of “homosexual gang rape.”⁴⁵ In the mob, the aggression of the city elites and the simple lusts of the commoners, from teenagers to elderly men, mingled into one revolting intention,⁴⁶ seeking unknowingly to “commit acts of lewdness even against angels.”⁴⁷

When their demand was resisted by the strangers' host, when he labeled their conduct wrong, how did the men of Sodom react? “They said, 'Stand back!' And they said, 'This one came to sojourn, and he judges as a judge?'” (Genesis 19:9). The way they refer to Lot – “Hey, get a load of this guy!” – is packed with contempt, aiming to “strip him of identity and significance” in their society.⁴⁸ Rather than accept his words as those of the brother he puts himself forward as, they now dissociate him from themselves as an irrelevant sojourner himself, a foreigner whose existence there is merely at their mercy and whose voice is therefore devoid of weight.⁴⁹

This is all the more galling because, after all, who is Lot? The nephew of Abraham. And who was Abraham to Sodom? Just their savior. Remember, one or two decades before this incident, the people of Sodom and their lauded riches were carted away captive by conquerors, perhaps already as a divine judgment on the town; but, for Lot's sake, Abraham came and rescued them all and returned them safely home, possibly enriching them even further in the process (Genesis 14). The men and women of Sodom had experienced salvation through the hand of Abraham, and quite obviously on Lot's account. It was their chance to learn from him, to turn over a new leaf, to begin living as befits those who've been saved. But they'd already been “so corrupted by sin that they can neither be improved by threats nor moved by kindnesses.”⁵⁰ So not only did they resume their old ways, but now they speak as though their savior's kinsman is a freeloading foreigner forborne until now. And why the sudden turn? Simply because now, at last, he's decided to speak up and speak out.

The men of Sodom here prove themselves “bold and self-willed,” people who “despise authority” (2 Peter 2:10). They're deeply offended that anyone should presume to correct them, and their knee-jerk defense is to undercut the authority of the critique by condemning the condemnation. “So habituated were they to their unspeakable vileness that now wickedness set the standard of justice,” St. Augustine said, “and it was the person who forbade it rather than the one who perpetrated it that was reproved.”⁵¹ “Like good postmodern people,”⁵² the citizens of Sodom “hold themselves beyond good and evil, bound only by their own habitual selfish ways,” a kind of ancient “moral relativism.”⁵³ Holding themselves immune to moral judgment, the exercise of such judgment becomes “the worst accusation they can throw at Lot.”⁵⁴

Infuriated by correction “like lunatics bent on assailing their doctor,”⁵⁵ the men of Sodom announce, “Now we will deal worse with you than with them!” (Genesis 19:9). If they initially masked their intention as an invitation, now the mask comes off, and they threaten violence. Nor does it take long for them to escalate from threatening to acting. “They pressed exceedingly against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down” (Genesis 19:9). And so, “by using force, they strove to make [others] like themselves in their wicked deeds and to involve them in their crimes.”⁵⁶ Only at this point do the angels reveal their power, “and the men who were at the entrance of the house they struck with blindness from small to great” (Genesis 19:11), as God did to the army that threatened Elisha (2 Kings 6:18), by “a sudden, immobilizing, blazing flash of light.”⁵⁷ You'd expect that to stop their attack, as it did to the Syrians, but in Sodom “even by this they were not admonished, for after this, they wore themselves out groping for the door,”⁵⁸ persisting relentlessly in their lust and in their rage.

So now the angels, and we with them, have gotten a look inside Sodom. Sad to say, not a one of the accusations against them seems unsupported by the eyewitness evidence. As St. Paul would say, “since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not be done” (Romans 1:28). The cities have a culture which “allows nothing to be pure, nothing to be spotless, nothing to be clean.”⁵⁹ In all that they do, “the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21). Even if one or two of those aren't in evidence, Sodom is clearly a place for living for flesh.

But why should we care today about some Middle Eastern town almost four thousand years ago, and why take all this effort to autopsy it and see what was wrong there? Simply this: we trust these things were recorded for good reason, since each and every piece of Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” not only then but here and now (2 Timothy 3:16). In looking dispassionately at Sodom as presented in the Bible and understood by the Bible's early readers, we've found a city which enjoyed unimagined abundance by the standards of their world. But rather than give thanks to God and humbly receive this bounty with a sense of grateful responsibility, they disregarded Creator and creation, proudly asserting themselves as lords of their destiny. This city of plenty overindulged itself and chased selfish pleasures. Not only did they fill themselves on fine things, but they disdained and despised the poor and needy. They curved in on themselves as a society, cultivating mistrust of and hostility toward strangers within their walls. Liberating themselves from norms, they let their lusts lead the way, disregarding even biology in their pursuit of flesh. They denied standards of justice other than what was good or evil in their own eyes, and they harshly rejected as intolerably intolerant anyone who might beg to differ. They refused to submit to any judgment, and sought to exclude and delegitimize any witnesses to another way. And not only were they like this, but they encouraged each other to it openly, parading their chosen way proudly, shouting it from the rooftops.

All this to ask: On a scale from 1 to Sodom, where exactly would we place America in the year of our Lord 2025? If you just thought of a number, I'm guessing it wasn't less than five. The tough truth is that few things described in Sodom are absent from our national culture. No matter which American cultural bloc you look to, there are Sodomite sins not only practiced but promoted as necessary evils or outright goods. Some will imitate Sodom in our license, waving flags of all colors and insisting that the only wrong in certain areas is to judge as Lot was said to judge. This month tends to make that rather clear. Others of us imitate Sodom, though, just as much in our other indulgences and in how we react to strangers or to the poor. Sadly, the sins of Sodom, in one form or another, are deeply relevant to twenty-first-century America. “I warn you, as I warned you before,” says the Apostle, “that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21). A later teacher explained why: it is possible for some “to lose Christ because of their addiction to sin.”⁶⁰

But remember that we've only told half the story. The main character isn't actually Sodom here; it's Lot. Lot is a man who was reared in the house of Abraham; some later readers believed that “association with the patriarch led him to the very pinnacle of virtue.”⁶¹ But as we've seen him so far, Lot seems to be aiming to ape Abraham, except that “Lot never quite gets anything right.”⁶² Lot is a bargain-bin Abraham, “a pale and failed imitation.”⁶³ He wants to be a man of righteousness, but we've seen him deficient in wisdom and charity when he separated from his uncle to move to the Jordan Valley plain, “having regard only for the nature of the land and not considering the wickedness of the inhabitants.”⁶⁴ He traded his tents for an urban life in Sodom, chose to return to Sodom after his redemption from captivity, and now, as the climax of his Sodomization, this latest chapter opens with Lot “sitting in the gate of Sodom” (Genesis 19:1).⁶⁵ City gates were more than big doors; they were venues with benches where leading citizens would sit to transact civic affairs (Proverbs 31:23), and it looks like Lot has become “a man of prominence in Sodom,”⁶⁶ maybe even “a leader in the city.”⁶⁷ Obviously, “while he lived in Sodom, he was not subjected to any bodily persecution or told that he could not stay there,” so long as he was compliant with their civic customs.⁶⁸

The question at issue in the story, then, is: Who is Lot going to be? To what extent has he actually “become like those among whom he dwells”?⁶⁹ Is Lot going to identify himself with Sodom and its culture, or is he going to align himself with the way of the Lord despite Sodom's culture? Will he live in Sodom like a Sodomite or like an Abrahamite?⁷⁰ And the choice of Lot matters a lot, because the same choice seems to face us all the time.

Tradition receives Lot as ultimately “found righteous in Sodom,” at least on balance.⁷¹ We're later told in the New Testament that “righteous Lot was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:7). For “the bad people persecute the good, not with steel and stones, but by their life and behavior,” their way of living being an affliction to the souls of the righteous.⁷² That, we're given to understand, is what it was like for Lot on a daily basis in Sodom, a quiet suffering despite his prominence.

Lot wants to be an Abraham. And so when the visitors arrived, although they found no hospitality from the men of Sodom, Lot “rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, 'My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way'” (Genesis 19:2). Lot acts “nearly the same as... Abraham” did to the same angels just a chapter ago.⁷³ Unlike with Abraham, the angels initially decline Lot's offer, determined to “lodge in the town square” since their aim was to test Sodom as a whole, something most conveniently done by openly displaying themselves as bait.⁷⁴ But Lot “pressed them exceedingly” – the same phrase we'll later find when the men of Sodom 'press strongly' on Lot and his door. Lot is no less forceful in aiming to protect these strangers. “So they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and unleavened bread, and they ate” (Genesis 19:3). Again, Lot looks a lot like Abraham despite now being in the belly of Sodom. He does good openly anyway.

We've already said what the men of Sodom do next – how they surrounded Lot's house in the night and insisted he present his visitors so they could 'know' them, become intimately acquainted with them (Genesis 19:4-5). So what will Lot do, given that he has the solemn moral obligation to protect guests who've entered under the shade of his roof?⁷⁵ “Lot went out to the men at the entrance, and he shut the door after him, and he said, 'Please don't, my brothers, do this evil!” (Genesis 19:6-7). “Lot adjured them to restrain their passions.”⁷⁶ He doesn't hesitate to label their planned action as an evil. Lot doesn't obfuscate, doesn't dodge, doesn't take refuge in gentle ambiguities. By implication, he “condemned the moral depravity of the Sodomites.”⁷⁷ At the same time, Lot doesn't go into rhetorical overdrive. He doesn't expostulate at length on their filthiness. He doesn't get graphic in his moral critique. He doesn't insult, doesn't yell, doesn't boil over with sputtering anger.

Lot even goes so far as to call them 'brothers,' coming alongside them as a peer bearing witness rather than as the haughty judge they nonetheless perceive him as. He's making an appeal to their conscience, however badly formed, as one of them – from the inside, not from the outside. But their reaction contradicts him. They accuse him of presumption in judging them, but the same verb for 'judging' means 'doing justice,' as Abraham was called to charge his household to do just earlier that day (Genesis 18:19).⁷⁸ The Sodomites' accusation itself reattaches Lot to the house of Abraham and, it seems, to the Way of the LORD.⁷⁹

Of course, Lot's offer to turn over his two engaged virgin daughters to the mob of men to use as they please is about as Sodomite as it gets. We'll revisit that tidbit in a couple weeks, but suffice it to say that many have taken this as evidence that, for all Lot wants to be an Abraham, and for all the Sodomites see him as such, he's let Sodom creep in the back door to his mind and heart after all – and if it's not quite true that Sodom has “almost completely eroded his moral compass,”⁸⁰ it's still fair to say he's partially “adopted a Sodomite system of values.”⁸¹ He thinks he's got the solution to 'What Would Abraham Do?', but as with so many things in Lot's life, the execution leaves something critical to be desired; singing Abraham's song, he's inserted Sodom's notes.

Still, he was trying to get across the extremities he was “willing to suffer to protect and defend his guests.”⁸² Remember that “Lot went out to the men at the entrance, and he shut the door after him” (Genesis 19:6). Now, as the riotous townsmen demand he back down and stand aside, as they threaten him with harm, as they begin to assail and press against him and rush to break down his home defenses, Lot stands firm (Genesis 19:9). He “stood up to the whole population” and, as many see it, “gave evidence of unspeakable bravery.”⁸³

The door behind him functions as an image of the border between good and evil – the Sodomites want to knock it down, but Lot stands in front of it as its defense. And when his strength begins to fail, two groups of men are stretching out their hands. The hands of the men of the city beat him, press him, coerce him; the hands of the men from heaven grasp at him, pull him back, rescue him, and then bolt the door firmly in front of him (Genesis 19:10). And that's where the meaning of the story becomes clearest: which men are Lot's people, the earthly or the heavenly city? Where does Lot really belong?⁸⁴ One thing's for sure: when the angels bolt that door, it has the same feel as when God sealed the ark door behind Noah (Genesis 7:16).⁸⁵

In a way, our calling in our culture is to be as “this body of Christ living in the world like Lot in Sodom, living in the midst of trials and temptations, seeing many things it doesn't like, but not in the least consenting to the deeds of evil men.”⁸⁶ And yet Lot is only an imperfect example, because for whatever he got right, we can still tell that his foolish immersion in Sodom has soaked it into him and tainted him more than he can recognize.⁸⁷ We need something stronger than an example. Living in Sodom requires something else.

And that's why today is worth celebrating. “When the day of Pentecost arrived,” the apostolic household “were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1) in the midst of “the great city that is called spiritually Sodom... where their Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8). “And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind..., and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2-4). Despite the lawless violence in the city, God “poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing,” Peter said (Acts 2:33), “and with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation!'” (Acts 2:40). The Holy Spirit allowed the apostles to thrive in the midst of a spiritual Sodom.

Of them it was written that “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God in boldness” (Acts 4:31), a courage exceeding that of Lot. For “God gave us a Spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). As he said through a prophet of old, so God says again to us in Sodom today: “My Spirit remains in your midst – fear not!” (Haggai 2:5). “God chose you... to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth; to this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-15). Recognize the influence of Sodom by “the Spirit of wisdom” (Ephesians 1:17). Bear witness by a wise and good example how to follow Abraham's footsteps better even than Abraham did, even in the streets of Sodom. When the occasion arises, witness passionately and sensitively to a better way than the way of this world. “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), “and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). And understand that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23) – whatever the world does or doesn't do, however grave the sin around you, let the Spirit's fruit flourish in your home orchard. Do this, and however Sodom-like the world waxes, you may obtain glory yet. Hallelujah!

1  Memar Marqah 4.10, in John Macdonald, Memar Marqah: The Teaching of Marqah (Verlag Alfred Töpelmann, 1963), 2:173.

2  Theognostos, Treasury 1.13, in Corpus Christianorum in Translation 16:39.

3  Testament of Naphtali 4.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:812.

4  Philo of Alexandria, On Abraham 26 §134, in Loeb Classical Library 289:69-71.

5  Paulus Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans 1.5.8, in Translated Texts for Historians 54:53.

6  Philo of Alexandria, On Abraham 26 §§135, 133, in Loeb Classical Library 289:71, 69.

7  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.194, in Loeb Classical Library 242:95.

8  Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 18:20, in Aramaic Bible 1B:68; cf. Genesis Rabbah 49.6, in Harry Freedman, ed., Midrash Rabbah (Soncino Press, 1983), 1:425, and b. Sanhedrin 109b, in Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, ed., Koren Talmud Bavli (Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017), 30:389.

9  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.194, in Loeb Classical Library 242:97.

10  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 328.

11  b. Sanhedrin 109a, in Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, ed., Koren Talmud Bavli (Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2017), 30:387.

12  Jack Sasson, “Where Angels Fearlessly Tread: Mari Insights on Genesis 19,” in Leonid E. Kogan, Natalia Koslova, Sergey Loesov, and Serguei Tishchenko, eds., Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Penn State University Press, 2010), 1:1169-1171.

13  Targum Neofiti Genesis 13:13, in Aramaic Bible 1A:89.

14  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 132.

15  3 Maccabees 2:5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:519.

16  Brian Neil Peterson, What Was the Sin of Sodom: Homosexuality, Inhospitality, or Something Else? Reading Genesis 19 as Torah (Resource Publications, 2016), 34.

17  Ben Wilson, Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention (Doubleday, 2020), 53-57; Jonas Roelens, Citizens and Sodomites: Persecution and Perception of Sodomy in the Southern Low Countries (1400-1700) (Brill, 2024), 8-9.

18  Targum Neofiti Genesis 13:13, in Aramaic Bible 1A:89.

19  Jubilees 16:5, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:88.

20  Testament of Benjamin 9.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:827.

21  Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.8 §44, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:235.

22  Testament of Naphtali 3.4, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:812.

23  Testament of Levi 14.6, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:793.

24  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 42.21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:429.

25  Philo of Alexandria, On Abraham 26 §135, in Loeb Classical Library 289:71.

26  Brian Neil Peterson, What Was the Sin of Sodom: Homosexuality, Inhospitality, or Something Else? Reading Genesis 19 as Torah (Resource Publications, 2016), 88-92.

27  Paulus Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans 1.5.8, in Translated Texts for Historians 54:53.

28  Philo of Alexandria, On Flight and Finding 26 §144, in Loeb Classical Library 275:87.

29  Methodius of Olympus, Symposium 5.5, in Ancient Christian Writers 27:86.

30  Philo of Alexandria, On Abraham 26-27 §§135-137, in Loeb Classical Library 289:71.

31  Memar Marqah 3.7, in John Macdonald, Memar Marqah: The Teaching of Marqah (Verlag Alfred Töpelmann, 1963), 2:121.

32  Vision of Paul 39, in J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1993), 636.

33  S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (B&H Publishing, 2016), 220.

34  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 329-330.

35  Bede, On Genesis 19:1, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:300.

36  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 275.

37  Testament of Asher 7.1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:818.

38  Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 238.

39  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:443.

40  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:444.

41  James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 107.

42  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.200, in Loeb Classical Library 242:99.

43  Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 90.

44  Robert A.J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001), 78.

45  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 276; Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 184.

46  Brian Neil Peterson, What Was the Sin of Sodom: Homosexuality, Inhospitality, or Something Else? Reading Genesis 19 as Torah (Resource Publications, 2016), 32.

47  Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Romans 5.6.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 103:346.

48  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 277.

49  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 305.

50  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 18:20-21, in Luther's Works 3:226.

51  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 98.5, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/4:46.

52  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 305.

53  Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 328.

54  Berel Dov Lerner, Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures: Covenants and Cross-Purposes (Routledge, 2023), 12.

55  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:447.

56  Bede, On Genesis 19:4-5, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:300.

57  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 136.

58  Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:161.

59  Peter Damian, Letter 31.41, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 2:31.

60  Peter Damian, Letter 31.16, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 2:13.

61  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:436.

62  David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 122.

63  R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 186.

64  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 33.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:286.

65  Dan Rickett, Separating Abram and Lot: The Narrative Role and Early Reception of Genesis 13 (Brill, 2020), 45.

66  James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis (Canon Press, 2001), 79.

67  Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 237.

68  Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 69.2, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/17:401.

69  Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 90.

70  Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 203-205; Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 181-182.

71  Vision of Paul 49, in J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1993), 642.

72  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 167.2, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/5:211.

73  Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 115.

74  Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:160.

75  Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 184.

76  Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.201, in Loeb Classical Library 242:99.

77  Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf & Stock, 2023), 85.

78  John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 305.

79  Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 188-189.

80  John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 192.

81  Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 186.

82  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 118.

83  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:447.

84  Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 191-192.

85  John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 192.

86  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 306E.1, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/11:274.

87  Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 176.