Good Afternoon all. In Genesis, we see that even though Abraham and Sarah (and Hagar) have to live with the consequences of taking matters into their own hands, God stayed true to His word and blessed them. Making nations from both boys. The testing - although it is a common story, it stirs up emotion and sense of yeah Abraham (and Isaac) for your faithfulness and then questioning about - could I do the same? I pray that I would hold nothing including family ahead of God. As I neared the end of the passage I was singing and then Marc's coaching commments tied right in with the song I had in my heart.
We are standing on holy ground,
and I know that there are angels all around.
Let us praise Jesus now,
We are standing in His presense on Holy ground.
God was right in the midst of the scene and the angels were there too. I bet that one the ram sacrifice was made...Abraham could feel the spirit of God with him.

I thought the coaching comments were pretty good today for the OT passage. To be honest, I don’t understand the whole stab your son to death on an alter thing, and probably never will. Still kind of comes down to the whole communication with God thing again, which is a continuing theme for me. I tend to think about things like this in terms of today. Can you imagine what we would think of a guy would try to stab his son to death on a pile of rocks and say it was an order from God? Not to mention the sheer terror and fear that his son went through. Maybe it was some kind of twist on Gods sacrifice of his own son, I don’t know.

As far as the NT passage, Mathew 7:23 is the scariest verse in the bible to me. Deception is something I’ve been struggling with lately, or at least considering. That fact that there are people on the earth who believe that they are saved and even have the ability to cast out demons in the Lords name, who God will flatly reject terrifies me. I mean it scares me to death to think I might be one of them. Especially when I consider what a wreck my life has been in light of the whole “know them by their fruits” teaching. Hey, does anyone know for sure what is meant by the term fruits?

…rich

Good Morning:
Rich, I agree with you that the whole "sacrifice your son" thing with Abraham may have been so Abraham could feel a little bit of how God must have felt to give His Son over to be sacrificed for us. I would guess that all the heavenly angels and the other worlds and sons of God spoken about in the Bible must have thought that God was off his rocker to sacrifice His Son for us -- at least initially, before they understood the redemption part of it. Maybe those other entities will not even understand it until we are united with God after His 2nd coming.

I think maybe the "fruits" spoken of here may be the "Fruits of the Spirit" described in Galatians 5:22 -- "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self control..."

I am touched by the immensity of Abraham's trust, faith and actions -- to know that God would work things out. His commitment to God was not only in theory but in action -- even when he didn't see a way that made sense to him. I pray for such blind faith and trust in you Lord; and ask You to remove any restraints that I have to following Your will for my life -- no matter how I don't understand Your leading. Thank You Lord! Amen.

Good morning all, hello Rich, I welcome you with enthusiasm, I'm so glad you have been able to return Jay and I pray that Pat will be able to return soon also.

Brief personal history, like you Rich, I have a wide and colorful past with much I am not proud of. But my story is most important around what has happened to me here. I had spent most of my life avoiding Churches and had never read the Bible before coming to Bridge City. This online study began about 3yrs after I arrived and I jumped in with both feet. I had read the entire Book about 6 mos. prior and had been going to a Sabbath morning study with a handful of people.

The more I learned, the more questions arose and if I got too caught up in the details I would snow myself in. I never had any great lightning bolt epiphanies, maybe a little spark caught in the corner of my eye once in awhile. Eventually, and very gradually, all the details began to fall away and a clearer picture of who and what God is began to emerge and the simplest of facts began to stand out for me such as God is everything and God is love, and my purpose here is to be transformed to be more like Him. Perhaps the most important thing of all is my capacity to give and receive love.

This awareness is so like what Jacqui and others spoke of yesterday, I just saw it in slightly different terms. I know God loves me in my rational thinking mind but that is fleeting and so easily forgotten moment to moment. What I feel and hurt from the most in this life is a lack of being loved. And that is precisely the thing God offers the most and I have the singular most difficulty in being able to feel or accept it. What Jacqui referred to as fear and the other anxieties of life I had come to see as my inability to have that deeper knowing and presence of God's love for me or of me.

If I have that deeper knowing of God's love ever present in my conscious life, then what is there in the outer world to frighten me? What person could be seen as a threat to me with their pitiful human power? Get my drift?

I have only told of this to reveal to others how the process has affected me and show exactly the point to which my thinking has evolved so far. This is by no means the end of the story but be aware that it only took place slowly over much time and not once, did I foresee or even guess at where it was going to take me. The only way I can think of this process now is to surrender myself to it, trust God completely in it, and just let it happen. I have to let go of the steering wheel, take my foot off the gas pedal, and stop jabbing the brakes. Occasionally, God blesses me with a glimpse of how beautiful each of you are. Thank you God.

Now I ask you, (an afterthought) what Israelite from 2,000 plus years ago would understand my comments about steering wheels, gas pedals and brakes?

It goes both ways I think.

Every time I read, or hear, or talk about the story of Abraham and Isaac, I too wonder if I could do that. Where I get hung up on this one, is when it comes to the part of hearing God speak to Abraham (or me). It just seems that in that day people actually had verbal conversations with God. One on One interactions that were clear and exact. I have never had that kind of experience. It seems that the communication with God these days is verbal one way, us to Him, and as a thought or feeling the other was, Him to us. And for me this is where things get really hard for me. Because I have many different 'feelings' and 'thoughts' every day. Some times they are great positive thoughts and feelings, but most of time . . . no so much. So, I know I can rule out the no so good thoughts and feelings, as not being from God, but what about the good or great ones. How do I know if they are from God and I need to follow through on that thought or feeling, instead of just leaving it along and letting it pass as just that, a thought.

Lord, help me to learn to hear Your voice and learn how to recognize it as Yours and not just my own, often misguided, thoughts. Thank you for modern medicine.

Hey Aaron... We're pretty much on the same page. Do you have any ideas why God chose to communicate the way he did back then and then stopped, or changed?

...rich

Hi Gregg. Thanks for the contribution. I appreciate your statement about love. I tend to over analyze things trying to figure them out. Over the last several years I've been utterly fascinated by the OT and prophecy both and I've spent countless hours studying both. Whenever I get bogged down in the detail, things kind of come full circle and I'm reminded that the bible, in all of it's complexity can be summed up very simply. Love God, lover others and believe that Christ was killed on our behalf, rose from the dead and is coming back for us. Thanks again for reminding me...

...rich

Good stuff, people. Thanks for your open-hearted sharing. There's no question this story is a tough one. Deeply spiritual people have spent years meditating on it. There's even a minority-voice interpretation that explains the story by saying that it was a test that Abraham failed. Human sacrifice was a common enough occurrence in the proto-religions of the ancient near east, and child-sacrifice was the highest form of commitment or request for a diety. In this interpretation God posed the test to Abraham in order to point out exactly how different He was from the gods of Abraham's neighbors. There were others who had felt their God call them to make a child sacrifice - but there were no others where the god has stepped in an put a stop to the sacrifice. In this interpretation the fact that Abraham agreed to the sacrifice was certainly an indication of a high level of commitment, but it was also an indication of a high level of misunderstanding about the character of God.

Now, I present this view not as my own, but simply to point out how complex and difficult unraveling this story can be. It's painful. But if my own experience is any indication profound personal spiritual experiences are very often painful and frequently hard to explain to others.

Thanks to Jay and Marc, I am once more connected to the group. I have missed it. I have kept up with the reading but not always able to go on line. When I read the comments from each of you, it sheds light and stirs up questions. This is my third year with this study group, I do not comment often but each of you is in my prayers. May you feel God's touch in all you do.

Thank you Gregg for sharing that. It is such an amazing thing to hear someone else share from their heart exactly what my heart is crying about in that moment.

This story about Abraham and Isaac has bothered me for years and years. Today as I was reading it, I thought, hmmm, I wonder what the number was for the child abuse hotline was back then....I thought about how if anyone did it nowadays in this culture it WOULD be considered crazy and child endangerment, so I'm thinking that maybe I don't have an adequate understanding of the story because I'm looking at it through my eyes, and can't see it through the eyes of someone from that time. Are there any ancient commentaries (maybe Jewish) that comment on that story from less than a "modern" viewpoint? I think the main idea--sacrificing what is very important to you to God is still very hard to do, even today. And the idea of obedience is still very relevant, to listen to God and follow through on it, despite what anyone else may say or think of you, or even what you may think of yourself.

Thanks Marc for your comments on this puzzling event. That helped me see it in a better light.

Pat, it is great to see your smiling face. Hope to hear much more from you!

Hi Pat! You're here! YAY!
Jim, I thought I was having deja' vu with your comments. lol

Gregg, I wanted to acknowledge you for putting yourself out there today. It is such a blessing to my heart to hear people's deeper heart on the journey. Surface conversation can get so dull and I love knowing all of you. This is a place of refreshment in my day throughout the year. :)
Today has been spent carting children and driving everywhere, after a full morning at church. I am totally whipped and not reading tonight. Just checking in and will do some reading tomorrow, hopefully after a good sleep. Feeling worn out a bit. Blessings on your weekend and hope you are all enjoying a restful and fulfilling weekend in whatever you do. Adios!

PS....HI BETTY ANN!!!!

Hey Betty Ann - there are hundreds and hundreds of ancient Jewish commentaries on the Akedah. It's probably the most studied story in the OT besides the exodus. Unfortunately for us, most of the oldest commentaries aren't very helpful because Jewish Rabbis almost exclusively interpreted this story metaphorically or allegorically. Allegory was a big big deal for ancient Bible commentators. We don't use that quite as much.