"Painting Our Houses With Blood" (In Search Of Truth, Hebrews 11:27-28)

Hebrews 11:27-28(ESV)
By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

The author of Hebrews has been providing examples of faith from history and is focusing here on Moses.

v.27

Moses is said to have NOT been afraid of the anger of the king (Pharaoh) and that it was faith, not fear, that caused him to leave Egypt. There is some debate over which departure from Egypt this refers to. Because of the chronological pattern established and the fact that Pharaoh TOLD Moses to take his people and leave (Exodus 12:31), I think this refers to his departure from Egypt after murdering the Egyptian who beat the Hebrew worker. But on the surface this presents a problem:

(Exodus 2:14, ESV) He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”
The text clearly says that Moses was afraid. It doesn't specifically link that fear to the king, but in the next verse it says "When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian."(Exodus 2:15) So it's not hard to see his fear being connected to the King's anger.

So how can the author of Hebrews say, "By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king,"?

The Greek word for "afraid" here means "afraid" in a way similar to the Hebrew word used for afraid in Exodus 2:14, but can also include the idea of "fleeing because of fear" or "being scared away". So it seems that the author of Hebrews is clarifying Moses' motives for leaving after committing murder. I can imagine the author putting a little emphasis on the word "faith" in verse 27 so that the intended idea would be "By FAITH he left Egypt, not being scared away by the anger of the king."

Yes, Moses was afraid after murdering the Egyptian. And yes, the king was angry when he learned about it. But the author of Hebrews seems to be clarifying here that it wasn't fear that caused Moses to leave Egypt.

Maybe Moses realized and trusted, as his parents did, that God had a special future planned for him in connection to his people. Moses had already showed special concern for his people by this point, despite his overreaction in murdering the Egyptian. Whatever truth motivated Moses to escape, it was a truth Moses embraced because of his faith in Yahweh, "for he endured as seeing him who is invisible."(Hebrews 11:27)

v.28

The idea of the Passover is very familiar to us now, but to Moses and the Israelites it was new and foreign. Moses had seen and experienced enough by this point to know that God was unquestionably real. But as both Moses and the Israelites demonstrate throughout the book of Exodus, knowing God exists isn't the same as trusting him. And the idea of killing a lamb and painting the family doorpost with its blood had no precedent among the Israelites. We shouldn't assume they understood the symbolism or that the activity was not disturbing for them to carry out.

It would be more than understandable if Moses had said, "Why in the world do we have to do this? You're God! You can do whatever you want? Why does this gruesome thing have to be part of our rescue plan?" But we see no indication of that, and in fact Moses is commended for trusting God and simply carrying out his instructions for the Passover, whatever the reasons might be.


SO WHAT'S IN THIS FOR GEEKS?

If I were a gambling man, I would bet that there is a greater percentage of fear motivating the day to day decisions of Geeks when compared to other personality types.

For as long as I can remember I've been a fearful person, and my imagination does me no favors in this department. Many geeks are geeks, in part, because they've been hurt at some point, and geeky interests have become a source of refuge and escape. That hurt makes us fearful of people and situations and motivates us to stay safely in our comfort zones.

When we think about God's plans for us we often assume that pain is involved. And though this is sometimes the case, I've found that in the long run I actually avoid tremendous amounts of pain by being on the same page with God. I see harmful, unhealthy and painful patterns of life in some of the people around me that I've been able to avoid in proportion to my alignment with God's intentions for me. And I'm reminded that God wants to protect me from unnecessary pain and harm.

Although we should be willing to trust God in the pain he may lead us through, we should also know that his will is often to preserve us! And not just for our own comfort, but for his purposes!

Moses' self-preservation could have been motivated by simple fear for his own life, but instead he removed himself from danger because he saw God doing something and seemingly wanted to keep himself available for God's plans. So a question we can ask ourselves when we are being self-protective is, "Am I preserving myself to be more comfortable or am I preserving myself to be more available?"

Our fear can also lead us to talk ourselves out of God's will. I can come up with all kinds of great questions to delay doing what God wants me to do. I'm best at doing this when his commands seem strange or extreme, like the first Passover might have. I avoided an adult baptism for years that way.

But if we delay obedience until we understand God's reasoning we will miss out on so much of what he is offering. Sometimes God just wants us to pick up that bloody paintbrush and decorate our house, trusting that as strange or extreme as it might seem, it's something he's using to rescue us.