A NOTE FROM CELESTE LETCHWORTH:
As most of you know, Tom went to be with the Lord in June 2018.
Since the lectionary cycles every 3 years, I am able to copy Tom’s SOAR studies from the archives and post them each week with our current year’s dates.
However — this Sunday (June 11, 2023), the lectionary for Year A ‘s Scripture selections are for “Proper 5” which is specified as:
the Sunday between June 5-11 (if after Trinity Sunday)
Tom started this blog in October, 2014 and we have not had a “Proper 5” situation (Sunday between June 5-11 if after Trinity Sunday) for Year A until now (2023).
So, the bad news is that I can’t find anything in the archives that Tom wrote for Genesis 12:1-9.
But the good news is that I found his SOAR posting for Genesis 12:1-4a, (which is the lectionary selection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent for Year A).
So —here’s the SOAR for Genesis 12:1-4a.
You’re on your own for verses 4b-9. 😉
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 12:1-4a
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OBSERVE:
We are introduced to one of the most important figures in the entire Bible. Abram (whose name is changed to Abraham by Yahweh in Genesis 17:5) is mentioned in no less than 16 books of the Old Testament, and no fewer than 11 in the New Testament. He is regarded in the New Testament as the definitive example of faith and obedience.
Abram appears at the end of the early history of Genesis in the first 11 chapters, which describe:
- The creation, and the fall of Adam and Eve.
- The downward spiral of their descendants into violence, and God’s subsequent election of Noah as the representative man who survives the great flood with his family in the ark.
- The arrogant overreach of humanity in building the tower of Babel, and the consequent confusion of languages and the scattering of the peoples on the earth.
Abram comes from the line of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. And his family follows the nomadic tendencies that have begun with the scattering of the nations. His father, Terah, has led his family from Ur up along the Fertile Crescent to Haran.
This is where the salvation history involving the story of Abram picks up. Yahweh speaks to Abram. His command to Abram is a kind of mission:
Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
In a Middle Eastern culture, this is a daunting command. One’s family is their tribe, the place where they belong. Abram is being asked to leave the familiar for an unknown land.
But this call is accompanied by significant promises:
I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.
Yahweh promises Abram that a great nation will come from him; he is promised fame. Even more than fame, he will be a difference-maker — he will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. The man who gives up his own family ties in Haran will have a tremendous impact on all families everywhere!
Note that all of this is oriented toward the future. As we follow the trajectory of Abram’s adventures, we will see that these promises are not totally fulfilled in his own lifetime. Although he will have sons, we will see that even at his death many of Yahweh’s promises remain a matter of faith, to be fulfilled in generations to come.
And we also note that Abram is already old — even if we take into consideration the length of years attributed to many of the ancient figures in Genesis. At seventy-five, taking hold of these promises made by Yahweh must have been an act of faith.
But Abram obeys this strange command, taking with him a small entourage:
Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they went to go into the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:5).
APPLY:
Abraham becomes the ideal pattern of faith and obedience in the Scriptures. Despite setbacks and even missteps on his part, he finds a way to trust and obey God.
Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, pointing to Abraham as the prime example for his doctrine of justification by faith:
What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” (Romans 4:1-3)
And James uses the same passage from Genesis to illustrate that Abraham is an example of faith and works:
You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God (James 2:22-23).
These principles of faith and works are not contradictory. Abram’s faith wasn’t merely theoretical. He put his faith into practice by his obedience. In its perfect sense, faith is demonstrated by works. This doesn’t contradict the doctrine of justification by faith. It gives the doctrine hands and feet.
RESPOND:
Jim Elliot was one of five missionaries killed on January 8, 1956 while on a mission to evangelize the Huaorani people of Ecuador. When he was in school in Portland, Oregon, he was regarded as a promising young man with a gift for oratory and drama. He was encouraged by faculty members to pursue a career in acting.
But he believed God had other plans for him — he had been raised to “live for Christ,” and to seek adventure. His intention was to work among the unreached tribes of South America.
He had much to live for — a loving Christian family, with four siblings; a young wife named Elisabeth, also a missionary; a young daughter, Valerie, who was born February 7, 1955.
On October 28, 1949, he wrote in his journal:
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Although Jim Elliot enjoyed many of the blessings that life has to offer, he was willing to follow Christ even into the dangerous uncertainty of missionary work with a hostile tribe. Jim and his four missionary colleagues were betrayed by a Huaorani tribesman. Their bodies were found downstream in the Curaray River after they were killed by Huaorani warriors.
After these tragic events, Elisabeth Elliot and other missionaries continued the missionary work among the Huaorani, and she later published two books about the life of her husband.
When we encounter God, the demands may not be quite so dramatic. Abraham was told to leave his family and go to a land that he didn’t know. However, he was promised that he would be a great nation, with countless descendants, and that all families on earth would bless themselves by him. His adventures taught him the nature of faith — that faith is:
the assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
In his own lifetime, he certainly didn’t see all of the promises fulfilled that had been made to him. When he died, the only land he actually owned in Canaan was a cave that he had purchased in order to bury his wife Sarah. He didn’t see the descendants that he had been told would be as numerous as the stars — in fact, he had only fathered 8 sons by three different women, and only Isaac was to be the “son of the promise.” Yet Abram trusted that those promises would be fulfilled.
And in the view of the New Testament writers, these promises have been fulfilled:
Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Know therefore that those who are of faith, the same are children of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations will be blessed.” (Galatians 3:6-8).
And Hebrews tells us that Abraham was looking for a land more eternal than what he found in Canaan:
By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:9-10).
I take great inspiration from Abraham. Mine is sometimes a faltering, unsure faith. However, what matters is not how much faith we have, but the One in whom we have faith.
Lord, faith is a challenge in a world where we all want a “sure thing.” Even more than that, we want it all now! Abram teaches us that the sure thing is found in God’s eternal promises, and faith teaches us to trust in what we have not yet seen. As a father of a demon-possessed boy once said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Amen.
PHOTOS:
“Abraham Leaves Harran“ by Francesco Bassano the Younger is in the public domain.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 