Abraham and his mistakes
It is my opinion, and only my opinion, that Abraham/Abram is the most interesting character in the Old Testament and at least in Genesis. Joseph is too good and his father is too sneaky and his grandfather is too wimpy. But his great grandfather Abraham is a wonderful study on progressive revelation and the possible changes in a person's life, over time, from a thoroughly pagan worldview to something much closer to a holistic and God-based worldview. There will be several posts on this, but we'll just start with Abraham and women.
First, he's married to his half-sister. Uuuuuuu--for us, maybe, because we live post Leviticus 18, where it's very clear that the accepted incest of the ancient world was not morally or spiritually or genetically acceptable to God. (Which brings up the question of how literally we can take Adam and Eve, since there had to be incest in their children right off the bat. That's another subject, see below.) Second, Abraham takes another woman on to get a baby, supposedly at the behest of Sarai but I think Abraham let himself be pushed around by Sarai anyway. Third, he lies about Sarai being his wife twice, which tells us they didn't have the most truthful relationship between themselves and with others.
Abraham has to be the juiciest example of humanity in the OT because he is such a mixture of self-centered action and selfless faith. Ultimately, I believe God looks at the big picture of our lives, and what marks us continually as people. For Abraham it was that he believed God even when he was the only one who would or did. And this belief in God made him willing to put material possessions, of which he had many, in second place. But he made a lot of mistakes, big ones.
We live in a culture where the media grabs on to some flaw or gaffe or mistake in a politician's life (I pity Mike Huckabee now) and commits the ultimate straw man; that person becomes nothing but the gaffe or flaw or mistake. No one is allowed a bad day or a bad choice at one time in their lives, yet if a person is a continuous sinner, that's ok. I'm so thankful God doesn't define me by my mistakes.
First, he's married to his half-sister. Uuuuuuu--for us, maybe, because we live post Leviticus 18, where it's very clear that the accepted incest of the ancient world was not morally or spiritually or genetically acceptable to God. (Which brings up the question of how literally we can take Adam and Eve, since there had to be incest in their children right off the bat. That's another subject, see below.) Second, Abraham takes another woman on to get a baby, supposedly at the behest of Sarai but I think Abraham let himself be pushed around by Sarai anyway. Third, he lies about Sarai being his wife twice, which tells us they didn't have the most truthful relationship between themselves and with others.
Abraham has to be the juiciest example of humanity in the OT because he is such a mixture of self-centered action and selfless faith. Ultimately, I believe God looks at the big picture of our lives, and what marks us continually as people. For Abraham it was that he believed God even when he was the only one who would or did. And this belief in God made him willing to put material possessions, of which he had many, in second place. But he made a lot of mistakes, big ones.
We live in a culture where the media grabs on to some flaw or gaffe or mistake in a politician's life (I pity Mike Huckabee now) and commits the ultimate straw man; that person becomes nothing but the gaffe or flaw or mistake. No one is allowed a bad day or a bad choice at one time in their lives, yet if a person is a continuous sinner, that's ok. I'm so thankful God doesn't define me by my mistakes.
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