Genesis 12:1-9
Abraham (Abram) enters our reading today and he will remain with us for over a week. We will see him become a wealthy and powerful man, the father of a nation, a great patriarch of the Old Testament, a man chosen by God and used mightily by God, and at times one of the dumbest guys you'll ever meet (so he is also a great encouragement for us all).
Abram began life in pagan Ur. He was not an ignorant shepherd looking for a better life when God called him. Ur was a city where two-story villas had center courtyards complete with fountains. In Abram's area of the world trade flourished with foreign offices, trade boards, palaces, temples, and a "news service" via fire signals that sent the latest information 300 miles in only a few hours. (This was around 2,000 B.C.) Abram left "the good life" to follow a new God to an unknown place. His action is a great example of faith. How hard would it be for us, if God asked us to move to a place we had never seen, never "checked out"; a place totally different from what we are used to? Would we do it?
God's 7-part promise to Abram and his descendants begins the rest of the Old Testament history of God and His people, Abraham's descendants. We will see that his descendants delighted in the promised blessings, but did not seem to understand that they were to be a blessing to others. The last promise, "and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you," would be completed in the coming of Christ to the world. The promises were these: 1) I will make you a great nation. 2) I will bless you. 3) I will make your name great. 4) You will be a blessing [a command implying moral responsibility] 5) I will bless those who bless you. 6) I will curse those who curse you. 7) In you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
In John's gospel we see that God is "Spirit". It is the spirit that He gave man and woman (not body, not emotion) that allowed them to really know God. Would sin have always been an option? Good question. It would seem that the answer would be Yes, but who knows? God didn't create sin, but He knew that it would happen. The serpent is pretty much thought to have been the fallen angel later called Satan. Why free will? So that we could love God as His children and not His robots. What do the rest of you folks think? Amanda has given us something interesting to chew on!
Posted by: Sue | October 02, 2007 at 04:45 PM
This question is skipping back a few days to the story of creation. If God created man in the image of God, then how was sin able to come into the world? And, was sin inevitable? We put a lot of emphasis on one bad decision made by Adam and Eve, but what if they had resisted temptation that time? Was it inevitable that they would eventually rebel against God, or that their descendants would have?
Posted by: Amanda | October 02, 2007 at 08:30 AM