Three troubling questions raised by Genesis 22
During the 2016 spring training of one Chicago baseball team, the big news was the sudden retirement of a veteran player. He said he was retiring because the team’s executive vice president had reneged on a promise given him when he signed with the club the previous year. He must have been popular in the clubhouse because his teammates did not just say goodbye and return to baseball. They met to discuss the situation, and the team’s star pitcher speaking with reporters afterward accused the team’s executive of lying. Finally the owner stepped in and prohibited everyone on the team from speaking further on the matter with the press, and the story eventually left the public eye. Most likely it did not quickly leave the players’ memories.
For, in any organization, members watch how management treats other members. Based on that, members trust management more or less. People do likewise with God. What happens to other people affects whether we think we can trust him. In particular we notice how God treats people in the Bible.
For that reason we will not yet leave behind the story of God’s command that Abraham sacrifice Isaac (read the story in Genesis 22. Read previous posts in this series starting here). Our aim is to know God better, and Abraham’s story raises three troubling questions. First, since the Lord only does what is righteous, how can it be morally right for him to command Abraham to kill Isaac? Next, how is this trial similar to and different from the way God tests us today? Finally, knowing that God tested his friend this way, how can we trust him enough to walk with him as Abraham did: in total surrender?
The answers presented in upcoming posts should not surprise you, for in this story God does not change from what he shows himself to be in Jesus Christ or in the rest of the Bible. The answers should enlarge you, though, for there is more to God than you realize. He is not just an extraordinarily improved version of you. He is not a creature. He is another order of being. He is God.
Continued next week
