Abram, man of action

Genesis Chapter 14

In Genesis chapter 13, Lot pitches his tents near the city of Sodom, in the very fertile land of the Jordan valley, in this chapter there is a bit of historical background explaining how Lot is carried off as war plunder. Basically various local rulers decide to rebel and go to war. 
During the action, Lot and his family are captured as spoils of war and face either life of slavery at best or mutilation and death at worst.
Abram hears of Lot's plight and we now see a new side to Abram, he goes on the warpath to rescue his relative – he actually goes quite a long way to catch them up. 
Abram and his followers and allies attack the army and rescue Lot and the other captives.

Next is an interesting bit because a local king of a place called Salem, Melchizedek,  pronounces a blessing from God to Abram. Melchizedek turns up a couple of other times in the bible, once in the book of Psalms where it says "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek", and in the book of Hebrews where it quotes the psalm!

The Mormons (or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints) talk about  their priesthood being of the order of Melchizedek (who makes his appearance here). The claim that the ordained ministry in other churches is of the order of Aaron (more later of him).

Personally I think that Melchizedek was a royal and a priest (The kings of Israel later on were not of priestly classes, the priesthood and the royalty were quite separate), he blesses Abram and receives 10% of Abrams property – though Abram having been on the warpath, may have been travelling light!!

It is interesting that Abram refuses to take anything for himself from the king of Sodom, and actually only looks after his allies, he himself makes nothing out of the battle (Aside from rescuing his relatives) 

However, we have seen Abram as a man of action not afraid to use force to right a wrong. I'll go into my views on war later on - look out for it when I get to Joshua.