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.
| GENESIS 22–23; PSALM 16 | Week 2, Day 5 |
When Abraham lifted the knife to kill Isaac, it would a triple murder. He would kill his son, his dream, the product of his faith. The enormity of the act is shown in the command: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” (22:2). Abraham had waited decades for God to fulfill the promise in this son; now he has been asked to destroy him. Even God’s miracle is not allowed to compete with God.
Abraham is faithful; and Isaac, who is strong enough to resist his aged father, cooperates with him. It is an awesome father-son partnership of faith. At the last moment, God’s angel intervenes. Generations later the writer of Hebrews will say that, “figuratively speaking,” Isaac was raised from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).
Abraham must have asked himself what kind of God it would be who would make such a monstrous request. He must also have wondered how God’s plan could be fulfilled with Isaac gone. But he believed in the face of all his questions. However much this man of faith may have faltered on other occasions, there is no apparent faltering here.
The story stumbles us. We claim to be troubled by its primitive quality, but what bothers us most is its insistence on an ultimate commitment. Our era is not comfortable with ultimate commitments—not in marriage, patriotism, friendship, or faith. It is hard to follow Abraham up this mountain because it is hard to be an ultimate disciple.
PRAYER: Grant me, O Lord, the grace to trust you with all of my being, for all of your purposes; in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Identify and describe a time in your faith pilgrimage when it seems you were called to an ultimate sacrifice.
| GENESIS 24–25; PSALMS 17, 18 | Week 2, Day 6 |
We have had two miracles in Isaac—first his birth, then his preservation. But there will not be a family line through Isaac unless he becomes a father, so there must be a marriage.
That seems simple enough, but Abraham felt otherwise. He was convinced that his son must not marry a daughter of the Canaanites, but he was equally sure that his son must not settle back in the land he and Sarah left so long ago. Both these convictions sprang from Abraham’s understanding of the plan of God in his life and in that of his family.
So he sent his trusted servant (whose name, perhaps significantly, is never mentioned) on an expedition of trust, and the servant brings back a wife for Isaac, the beautiful and clever Rebekah.
The developing plot has its own pain. Rebekah conceives, but finds a war in her womb. The twins, born only a moment apart, are as different as if from alien cultures. As they grow up, Esau is his father’s favorite and Jacob is his mother’s. By convention, Esau should be the primary heir, as the older son, but Jacob is the one who is chosen