What do YOU think? About Abraham and Isaac...
This seems to be the number one reason why people in my own circle have struggled with being a 'believer'.
What do you think?
In my circle of friends and family, I've been asked on more than one occasion why and how I can have such faith in God, and why am I such a believer? How can I believe in something I can't see? On and on and on. But the one thing that comes up most often is the story of Abraham and Isaac.
You may recall this story yourself. Referring to Genesis 22:2:
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2022&version=NIV>
So, I get this thrown at me (for good reason, I wholeheartedly admit), "You know, I start reading the Bible and feeling pretty good about it, and then I get to the story about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. How can I possibly believe in a God who would ask such a horrific thing of people??"
Full disclosure: I struggled with this in the beginning, and I continue to struggle with it now. However, I do now recognize that this was more of a "test" to see if Abraham would have faith in God and that He would deliver him from such a horrendous task—that he would actually not have to do such an awful, despicable, heart-wrenching thing anyway, because God would come through for him and provide a sacrifice in place of Isaac.
Kind of makes you think of the early 90s: "Psych!!" or "Just kidding!" Hah. Yah. Not funny.
Obviously, there is no way for us humans to understand why God would do anything or ask things of us. It's my understanding that this whole thing was simply God "testing" Abraham to see if he's made of the material God is looking for, as he's expecting to send us a savior through this biological line.
BibleProject has this video explaining "The Test" to give some sort of idea about it, but still… Asking someone to sacrifice their child is pretty… well, out there. But this is God we're talking about. And His ways are certainly different than ours.
So, I'll pop this into the Chat, and you can give us your take on the whole deal.
See you there!
I heard a teaching that ancient hebrews had an understanding and ritual for a covenant in which something was offered but the other party would bring a replacement offering. And so Abraham would have understood this was such a covenant ritual and that God would provide the replacement sacrifice. A foreshadowing of Jesus.
Hebrews 11:17-19
[17] By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, [18] of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” [19] He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
Hebrews 11