Wednesday, September 07, 2016
That is a crazy amount of faith
Today I read about Ishmael &; Isaac in Genesis 16 & 17. By today's standards these stories are so strange.
First of all, they have a bunch of slaves. Hagar, who is a slave to Abraham's wife Sara (or Sarai), is GIVEN by Sara to Abraham so that she can get pregnant and by default, Sara will have a son. But then Sara becomes jealous of Hagar and beats her.
WHAT?
Hagar flees getting beaten (because... duh), and God comes to her and says... look, you have to go back to the lady who beats you. I'm going to make sure that she doesn't beat you anymore and I'm going to bless your son. He's going to be the head of many nations, his descendants are going to be super numerous. But... by the way, he's going to be kind of an ass and he's always going to be fighting with everyone.
HUH?
And then God tells Abraham, 13 years later, that Sara is going to have a baby to him, he'll name him Isaac and through the child God will made a covenant with mankind and build him into many nations... oh and cut off the skin at the end of your penis. Do it to yourself and all the men in your family and all the slaves and workers on your lands. K byyyye.
AAAAAA!
And Abraham goes and does it.
Now... If I were a member of Abraham's tribe and this 100 year old man came to me and was like.. hey, so God and I were talking and he told me we have to do this thing and if you don't then I have to send you away... I'd be like... Yeah, which way to the next tribe, CRAZY PERSON!?
But somehow Abraham convinced them all, or just forced them, to do it. The next month in that village had to be known for the rest of time as the month of terrible pain and no sex. There were no anti-infection medicines back then by the way... and probably less than perfect knives, so several of the men probably died from skin infections that started with their penis. That's NOT a pretty picture.
This is the faith Abraham had. This is a tremendous amount of ridiculous faith.
I feel like God would like me to get up when my alarm goes off in the morning... and I have a hard time with that. And I have millennia of recorded history and records of God working in the lives of people who trust him.
Abraham had probably a memory's worth of stories from his father in law and of course his visions of meeting with God, and he did these remarkable things and convinced others to join him. That is a crazy amount of faith.
First of all, they have a bunch of slaves. Hagar, who is a slave to Abraham's wife Sara (or Sarai), is GIVEN by Sara to Abraham so that she can get pregnant and by default, Sara will have a son. But then Sara becomes jealous of Hagar and beats her.
WHAT?
Hagar flees getting beaten (because... duh), and God comes to her and says... look, you have to go back to the lady who beats you. I'm going to make sure that she doesn't beat you anymore and I'm going to bless your son. He's going to be the head of many nations, his descendants are going to be super numerous. But... by the way, he's going to be kind of an ass and he's always going to be fighting with everyone.
HUH?
And then God tells Abraham, 13 years later, that Sara is going to have a baby to him, he'll name him Isaac and through the child God will made a covenant with mankind and build him into many nations... oh and cut off the skin at the end of your penis. Do it to yourself and all the men in your family and all the slaves and workers on your lands. K byyyye.
AAAAAA!
And Abraham goes and does it.
Now... If I were a member of Abraham's tribe and this 100 year old man came to me and was like.. hey, so God and I were talking and he told me we have to do this thing and if you don't then I have to send you away... I'd be like... Yeah, which way to the next tribe, CRAZY PERSON!?
But somehow Abraham convinced them all, or just forced them, to do it. The next month in that village had to be known for the rest of time as the month of terrible pain and no sex. There were no anti-infection medicines back then by the way... and probably less than perfect knives, so several of the men probably died from skin infections that started with their penis. That's NOT a pretty picture.
This is the faith Abraham had. This is a tremendous amount of ridiculous faith.
I feel like God would like me to get up when my alarm goes off in the morning... and I have a hard time with that. And I have millennia of recorded history and records of God working in the lives of people who trust him.
Abraham had probably a memory's worth of stories from his father in law and of course his visions of meeting with God, and he did these remarkable things and convinced others to join him. That is a crazy amount of faith.
