Genesis 38 Timothy Keller- The Mothers of Jesus: Tamar

These are my own footnotes for the following sermon

Timothy Keller- The Mothers of Jesus: Tamar

Genesis 38:11-19, 24-30

Perez means breakthrough/breakout.  The moral of all bible stories, morals will not save you.  Here is how the grace of God breaks out.  The bible isn’t about just a moral way to live to get to God it’s about how God’s grace covers the immoral. 

Tamar is about 15 years old (verse 11) most people married at puberty.  Tamar is a widow (twice) and in her teens throughout the text.  A widow is the most vulnerable woman because it is highly unlikely that any man would choose her as a wife.  The father of the dead husband, it was his job to provide for the widow.  If he had any other sons he was to give one of his sons to her as a husband.  He tells Tamar that when one of his sons (Shallah) grows up you can be wedded to him.  He tells her to go home to her father and when his son is of age he will send him to her.

Judah blames the death of his son on Tamar and really doesn’t want to give Shallah to him because he believes that it is Tamar’s fault there his sons is dead and believes that she will be the death of Shallah as well.  When Tamar finds out that Judah is not going to bring Shallah to her.  She takes action

When Judah came to Tamars town she covered her face as he walked by, he thought she was a prostitute so he laid with her.  Leaves as a pledge against the fee that he promises, his seal cord and staff.  Leaving this with her was like leaving a wallet with her.  She takes it and goes home.  Tamar is going after justice. 

Tamar uses the sexual double standard against Judah.  She knew if she sat on the side of the road pretending to be a prostitute because she knows that he would go for her.  The double standard is that Judah can have sex outside of marriage whenever he wants but if she does he wants her put to death, she is supposed to be a alone, childless, widow. Back then education didn’t matter the only thing that mattered was having a spouse and a family.  Nowadays if someone in our society doesn’t have an education they’re outcasts.  This is the same thing that Judah is doing to Tamar.  He is making her a social outcast because she is a widow.  He has the power to help her by giving her Shallah as a husband.

In the end Judah knows that Tamar is just in what she is demanding.  He says she is just.  He doesn’t say that she is righteous he says that she is more righteous than he is.  She might be wrong but he is more wrong than him.  He has the power to help her and do what is right, do what is written in the law but he refuses so she acts out.  He is more wrong than she is.  There is another place in the bible where this topic is brought up…  Hosea 4:14 "I will not punish your daughters when they turn to prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes-- a people without understanding will come to ruin!”

Psalm 146, Jeremiah 46, Isaiah 117-  God says have mercy on widows. 

This says social injustice is a big sin.  When you have what enables you to be included in society.  Money, education, connections, privileged, etc.  When you have those things and you’re not helping others to get those things it’s a big sin.  God expects us to help others he gives us blessings and privileges not so we can look down on those who don’t have them, but so we can extend our hand to those who don’t.

Do we have the same type of passion for social injustice as Tamar does? 

The breakthrough of Judah-  Tamar goes home with his things, Judah tries to send a goat the prostitute for payment but he can’t find her.  Later he hears that Tamar was a prostitute and is now pregnant, the only thing he says is “take burn” he commands that she be burned.  This is disproportionate punishment.  There were a lot of punishments back in that day that we find very harsh but burning was reserved for the most heinous of crimes.  Verse 11b, the reason he decided to deprive and oppress her, he needed to believe bad things about her in order to prove that her being a bad person is the reason bad things happened to her son, to shield himself from the terrible things HE did to his sons himself, to shield himself from his own sins.  The fact that he finds out that she is a whore this gives him ammo.  This makes him feel justified.  But in fact he is taking a completely innocent woman whom he has wronged and is torturing her.  So actually when he orders Tamar to be burned he’s also burning himself too.  He will have to keep up this lie in his mind that Tamar is a horrible whorish woman when he knows that she is not.  Why is he able to do this evil thing?  Terrible person?  He has in his heart the same thing that we do, every human heart has to justify itself.  We have to shift the blame.  Nothing is our fault, look what it can lead to.

Verse 25.  As she was being brought out, as they were dragging her to the fire.  She has a message for her father-in-law.  She sends him his stuff that she kept when he left from laying with her.  Law says that whoever lies with the prostitute should be burned too.  She says to him recognize.  As if to say do you recognize these things and also recognize what you are doing.  She is forcing him by God’s grace to recognize himself, do you see who you are, do you see what you’ve become, the sexual hypocrisy, the hate in your heart?  Judah did recognize and says she is more righteous than I.  He was on the verge on going all the way under but he has a spiritual awakening. 

You have to have a spiritual awakening so that your heart doesn’t keep going down the path of Judah’s.  Trying harder isn’t enough, just being a good person isn’t enough.  The problem, deficit, character flaw, in your life that is hurting the most people around you is the one that you can’t see.  Your only hope is that the Tamar’s of the world to wake you up.

Spiritual awakening- When you begin to see the people that you used to despise, you start to realize that you’re no better than they are.  If you’re a liberal, when you start to realize you’re just as much a bigot in your own way as the people you consider to be bigots.  Conservative- you begin to realize your own self-righteousness, pride, etc is no better than those running around having sex in the streets.  When the people you look down on begin to be the people that you look up at and see your own flaws. 

The only way to find a lost sheep is to grab it tie it up and force it to go back home.  When someone is lost they don’t feel like they’re lost, they don’t know that they are, they do everything they can to resist being saved.

Genesis 27- Judah and his brothers take joseph’s coat and pour lamb’s blood on it and take it to Jacob (joseph is Jacob’s child) and say recognize to deceive him, in 38 Tamar deceives Judah, they conceive a child and Tamar says to him the same Hebrew word meaning recognize.

Judah needed a spiritual awakening, it took a very painful series of spiritual awakenings to be a vehicle for Christ, Christ comes through Judah’s descendants.  It took a lot of painful experiences, learning and growth awakenings for Judah to be more like Christ, and that is exactly what it’s going to take for us to do the same and to spread Christ.

Matthew Chapter 1, genealogy of Jesus.  A woman’s name Tamar, Judah, Perez.  Why and how?  Tamar had her life back and when Judah looked at her and said you are righteous in spite of all your sin.  The thing that we need to work for justice is we need to hear Christ look at us and say truly in spite of all your sin you are righteous.  We have to know that kind of acceptance.  When we know that type of freedom we can go after justice and become someone great.