We watched another Ray Vander Laan lesson in Sunday School this week. Ray says we begin by building a foundation to better understand the text from an Eastern perspective—the way the original audience would have. We consider discipleship by looking at whom God chose: slaves in Egypt. God told them stories about their ancestors, like Abraham and Sarah, who lived in a patriarchal society. God used the concept of redemption within that system—dealing with bondage and aiming to restore people back into the household—as a model for how He restores His children. He planted this idea deeply into the culture of ancient Israel.

The journey of discipleship takes a new turn today. God brought shalom (peace, wholeness) out of tohu (chaos) and seeks to restore shalom to the chaos caused by sin. He wants partners in this mission—to get people "out of the boat." But there’s a problem: those human partners, because of their own sin and the brokenness in creation, are also tohu. So how can someone who is spiritually sick help another sick person? Something must happen to equip us. That’s where the word “redeemed” comes in.

The Hebrew word for redeem is ga’al—to be redeemed. Interestingly, it wasn’t originally a religious word. It came from their everyday social structure. So, when God says, “I will redeem you,” what would ancient people have thought? To them, it was a deeply practical and cultural concept.

God gave Adam and Eve responsibility over His creation and told them to care for it—to help it flourish beyond its original state. But they sinned, and humanity descended into tohu. One tohu story tells of people walking east of Eden and building a city—Babel—to seize power their own way. God looked down and saw the tohu humanity had created.

Then God saw a family and said, "That family—I choose you." We know them as Abraham, Sarah, and their nephew Lot. God called them out of Babel and into the unknown, telling them to follow Him. The Bible shows God calling them out of tohu to become His new shalom-bearing partners.

However, they and their people too contributed to tohu rather than shalom, so God sent them to Babylon. Four hundred years later, He brought them out again. This time they did better, but still struggled. They behaved like the very tohu people they were meant to transform. They wouldn’t get out of the boat. They wouldn’t eat with sinners. God responded, “You’re doing it wrong. I’ll show you.” So He came down, born into the mess—into three feet of sheep manure, Ray says jokingly—to show us how to bring shalom to tohu.

He raised up a group of people called disciples—not just believers or those saved—but people who do the right things, by God's grace, even if only sometimes. So what did God do to make people capable of doing what’s right? He started with His first partners: the Israelites.

When you ask God why you're going through hard times, one reason might be this: hardship makes us more compassionate toward others who are suffering. That’s one of the redeeming aspects of tohu.

The Hebrew slaves were told the stories of their ancestors. In their culture, if you want to know what someone is like, you ask for their genealogy. For instance, Abraham’s nephew Lot lived in Sodom. After God rescued him, he ended up living in a cave with his two daughters. With no other way to continue the family line, they got their father drunk, slept with him, and each became pregnant. It’s a disturbing story—so why is it in the Bible?

Their children, Moab and Benammi, created two nations neighboring Israel—the Moabites and Ammonites—whose religions were sexually driven and perverse. These two groups were constantly at odds with Israel. Israel was to bring shalom to them without adopting their tohu. The biblical writers say, “Let us show you where they came from.” Their origins mattered. Their ancestors did twisted things. Moab, Ammon, their people and the constant strife between the three nations were the results of one sexually perverted night.

Your job, as God's image-bearers, is to bring shalom to the tohu. God shows us who we are by telling us where we came from. It all fits into a bigger story.

In the beginning, the “rolling abyss” was a metaphor for chaos. Later, the desert becomes a new symbol of tohu. Why? Because it lacks water, food, and shade. It’s full of snakes and scorpions. In Deuteronomy, it says, “In a desert land the Lord found him, in a barren, howling tohu.” That’s where we meet our ancestors.

It may feel like a different planet, but people survived there—Abraham and Sarah did. Life revolved around shepherding sheep and goats, often while living in tents made from goat or camel hair.

The Hebrew Bible reflects a patriarchal culture. That word often carries negative connotations today because of modern abuses of power. But the biblical world lived within that system, and God used its metaphors to reveal truth. We must be careful not to become ethnocentric—judging other cultures by the values of our own. For example, arranged marriages, which many modern people dismiss, result in a divorce rate far lower than ours.

God didn’t command us to act exactly like Abraham and Sarah. He met them in their culture and worked through it. For instance, beth ab means “father’s house.” It wasn’t just a building—it was a social structure centered around the extended family, led by the eldest capable male. Everything belonged to him and was under his responsibility.

In biblical times, the beth ab was organized around family tents. Exodus and Deuteronomy talk about providing for the entire beth ab. By Jesus’ time, families lived in houses, but the structure remained. At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “In my Father’s house (beth ab) are many rooms.” Heaven, then, is a beth ab—a place where the whole family lives together: brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts under one roof. That’s a radically different vision of heaven.

The patriarch controlled all resources, but he also bore responsibility for every member of the family. If he failed to care for them, it brought shame. People went to him for clothes, food, and medicine—and he had to provide.

You may think your house, car, and money are yours—but they’re not. They’ve been entrusted to you. And when you die, they return to God. He wants to use all resources to care for His family. So if you have abundance and someone across town is hungry, what do you think the Patriarch wants? He entrusted those assets to you. You’re part of His beth ab.

This is very different from Western thinking, where ownership is individual. In the East, it all belongs to the Patriarch. And we have the greatest Patriarch ever—not only does He have everything His people need, but He also has Jesus. And what God says is: Your job is to bring others back into the family.

Redemption means restoring people into community. And if we ignore that, we risk leaving the door to marginalization wide open—just as wide as the one they entered through. We don’t just need to save the lost; we need to bring them home.