Through the Lens of Moral Snobbery

God initiated His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 by stating that if Abraham would obey Him and go into the land He would show him, God would make him into a great nation, give the land to his offspring, and make them a blessing to all peoples. Due to Abraham's obedience, God fulfilled His part of the covenant. As a result, the covenant evolved from being conditional upon Abraham's obedience to being unconditional based upon God's character. Abraham went on to believe God and to abide by His promises, to be circumcised, and to offer his son as a sacrifice to God.

God's intent in this was not only to bless Abraham and his descendants, but also to make Israel a blessing to all peoples. But what does that mean? God intended to make Israel an example to the pagan nations surrounding it so that they might observe a nation that is obedient to God, but more importantly, that they might observe a nation experiencing the many blessings of God. This was a great plan, but, as usual, when sinful man is added to the recipe, things tend to go astray. Such was the case here as God's intent to bless Israel as His chosen people so that they might be an example to the surrounding nations was perverted by Israel. They developed an elistist mentality towards their surrounding nations as they looked at these people through a lens of snobbery. This was an obvious misapplicaiton of God's intent.

This leads me to wonder how this might apply to the contemporary church. How have we misconstrued God's blessings into a form of snobbery towards our neighbors who are without Christ? How have we misapplied our relationship with God into a form of elitism towards those around us? I often wonder how those outside the church view our efforts as the body of Christ. We even call them "lost," which is hardly a positive term. In some cases, even our evangelistic efforts can appear to be rather elitist. When we expect people to come to us on our terms in order to hear the message we were commanded to take to them, that is snobbery. We might mask it as being "salt and light," but many Christians are fearful of those outside the church and it is reflected in how we interact with these people. My fear is that we have taken our relationship with God and the blessings that come with it and, much like Israel in the Old Testament, we have developed a mindset of elitism that is not only repulsive to God, but also to those we are called to love and reach.