Stats in Scripture Paper

There are three important lessons that we learn from the bible verses Genesis 18:22-30. One of this lessons is that prayers should be done on the behalf of the world which is under judgment and not for specific individuals (Brandl, 2015). This is seen in the case where Abraham rescues his nephew’s family, Lot’s family from the destruction while in Sodom when God decided to destroy this village due to the evils that were being done by the residents of this area. The second teachings are that prayers should be carried out according to the knowledge possessed by God’s people (Brandl, 2015). As Abraham was a good friend to God, he knew God well together with his attributes as well as his characters. Through this knowledge, he drew close to God to a point where he could bargain with God. The last teaching that we get from this teaching is that we human beings should base our prayers on the knowledge of God as well as the purpose of God (Brandl, 2015). The main reason why we have to pray is not to get our grievances answered but to get the will of God done to us. Our prayers, therefore, should be in accordance of God’s will rather than our will.

From this teachings, the main issues are bargaining to God in order to get a favor done to us and also having confidence to him whenever we are praying (Brandl, 2015). The bargaining that we saw happening between Abraham and God can be applied in our daily lives still. The process of buying commodities involves bargaining between the merchant and the buyer. A good example, in this case, is the bargaining for either an American merchant or a Mexican merchant. In the case of the American merchant, there is no any favor that one can receive from them and when the initial price of a commodity is quoted, there is no change. This is contradicting to the case of the Mexican merchant. A Mexican merchant can sell the commodity at even half the initial price that was quoted. Bargaining enables one to get quality commodities at the relatively friendly price and this is similar to the case of Abraham and God as Abraham was able to get favor from the Lord and received extra blessings than the other Jews despite God being powerful and hard to change his plans (Dolnick, 2006).

The major difference between the bargaining that we do with the one that God did with Abraham is that the merchant holds the merchandise while the buyer holds the price; in the case of God and Abraham God holds everything (Brandl, 2015). The second case shows how hard it is to bargain with an American merchant-like as he holds both the price of the commodity as well as the commodity itself.

These verses can also be applied in our daily lives we as human beings in creating confidence among ourselves so as to achieve an indent purpose. This is the case in which Abraham was able to intervene with God so as to get extra blessings from God despite him being supernatural and powerful (Dolnick, 2006). This case is well seen as Abraham intervenes with God so as to save the entire Sodom if in case there are fifty righteous people; “Will you sweep away the Righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will, you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of the earth do right?” (Gen 18: 22). This case encourage us to be able to intervene with those who may seem more powerful than us with a good example being the American merchants who do not easily change their stand.

Generally, these verses teach us to have courage whenever we pray and also to have convincing power whenever we are interacting with our fellow human beings who could seem more powerful than we are. We should not give up even when praying for things that we know God already knows.