The Flaws of Father Abraham

For Jews and Christians, Abraham is the father of our faith. We do not want to dishonor Abraham by criticizing him, but at the same time, we have to acknowledge that the flaws of Father Abraham are written in the Holy Scriptures. Obviously our heavenly Father wants us to know about Abraham’s flaws so we can learn from them.

“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4). The flaws of Father Abraham are written for us so that we can learn from his mistakes and avoid making the same mistakes he made.

The first mistake Abraham made was leaving the place where God had told him to go and live and be a blessing. Abraham was called to leave Ur and go to a land that God would show him.

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:1-3).

Abraham left Ur, and God led him to Canaan. There in Canaan, God appeared to Abraham and told him, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 12:7).

Abraham built an altar, then pitched his tent on a mountain with Beth-el on his west and Hai on his east. There he built another altar.

So Abraham was in the Promised Land building altars to the God who had called him to dwell in this Land. But then there came a grievous famine in the land, so “Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there” (Gen. 12:10). Instead of remaining where God had called him to be, he left that place between Beth-el and Hai.

Perhaps we should not criticize Abraham too much for leaving his God-appointed place and going down to Egypt. After all, famine is no fun, and when you know there is food to be had in Egypt, well....

Leaving the place where God wants you to be is understandable and perhaps is not always technically a sin. However, it usually leads to trouble. “As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place” (Prov. 27:8).

When Abraham wandered from his God-appointed place in Canaan, the Bible says he “went down into Egypt.” The Bible does not use the word “down” because Egypt is south of Canaan on maps. It is, but north being “up” and south being “down” on maps is entirely arbitrary. The Bible uses the word “down” to show us that leaving the place God wants us to be is a step down, spiritually speaking.

Abraham’s first compromise, leaving his appointed place, led to fear that the Egyptians might kill him and take his wife, Sarah. This fear led to Abraham’s second compromise, when he told Sarah to tell the Egyptians that she was his sister.

Sarah did as she was told, but Abraham’s plan backfired. Pharaoh was told about Sarah’s beauty and he took her into his house, planning to take her as a wife. To show his gratitude for Sarah, Pharaoh gave Abraham “sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels” (Gen. 12:16).

Even though Abraham was blessed by Pharaoh, he had endangered his marriage. Fortunately, God stepped in and “plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues.” So instead of bringing blessings to those who blessed him (which was God’s original plan), Abraham brought a curse to those who blessed him.

Pharaoh somehow found out that there was a connection between his taking of Sarah and these plagues. Abraham received a well-deserved rebuke from this heathen king and was deported and sent back to Canaan. Abraham ended up right back where he started, at “the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai, unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first” (Gen. 13:3f). You would think that Abraham would learn from this mistake, but he didn’t. Later the same thing happened in Gerar, after Abraham told King Abimelech that Sarah was his sister. (See Genesis 20.)

There is an important lesson for us in this story of Abraham’s return to that place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai.

As children of Abraham, we are often tempted to make small compromises that take us away from the place where God wants us to be. One compromise leads to another, and soon we are in deep trouble.

We are all called to dwell in a spiritual sense between Beth-el and Hai, at that place of the altar. The name Beth-el means “house of God.” Hai means “a heap of ruins.” If you are a child of Abraham, you are called to live between the house of God and a heap of ruins, figuratively speaking. By that, I mean that in this world you are a stranger in a strange land, an ambassador representing the kingdom of God on earth. You are here in this world to help persuade lost people to leave behind their old life, “Hai,” which is really just a heap of ruins, a life ruined by sin. You are here to help recruit and prepare people to live in “Beth-el,” in the house of God under the rule of the Messianic King, Yeshua.

The God of Abraham expects every child of Abraham to be involved in this work of the kingdom. To be personally involved, i.e., to be involved in person, you need to be part of a local congregation. If you need to pack up and move to someplace where you can be involved in God’s work, then pack up and move. If you are in the place where God wants you to live and be a blessing, stay there and do the work that God has called you to do in that place.

Some children of Abraham are tempted to not go where God has called them to go; others are tempted to leave the place God has called them to be. The temptation to avoid living in the place God has called you to live can come as the result of various difficulties: famine, financial struggles, frustration, dissatisfaction, disappointment, depression, difficulty getting along with other people, etc.

If you leave your appointed place, like Abraham did, you can expect to experience negative results similar to those Abraham experienced: getting into serious trouble, endangering your family, being a curse and a burden to people instead of a blessing, getting rightfully rebuked by heathens, and last of all getting sent right back to where you started.

If you abandon the place of your calling merely to avoid an unpleasant situation, or to avoid an uncomfortable relationship, God will bring you right back to where you were before. You might be in a different location geographically speaking, and the difficulties might be with a different group of people. But if you leave your God-appointed place as an evasive tactic to avoid an unpleasant situation or an uncomfortable relationship, God will put you in a similar unpleasant situation in your new place, and in a similar uncomfortable relationship with your new friends.

Don’t abandon your calling. If you do, you will waste precious time, suffer unnecessary misery, and be a bad testimony to the heathens. Live where God wants you to live and be a blessing there.

| DB