he created them;
male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
| GENESIS 14–15; PSALM 11 | Week 2, Day 1 |
In those ancient days, wars between city-states went on constantly. Abraham was himself a kind of traveling city, with his 318 trained men; and his little army turned the tide. I think the writer of Genesis sees the victory as an achievement of faith and of Abraham’s skilled leadership.
Abraham refuses any reward for himself, but he gives a tithe to Melchizedek, king of Salem (which means peace, shalom). Melchizedek is a mysterious figure, open to our speculation. The New Testament pays him particular attention (Hebrews 5–7), portraying him as a forerunner of Christ.
But again Abraham struggles. When the Lord says, “Do not be afraid, Abram . . . ; your reward shall be very great” (15:1), Abraham reminds God that he still doesn’t have an heir. Will his holdings simply pass to his steward, Eliezer of Damascus, “a slave born in my house” (15:3)? It is a plaintive cry.
What follows is at once inspiring, mysterious, and symbolic. After God has reassured Abraham of the divine plan, God asks him to make a sacrifice. Abraham has to drive scavenger birds away from the sacrifice; they seem like a malevolent force. Then Abraham has a terrifying dream, which reveals some of the peril that will one day threaten his descendants, even as the scavengers have invaded his place of worship.
PRAYER: When I am in a dark and uncertain place, O God, reassure me with your presence and promise; in Christ our Lord. Amen.
Recall a time when, in the face of what seemed impossible, you “believed the LORD.”
| GENESIS 16–17; PSALM 12 | Week 2, Day 2 |
Sarah, who is, of course, as fine an example of faith as Abraham, wavers as does Abraham. In frustration, she attributes her childlessness to God (16:2), and judges (as Abraham seems to have done in Chapter 15) that she will have to take matters into her own hands.
Her solution was probably a rather common one in that time and culture; she and Abraham use her maid as a surrogate mother. But when the maid, Hagar, finds that she has succeeded where her mistress could not, she feels scorn for Sarah. So Ishmael is born; and since the Arab world looks upon him as their ancestor and the Jews upon Isaac as theirs, the strife between Sarah and Hagar continues to our day.
Thirteen years pass, and when Abraham is ninety-nine (17:1) God promises again that he and Sarah will have a son. It has been a long wait! At this moment his name is changed from Abram (exalted ancestor) to Abraham (ancestor of a multitude), and Sarai is changed to Sarah. Still, Abraham wants to cling to what is present and visible: “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!” (17:18). No wonder, when he and Sarah had waited so long and to no avail.
But God assures Abraham that there will be an Isaac and commands that the covenant mark of circumcision be instituted. From this point on, the Hebrew Scriptures divide the world, by this mark, into the circumcised and the uncircumcised.
PRAYER: Thank you, gracious Lord, for not giving up on me when I wonder and wander! Lead me on, I pray; in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Both Abraham and Sarah waver in their faith. How is our faith affected by our doubting?
| GENESIS 18–19; PSALMS 13–14 | Week 2, Day 3 |
When the New Testament writer urges that we be hospitable to strangers because by doing so “some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2), he may well have had Abraham and Sarah in mind.
These desert visitors brought good news and bad news. Abraham and Sarah are told again, this time with a specific detail, that they will have a son. Sarah laughs—half, I think, in doubt and half in incredulous joy—but the strangers say it will be so. But then they confide to Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sins are “very grave,” will soon be destroyed.
Abraham begins bargaining. He is half saint and half merchant in a Middle Eastern bazaar, and the marvel is this: that it is only when Abraham stops asking that God stops giving. The two cities will be saved if only there are ten righteous.
But the righteous element in Sodom and Gomorrah was almost nonexistent. Even Lot’s attempt to get together a Noah-like family contingent falls short; his sons-in-law think he is jesting. This may say as much about Lot’s quality of witness as about the young men’s sensitivity. At last even Lot’s wife shows how tied she has become to the life and culture of Sodom and Gomorrah.
It is a sad and instructive story, and the postscript about the Moabites and the Ammonites only accentuates the irony.
PRAYER: Give me, please, the faith of Abraham, to plead and work for the redemption of the times in which I live; to your glory. Amen.
Think of history—national, local, or even of a church or a family—and recall instances when a very small number of “righteous” saved the day.
| GENESIS 20–21; PSALM 15 | Week 2, Day 4 |
The Bible is a wonderfully honest book. It portrays us as we are, even as it holds before us the ideal of what God wants us to be. Once again Abraham, the man of faith, conducts himself more like an artful manipulator. God respects the heart integrity of Abimelech (20:6) and—in what may seem almost irony—instructs the king to solicit prayer from Abraham. Because Abraham, whatever his occasional lapses, is a servant of God.
And now the promise is fulfilled and the child Isaac—Laughter—is born. Abraham is a hundred years old, and Sarah is ninety. Are these ages according to our length years? some will ask. Whatever the case, Genesis wants to make one point clear: Abraham and Sarah are far past childbearing age, and Isaac is a miracle, a gift.
But now the tension between the child of logic and the child of faith grows to the point of disaster, and Hagar and Ishmael are forced out. From the Bible’s point of view, Isaac is the issue of the story, because the witnessing line and the redemptive line will come through him and his descendants. Nevertheless, God watches over Hagar and her son. When she reconciles herself to death, an angel chides her: “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid” (21:17). Perhaps this is what theologians call common grace; for while Ishmael is not the key figure in the eternal drama, his life is nevertheless preserved and blessed.
PRAYER: Help me, Lord of all, to have room in my heart to see you at work in those who are different from me; in Christ. Amen.
Find some instances from your personal experience or from history where it seems that “common grace” (as in the story of Hagar and Ishmael) has preserved someone who doesn’t seem to be theologically correct.
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