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Am I my Brother’s Keeper?

I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while - all this year in fact. Life has been a bit tough - which I might tell you about at some stage. But also, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and praying, and the stuff I was thinking and praying isn’t easy to write about in the relatively short format of a blog post. Maybe, sometime, when I’ve 'got my ducks in a row’, I’ll tell you about it in a series of posts.

Anyway, here’s a recent, simple, thought…

Starting with the story of Cain and Abel in the early part of the book of Genesis.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know, ” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Genesis 4:9

We won’t go into the detail of why Cain murdered Abel, but afterwards Cain tried to cover up his sin by claiming ignorance of Abel’s whereabouts. Of course Cain knew exactly where Abel’s body was. But when God approached Cain and asked where his brother was, Cain responded with this outright lie: “I don’t know.” He then compounded this by being sarcastic with God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Copyright © Phil Hendry, 2022