Why did God call Lot a righteous man

Question: Why did God call Lot a righteous man after he offered up his daughters to be gang raped?

It’s a good question. I’ve often asked that one myself.

The commentators are all over the map on this one too. I like the one who said that mid-east people are just that hospitable.

In context, however, the statement makes more sense.

We often hold the characters in Genesis as paragons of virtue but they are known for their faults as much as their faith. Abraham gets his maid, Hagar, pregnant which causes all kinds of problems. Noah gets drunk and naked a lot after the ark. Jacob, who later became “Israel,” is a schemer and a scoundrel. His sons, who later become the heads of the tribes of Israel, rape and pillage a village and sell their brother, Joseph, into slavery and then lie about it. The list goes on.

Lot is offering his daughters up in lieu of the men of the city raping the angels. So, at least Lot recognized the deity involved and was perhaps as afraid for the men of the city as he was for his daughters knowing who they were messing with. The text doesn’t really say.

Either way, Lot leaves the city and the only two people to follow along are his daughters, who aren’t exactly virtuous either, as they scheme and have sexual relations with Lot later in the story.

Lot obeys God. He did what was wrong, true, but Lot also did what was right. It is called growing in one’s faith.

Ultimately, it is not about us, but about the great God we serve. He showed His mercy and grace towards the Old Testament characters, just as he does us.

It is a great encouragement to us Believers in Jesus. Even when we fail God, as long as we believe and are ultimately obedient, God is faithful to forgive us our sins and call us back to Himself.

In fact, that is Peter’s point in the letter he wrote which contains the idea that you are referring to: (NASB)

2 Pet 2:6 and {if} He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing {them} to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly {lives} thereafter;

2 Pet 2:7 and {if} He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men

2 Pet 2:8 (for by what he saw and heard {that} righteous man, while living among them, felt {his} righteous soul tormented day after day by {their} lawless deeds),

2 Pet 2:9 {then} the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

What Peter is saying here is that if we are mindful of our sin and repent, then God will rescue us, the godly, from our temptation, just like He did Lot. Even if the sin is as bad as Lot’s.