A Biblical Theology of Mission

 This sermon was given at Cross Points church in suburban Kansas City (Shawnee, Kansas) on Sunday 17 November.  For the video, click on this YouTube https://www.youtube.com/live/BzOA3g5d_HM?si=JfqmbmzRM10nmjtI&t=3517  

 

Shalom. Thank you, Pastor David and Pastor Mark, for this privilege to address Cross Points Church this morning on a very significant day in the church calendar. 

Today I want to give each of you, as Brother Ernie used to say, some machine gun Bible texts in a rapid-fire manner that together tell a story, the story of God’s heart for the peoples of the earth. A story that began in the beginning and ends, in a world that doesn’t end. His story is our commission, that is, we are part of his story that is told this year in 2024 and each day of our lives. We are actors; we are participants in the Great Story of God’s love and redemption of all mankind.

Let’s listen to these, and I hope you will stay with me.

1)         Genesis 12.1-3,  Abraham receives the call of God to leave his family and go to a place he doesn’t know, and God promises him a three-fold blessing of seed, bounty and a land and what did he do as a result? Gen 12.5 He took his wife and possessions which would have included slaves and all his household goods, and the Bible says he took “the souls” he gathered. The rabbis teach that those ‘souls’ were converts to the Abrahamic religion. Abraham heard from God and immediately gathered others to follow this God. Being a disciple includes gathering souls.

2)         Exodus 19.5-6  The scene is at Mt Sinai, 3 million Jewish people have just left slavery in Egypt. We are about to receive the Ten Commandments. God tells Moses that the people of Israel are special. Called to be a Kingdom of priests. Great. Wait a minute; Whom do priests serve? Themselves? Not at all. Priests serve others. If Israel is to be priests, the nations must be in God’s view.

3)         Lev. 19:9-10   ‘^aNow when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.”  Corners of the field are for others. Don’t be selfish; let others gain from your prosperity. Lev. 19.27 You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.

4)         Numbers 15.37-40  Wear tassels, fringes on the Corners of your garments. God is reminding the Jewish people saying Don’t forget the four corners of the earth. It’s not a private religion I’m creating; the garments you wear are to remind you to extend. The beard you grow is to remind you. Extend. Look beyond your borders. Four is the biblical number of universalism in contrast to particularism. Particular is about Israel; universal is about the world. It’s not about you, Israel, it’s for everyone. Abraham understood that and gathered folks.

For time’s sake, let’s jump ahead…

5)         Jonah… You might remember him. A prophet, but a failure, dismal failure. He goes to Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian empire, to tell the pagans of God’s love and it works.  Jonah 3.7-9    The mayor (Bible says, “King”) of Ninevah repents, and demands the entire country to join him in proclaiming Yahweh their king. Jonah is a successful missionary, at least for Ninevah, but Jonah is not happy.  But, backup in the story, Jonah 1.3  Jonah left a little seaside village named Joppa, skipped town, tried to avoid the whole God thing, and that didn’t work out so well for him. He ended up being successful in his preaching to “those people’, the dreaded enemies of the Jewish people, so that they repented and became followers of the God of Israel, but his end is dismal. Jonah 4.1 He was angry. Can you imagine the And Jonah 4.3, Jonah 4.8, Jonah 4.9 three times in the final chapter he said he would rather be dead than to live if that’s the way God was going to treat those evil and foreign Gentiles. 

6)         If I may, two more scenes, and for many of you, the more comfortable side of the Bible. Look at the Newer Testament, in the book of Acts chapter 10, the scene with Cornelius, the Roman centurion who was a good guy, and we will see the apostle Peter. Cornelius is a military leader and had donated to the Jewish people under his charge. (Acts 10.5) In a dream God told Cornelius to dispatch men to Joppa, to find Peter, and to invite him back to his place.  OK, no problem.  At about the same time, Peter is down in Joppa (which, by the way, is wrapped around by modern-day Tel Aviv) and has a noon-time dream. Acts 10.11 A vision with a four-cornered sheet filled with unclean foods for Jewish people. Four-footed animals, and things we can find on Metcalf, like Red Lobster shrimp and bacon double cheeseburgers and such.            Acts 10.13 A voice tells Peter to “Rise, kill and eat” Peter reminds God that he’s Jewish and so doesn’t eat such things. God answers him Acts 10.15 saying “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unclean.” 

This dream came to Peter three times and you would think that Peter got it. After all, he had walked with Yeshua, with Jesus, for years. He had preached for 9 chapters and probably about 10 years by this time. Acts 10.17 “Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be”  That means, even though he understood so much of God, the Bible says he didn’t get it. But overnight, God answered his query, and Peter answered the invitation, really a subpoena by the military Roman, and went to Caesarea. He travels the 54 kilometres north to tell Cornelius about the Lord, and Cornelius has gathered many in his home to hear God’s word. Some of the missionaries here in church today will tell you that in some Latino or Asian villages where they travel, a person will do just that, invite neighbours and others to hear the missionary speak about God. Those are awesome moments for each of us.  Acts 10.28 may be a Bible verse you want to memorise if you are not Jewish, as it’s a significant reminder of who got you into this. There in his sermon, Peter tells the gathered, “God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” The four-cornered sheet vision was not about lunch for Peter, about those unclean foods. It was about people like folks in Rome or in Shawnee who eat those foods. The vision was about Gentiles being made clean in the same way Jews can be made clean. Titus 3.5-6 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 1.7  It’s the blood of Jesus that cleanses us and makes us right with God.  God has done it all for each of us. Every Jew in this sanctuary ought to praise him; every Gentile in the sanctuary ought to shout Hallelujah! Amen!

7)         Revelation 5.9-10 In the final book of the Bible, and we could find many of these themes in so many of the books, but again, for time’s sake, we narrow our focus. We read, “Worthy are You to take the ¹book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation .(Four again) You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.” God is saying that the redeemed are to be a kingdom and priests. A repeat of the call to Israel in Exodus. A reminder that the four corners of our robes or even of the facial hair, of the fields we harvest, everything about God is the extension of his rule over the planet. He wants us, as participants in this drama, to be kings and priests, to take his message, his love, his care to Lackman Road, to the 30,000 folks in our radius, to the ends of the earth. And to be happy about doing so. 

Remember Jonah, although he was a success he was a racist, and didn’t want those undeserving Gentiles to hear about God. Oh, did you notice that Jonah and Peter were both in the village named Joppa. Both received the call to take the message of God to others. And the others were the dreaded enemies of the Jewish people? For Jonah is was Assyria. For Peter it was Rome. Both were military occupiers of the land of Israel. Both were enemies of the Jews. To each God wanted to share his love and care. And God chose a person to go to them. Jonah was reluctant but eventually went, and won them over, but failed due to his hatred of the Assyrians. Peter won the folks at Cornelius’ house, and won Romans 5.5 because the love of Jesus has been poured out into his life, and we can say, into our lives. 

Abraham gathered foreigners and went to the Promised Land. Each missionary in this sanctuary and the others whom you will support today, and all year by your donations, gather souls to the Lord. That includes my work among the Jewish people of Australia and in Middle Tennessee, or Curtis and Mei Lin of Hong Kong and around Asia, or Bill and so many in Latin America, and each of the teams of YWAM around the globe, and all the unnamed but powerful emissaries you send. 

I’m thinking of Adam in Western Australia, of another Andy in Sydney, both about 40 years old, both Jews, now both followers of Yeshua because we were there when God called them. We had the funds. We had the spiritual energy. God opened their eyes to the Gospel. I’m thinking of Michael, a very observant Jew in Sydney who found us on LiveChat and gave his life to the Lord with me a couple of years ago. He is now married, has a new baby, and loves his new life in the Lord. And Philip, my former dentist, now retired, for whom I was there at his time of spiritual hunger, so that now he’s following our Messiah. The list goes on and on. And we’re not done. The work is ever-expanding and ever-replicating, as God’s mission is our mission.

Dear saints at Cross Points, we missionaries thank you. We owe you. We honour you for the lavish grace you pour out on us. May I mention specifically the teams that care for us on the field, the prayer nets like the one that Wolfgang and Betty Jo lead in their home and on Zoom? Those nets are deep and powerful and keep us on the field and in the Spirit. 

I’ve tried to show you that this drama, this story of God and the people of the earth began in the beginning and won’t end until Jesus returns and puts his foot down in Jerusalem, establishing his kingdom and rulership. Revelation 11.15 The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His messiah. Until that day we missionaries work. Until that day, each of us watching online or here in the sanctuary, who are disciples, want three things. We want 1) to be with Jesus, 2) to become like him, and 3) to do what he did.  

God’s mission is our mission. 

The people of Shawnee, of Johnson County, of Missouri and Kansas, of the US, and the people of the world await God’s mission. 

Will you join him? 

If you are not yet a believer in and follower of the Lord, I invite you to hear these words and to receive them. I’m speaking to you, perhaps a visitor for the first time to this building today, or even watching much later on the internet. God wants you to know him and to follow him, to bring others along with you to him, to be with him and to do what he does. He is reaching out among the peoples of the earth to share his care and peace in a turbulent and troubled world. Even your world. 

I implore you to say ‘yes’ to Yeshua, to Jesus, and to become his disciple and follower. Learn of him. He is gentle and lowly and loves each of us. Thank God his arms are open to you, today, just now. Be forgiven of your sins, repent, and turn from them, be baptised and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and yours and all who are far off. Thanks be to God for his immeasurable gift.

Thanks to the pastors, the staff, the elders, the musicians, all the volunteers, and each of you, members of Cross Points, who make this place a City on a Hill, a light, a beacon of hope for the area. Let’s keep being about God’s business until Jesus returns. From me personally, after receiving 45 years of continued care and love, please hear my sincerest gratitude.

Shalom.

Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field: A study in false gods (Jeremiah 10)

 Truth and Consequences:  A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah 

Chapter 10

To watch this on video: https://youtu.be/FFK9xfW6Ib8 

INTRODUCTION

Today’s lesson is a combination of pain and anger expressed by the Almighty to our Jewish people. It’s heartfelt and is the summary and finale of the section we began a few weeks ago of things that are not true. False confidences, false prophets, false worship and today, we end with the summary of the four: false gods. 

I hear it often from people, even this week, “It doesn’t matter what deity you believe in… there are so many religions… peace and comfort, joy and love…those are all the same in every religion, no matter what you call your god… it doesn’t matter.”

I understand that the ethics of humanity which the United Nations seeks, certainly compared to the anti-social and wrong ethics depicted in the sabre-rattling of Russia just now in their surrounding Ukraine, all of that can be summarised in religious terminology. And wars and rumours of wars go against the grain of the human enterprise of love and respect. I get that.

Standing up and insisting that there is but one God and that He (if I can be representing the single Deity in male terminology) wants all of humanity to know and love him, to respect him and his wishes for how to live life, that’s downright particular and NOT the way we have been taught in the beginning of the 21^st Century. Tolerance and live-and-let-live are more the way of the world. And it’s the representation of the way of the world of Jeremiah in 588 BCE as well. Calling anything a god doesn’t make it so. In fact it shows the narishkeit of those who claim such. That is what we will see in today’s lesson. 

1. 1. A satire on idolatry (1-.16)

The first 16 verses would be a satire in any playwright’s pen. The nations and the false gods of the nations are held in scorn and derision. And what is Jeremiah saying by that? That Judah… God’s people… should not be acting like them! We know better, or at least should know better, and our actions of false worship and false assumptions are derived from this ridiculous and laughable commitment to the nations around us and to their gods, which, he will say, are not gods at all.

Look at verse 1: Jeremiah is proclaiming the word of the Lord. This is not his opinion. This is not human enterprise. This is not the recommendation of the son of the priest. This is a direct message from heaven for the Jewish people. And when you think about the young man who was a bit reluctant to speak in chapter 1 of this book, you will see how he has grown in his faith and in his love for the Lord. 

Some of you are new to Messiah and his love. Excellent. We welcome you. There’s much to learn in this sacred text. Beyond information, however, is the personal God who welcomed you first. He sent his son Yeshua to die for you and to bear your guilt and shame. And to bring you to himself. That’s awesome. Everything we learn about him from this book is designed to get us closer to him, not to an academic degree at the uni. Watch and learn Jeremiah in his personal growth and his  כֹּחַ his strength in communicating the love of God for all people.

Verse 2: Don’t learn the way of the nations. Singular. Their ‘way’ is religion which is false religion. See how hard that is to say in these days? It was hard for Jeremiah in those days as well. 

Verse 3: It's clear to me that this scene of the chop and decorate a tree are not related to Christmas trees at all, although I heard that when I was much younger. It’s simply put as Craigie said, a mockery, a satire of the way idols were manufactured in those days. Here’s his quote:

Craigie says this in his commentary: “These verses portray the idol-gods as no more than the creations of men. They begin as a tree, are overlaid with precious metals, and are secured so they will stand up. These gods, however, cannot move or speak and are incapable of doing anything, either good or bad. The gods are no more than the materials out of which they are made (Carroll).”

Remember the story from the midrash of Abraham and his father’s idol shop? 

This appears in Genesis Rabbah chapter 38. It is a post-biblical story imagining the early life of  Abraham when he was a young boy working in his father's idol shop. 

Terah was an idol manufacturer who once went away and left Abraham in charge of the store. A man walked in and wished to buy an idol. Abraham asked him how old he was and the man responded “50 years old.” Abraham then said, “You are 50 years old and would worship a day old statue!” At this point the man left, ashamed.

Later, a woman walked into the store and wanted to make an offering to the idols. So Abraham took a stick, smashed the idols and placed the stick in the hand of the largest idol. When Terah returned, he asked Abraham what happened to all the idols. Abraham told him that a woman came in to make an offering to the idols. The idols argued about which one should eat the offering first, then the largest idol took the stick and smashed all the other idols. Terah responded by saying that they are only statues and have no knowledge. Whereupon Abraham responded by saying that you deny their knowledge, yet you worship them! 

Back to our text: in verse 2 we see the ‘signs of the heavens’ and wonder if the love of astrology and the commitment so many have to star signs and such is not in view. 

This from a Bible blog online titled, “Got Questions?” about the Jewish people, the children of Abraham:

“Joshua 24.2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

The great ziggurat of Ur was built by Ur-Nammu around 2100 BCE and was dedicated to Nanna, the moon god. The moon was worshiped as the power that controlled the heavens and the life cycle on earth. To the Chaldeans the phases of the moon represented the natural cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death and also set the measurement of their yearly calendar. Among the pantheon of Mesopotamian gods, Nanna was supreme, because he was the source of fertility for crops, herds, and families. Prayers and offerings were offered to the moon to invoke its blessing.

When God called Abraham (then called Abram) in Genesis 12.1 He told Abraham to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house. Everything familiar was to be left behind, and that included his religion…The moon god and other deities were distant objects of worship, and they did not personally interact with men…Though Abraham forsook moon worship, the worship of heavenly objects became a continual problem with his descendants. Many times in the Old Testament, God rebuked the children of Abraham for their idolatry and renewed His call to worship Him alone.”

https://www.gotquestions.org/Abraham-religion.html

That’s how to read verses 3 and 4 of our text. 

Now to verse 5, the power of God continues to be contrasted with the uselessness of the idols of the nations. The picture of the scarecrow made me laugh at first read and to this day as well. Chris Wright says of this image it’s “possibly the most richly comic metaphor for idolatry ever invented.” (page 136) You want to save the nation, so you put up gold and silver and precious commodities to preserve the miniscule field of cucumbers? Ha! What a waste! And again the image of powerlessness is showcased, “they cannot speak… they cannot walk…they can do no harm NOR can they do any good!” A serious waste of your own energies. Stay away from them!

So in verse 6, “there is none like you, o Lord!” The compare and contrast cannot be clearer. One God. Only one. No others. All the rest are fake. I love how Jeremiah, in his declaration about the emptiness of the false gods, breaks into the doxology of praise to the Living God. Celebration and Hallelujah!

Then back to the ironic and satirical degradation of the false gods. 

Verse 8, they are altogether stupid and foolish. And again in verse 11, “the gods did not make the heavens and the earth…” in direct contrast to the One True God who DID make heaven and earth. 

When speaking with some about the Lord, you will often hear compelling arguments about which god is the real god, but Jeremiah well knew that the One who started the whole shebang was worthy of all the attention and love and admiration and worship that we could muster.

Contrast verses 9 and 10; we know where natural construction items originate, but God is the True God. Truth vs Falsehood; there it is. God is living and living on (everlasting). Then real judgment comes—at his wrath the earth quakes. Why don’t you? The nations cannot endure; why do you think you can?

Verse 11 introduces an odd sentence. It’s a line like in a drama. It’s the response God wants his people to say when captured. And it’s not in Hebrew. Rashi and Radak speak to this

The reason for the presence of this Aramaic verse in the midst of the Hebrew has puzzled commentators from the start. Both Rashi and Kimchi accepted the evidence of the Targum as an explanation of the sudden change from Hebrew to Aramaic. The Tg prefaces v 11 with these words: “This is the copy of the letter which the Prophet Jeremiah sent to the leaders of the exile in Babylon: ‘If the Chaldeans say to you, worship our idols, then answer them as follows.’” This suggests that v 11 was a shortened version of a letter sent by Jeremiah to Jehoiachin and the other exiles in Babylon between 598 and 587 BC (compare 29:1–32).

God is giving the Jewish people a statement to read to the press. Tell the Babylonians that their gods are not real god. They are Fake gods.

Then verses 12 and following is Jeremiah’s description, again, of the folly of following the false gods. They are worthless frauds.

Craigie says this of idolatry:

“Idolatry is an ever-present threat to the people of God. It involves both a turning away from God and a turning toward something that becomes a substitute for God. It involves rejecting God as Creator and ascribing to created things an [vol. 26, p. 161] authority that belongs to him alone. It is always an evasive manoeuvre, a subtle form of escapism. How easy it is for us to make idols out of our particular system of ritual, our tradition, a particular place of worship, or even an infallible book. Anything that helps us to avoid the tension and demand of a personal encounter with Almighty God has become for us a form of idolatry. It is not merely as bad as the idolatry that Jeremiah condemned; it is far worse, for we should know better.”

1. 2. Those false gods are being removed (17-22)

Really the introduction of this section is in verse 16. Israel is the tribe of God’s inheritance. God is the Maker of all. Thus when judgment comes on Israel, it will also come on the nations that traumatised us and removed us from our and thus his land. The false gods are going to be removed.

Verse 19: I must bear it, and even though the entire nation went into captivity, he was taken to Egypt.

1. 3. Final prayer (23-25)

The final section today is a prayer, a gorgeous prayer announcing God is, and we are not. Our ways are in his hands, and if you have been alive in the last two years, you know that our movements are not up to us, nor honestly to our governors; God is sovereign and leads us well. 

CONCLUSION

God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life. 

PRAYER

Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up. 

We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 9. Until then, Shabbat shalom!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament, 

Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah.  1991. 

Henry, Matthew, Commentary.

Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.

Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.

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ACTUAL TEXT

10 Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, house of Israel. ² This is what the Lord says:

“Do not learn the way of the nations,
And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens,
Although the nations are terrified by them;
³ For the customs of the peoples are futile;
For it is wood cut from the forest,
The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.
⁴ They decorate the idol with silver and gold;
They fasten it with nails and hammers
So that it will not totter.
⁵ They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.”

⁶ There is none like You, Lord;
You are great, and Your name is great in might.
⁷ Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?
For it is Your due!
For among all the wise men of the nations
And in all their kingdoms,
There is none like You.
⁸ But they are altogether stupid and foolish;
The instruction from idols is nothing but wood!
⁹ Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz,
The work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith;
Their clothing is of violet and purple;
They are all the work of skilled people.
¹⁰ But the Lord is the true God;
He is the living God and the everlasting King.
The earth quakes at His wrath,
And the nations cannot endure His indignation.

^11 [a]This is what you shall say to them: “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

¹² It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom;
And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.
¹³ When He utters His voice, there is a roar of waters in the heavens,
And He makes the clouds ascend from the end of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain,
And brings out the wind from His storehouses.
¹⁴ Every person is stupid, devoid of knowledge;
Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
For his cast metal images are deceitful,
And there is no breath in them.
¹⁵ They are worthless, a work of mockery;
At the time of their punishment they will perish.
¹⁶ The Portion of Jacob is not like these;
For He is the ^[b]Maker of everything,
And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;
The Lord of armies is His name.

¹⁷ Pick up your bundle from the ground,
You who live under siege!
¹⁸ For this is what the Lord says:
“Behold, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land
At this time,
And I will cause them distress,
So that they may ^[c]be found.”

¹⁹ Woe to me, because of my ^[d]injury!
My wound is incurable.
But I said, “This certainly is a sickness,
And I must endure it.”
²⁰ My tent is destroyed,
And all my ropes are broken.
My sons have gone from me and are no more.
There is no one to stretch out my tent again
Or to set up my curtains.
²¹ For the shepherds have become stupid
And have not sought the Lord.
Therefore they have not prospered,
And all their flock is scattered.
²² The sound of a report! Behold, it is coming—
A great roar from the land of the north—
To make the cities of Judah
A desolation, a haunt of jackals.

²³ I know, Lord, that a person’s way is not in himself,
Nor is it in a person who walks to direct his steps.
²⁴ Correct me, Lord, but with justice;
Not with Your anger, or You will ^[e]bring me to nothing.
²⁵ Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You,
And on the families who do not call upon Your name;
For they have devoured Jacob;
They have devoured him and consumed him,
And have laid waste his ^[f]settlement.

Sodom, Rabbi Ingram and tolerance

Rabbi Chaim Ingram wrote this week on the portion in the Bible concerning Abraham and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He alludes to tolerance and intolerance and same-sex marriage. It's a very good read. Tell me what you think, won't you?

"Why is the famous passage of Abraham’s plea for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gemorra such a seminal statement of Jewish ideological outlook?

Abraham’s series of entreaties to G-D to spare the populations of five wicked cities including Sodom and Gemorrah if even 50 then 45, 40, 30, 20 or even 10 righteous inhabitants are to be found there(Gen. 23-32)  is often cited by thinkers of a leftist-libertarian persuasion as a seminal example of, as they put it, “the Jewish value of tolerance”.

Actually nothing could be further from the truth.  What Abraham does not do – and what he would do were he “tolerant” in the leftist-libertarian sense – is to ask G-D  “Please tell me – what is the nature of their sin?  And anyway, ‘sin’ is such a judgmental word is it not? Why do You wish to destroy them? Is it because they are pursuing alternative lifestyles to mine? Perhaps G-D, You ought to embrace their diversity. Isn’t multiculturalism a wonderful thing?  After all, surely it is arrogant to suppose there is only one absolute truth in the world! Can You not see their actions as equally valid truths? After all, I am pursuing my mission and they are pursuing theirs as they see it.  Please can I go and investigate their culture and then I will call a meeting and propose a detailed resolution on what I believe is the best way to proceed.”

That would have been a “tolerant” response.  It would also have meant the end of Abraham’s unique moral influence and mission as av hamon goyim the father of a multitude of nations and the end of his special relationship with G-D.

Abraham’s greatest virtue is not tolerance.  It is unconditional compassion..  He is not the least bit interested in learning about the “alternative lifestyle” of the citizens of  Sodom and Gemorrah. If G-D says that their actions (which included the shedding of innocent blood, corruption, perversion of the course of justice, sodomy, same-gender marriage, robbery with violence and forced eviction) are sins then sins they are.  But that does not mean that Abraham is about to give up on the perpetrators of these sins. Maybe they had no parental example. Maybe they can be helped to change their ways. Even if  there were just ten people there who could help to change the culture, surely, pleaded Abraham to G-D, you must give the cities another chance!

It is fascinating that those people who are the most passionate advocates of  ‘tolerance’ as we have illustrated it above are the most vitriolically intolerant of those who dares to challenge their particular set of values.  Anyone who disagrees with their approach must be a ‘fundamentalist’ or a ‘reactionary’ or ‘obscurantist’ (to cite just a few of the tolerant brigade’s intolerant epithets).  Abraham on the other hand, because he chooses compassion over tolerance ends up being neither uncompassionate nor intolerant of any soul.

Judaism’s ideological approach vis-a-vis the world is a unique and remarkable one. It is absolutist when it comes to belief in G-D but pluralistic with regard to how G-D should be worshipped by the world’s family of believers. It is absolutist in its belief that Torah is G-D given and therefore the repository of absolute truth to the exclusion of all other ideologies;  but pluralistic with regard to how Torah is to be embraced by the world’s family of nations - by Jews via the 613 mitsvot, by Gentiles via the seven universal laws of humanity which would mean that even pre-Messiah a nation could live by broad Torah ideals and be deemed righteous. Judaism is not tolerant of those societies who breach these broad Torah ideals; but it is compassionate of all those within these societies who find themselves without anchor, caught up in a maelstrom not exactly of their making and seeking safe haven in a tempestuous world. Anyone demonstrating such compassion is a true disciple of our father Abraham."                                                    -Rabbi Chaim Ingram

 Others' thoughts:

Barbara Lardinais lives in Toledo, Ohio, (I think) also writes about Abraham's prayer of negotiation here:
Prayer

Also from Bible "Got Questions" website: 
Sodom and Abraham

And from my teaching series on the book of Genesis, you might like to read the whole sermon on Genesis 18:
Guess who's coming to dinner