For several weeks, I’ve been tracing themes of relationship and connectedness through the Bible. [Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve covered so far.] This isn’t necessarily a theological exercise, as much as it is a building essay–one that tracks how “connectedness” was vital for early humans and their developing world.

Toward Everyday Well-Being

I grow uncomfortable when I hear people talk as if the Bible is an eclectic collection of  arbitrary commands from God. That God randomly allows some things while, on a whim, he prohibits others, as if he is an elementary school teacher who purely wants to see which students will jump through the hoops to earn the most gold stars on a cosmic behavior chart.

Whatever you believe about the Bible, the Old Testament, or its narratives, so much of the text is more practical than that.

Amongst many other purposes, I see  Scripture as often offering everyday wisdom designed not to label those who fall short, but to propel each of us toward everyday well-being and protect us from everyday harm.

Take simple commands like Matthew 5:25, for example, which tell readers to “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court…” This isn’t an arbitrarily chosen rule to prevent people of faith from ever participating in the judicial system, right? Rather it’s a peace-making principle designed to promote humble living and owning up to our actions …for our own benefit. The rest of the verse, after all, is about self protection. Make peace with your accusers OR or they “may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.”

This is often how I see relationships presented in the Bible as well.

Relationships Help Us Live Better Lives

The Genesis narrative presents humans as creatures in need of companionship. Rather than being dropped onto geographic coordinates to fend for themselves, babies are born into pre-existing relationship with two adult humans.

From there of course, God repeatedly commands humans across generations to continue to build these families–to be fruitful and multiply. And Biblical writers also record and track the history of humans by families. This guy begat that one, that family built things, that one played instruments, and so forth.

People Are Inter-Connected By Nature

Inter-connectedness is assumed. And this connectedness is not any more arbitrary than gospel instruction to make peace with one’s accusers. Fostering relationships, living in relationships, is a benefit. It’s a wise practice. It propels one toward everyday well-being and protects them from everyday harm.

And so some very practical social observations that you and I could make while reflecting on society today are also present among the stories of Scripture.

Here’s an example of that. Too many people living crowded together with inadequate access to resources wouldn’t create bondedness, the story of Abraham and Lot suggests, it would create need and neglect. It would foster competition over resources and subtract from the tribe’s fruitfulness rather than fostering it.

This seems to be why Abraham and Lot part ways.

^“But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.”

From under-nourished communities in the developing world to the higher proportion of crime and poverty in modern metropolitan areas, the over-populated areas of the modern world seem to easily bear out this principle.

The Abraham and Lot story perhaps also shows early signs of another practical principle. When we live amongst many unrelated or disconnected people, there is less camaraderie. There are less people to notice you…or to notice or respond when you have need. [This makes us think of another post about the neighborhood who didn’t notice an elderly resident died until 8 years later.]

This principle is seen when a chapter later, four kings pillage the city of Sodom where Lot lived, and the Bible tells us they carry Lot away.

We don’t know, in this instance, how many survivors were left behind in the cities or in the surrounding areas. And we also don’t know whether those survivors were unified enough or resourced enough to go and retrieve Lot and the others. It’s perhaps likely the remaining people in this region weren’t connected enough to their individual neighbors to even know who Lot was, let alone to notice if he was missing. After all, Ezekiel 16 paints Sodom as lacking much sense of community.

“This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” – Ezekiel 16:49-50

“But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.” – Luke 10:10-12

All we know for sure, then, is that Sodom wasn’t known for its connectedness. And it wasn’t this city or neighboring cities who sent a rescue crew for Lot.

Instead, it was 318 of Lot’s tribesmen–his extended family–who were living with Abraham who felt connected enough to Lot to act to save him.

I don’t know why the Biblical writer included passages about Abraham and Lot’s everyday dealings–how they split up or occupied land, how they were threatened, or how they came to each other’s aid. But I do know that when you start in Genesis with humans who are born to families, and with repeated instruction from God to develop families, the pattern that develops seems to propel people toward relationship for their own well-being. Twelve chapters later, it is still not good for humans to be alone.

I’ve been thinking about this more than usual lately, as a 22-year old girl from the rural Michigan county I grew up in went missing this week. Her family–which includes her four siblings–has rallied a small town of very connected neighbors to turn the community upside down looking for her. Today, as many of us pray for the safe return of Chelsea Bruck, connectedness, rings as important to me as it did for Biblical communities many generations ago.

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