As with Abraham, So with Us

The call of Abraham, at the beginning of chapter twelve in the book of Genesis, is a significant turning-point in the salvation history - Heilsgeschichte - of the world. The first eleven chapters show us God's perfect creation, and sin's entry into that creation, which results in the breaking of fellowship between man and God, and which results in the breaking of fellowship between man and man. It also results, finally, in death. This long downhill slide, from the Fall at the beginning of chapter three, onward through the incidents of their hiding from God (3:8), their attempts to avoid responsibility (3:12 and 3:13), Cain's murder of Abel, Lamech's polygamy, the bizarre celestial confusion (6:1 through 6:4) which triggers the flood at the time of Noah, and the Tower of Babel, manifests the destructiveness of sin, spiraling ever wider through creation. The call of Abraham is God's intervention into world history to limit, and eventually to eliminate, sin's aggressiveness. The call of Abraham is the first good thing in the text since chapter two. From the time of Abraham onward, instead of a long downhill slide, the text shows a long uphill march, as God unfolds His plan of salvation.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Abraham probably didn't know or understand the millennia-long process which was beginning with him. Exactly how much information God revealed to him, we don't know, but he likely would not have understood it, or been psychologically capable of absorbing its impact, if God had shown him in detail the great plan which was starting with the instructions to Abraham to leave his hometown of Ur and go to a place which God would only later indicate to him.

Leaving Ur, Abraham and family traveled northwest along the Tigris-Euphrates valley to Haran. Abraham's father accompanied them this far, but died in Haran. From Haran, they went southwest into the Jordan River Valley area. This route was part of a longer and widely-used route between Mesopotamia and Egypt. A straight-line route was not available, because moving directly west from Ur led one into impassable deserts. Abraham's nomadic existence in the Levant, also called Canaan, and later called Israel or Palastine, kept him moving periodically to find fresh pastures for his herds and flocks. Many of the places at which he stopped reappear later in the Old Testament salvation narrative, like Shechem, which will centuries later be center of worship in Israel, even before Jerusalem. It is therefore telling that Abraham builds his first recorded altar there.

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.

For the phrase "called upon the name of the Lord," the Hebrew text is ambiguous enough to allow the rendering "preached the name of the Lord," but the difference is slight: a healthy spiritual life is an integrated whole, and whoever properly prays will proclaim, and whoever properly proclaims will pray. It is possible to pray without proclaiming, or to proclaim without praying, but in that case, neither will have been done correctly.

The phrase "blessed to be a blessing" has become, appropriately, a regular theme in devotional literature. The January 1994 edition of Tägliche Andachten notes: In diesem Text äußert Gott zwei Wahrheiten. In the divine economy, the blessing we receive and the blessing which God grants to others through us are inseparable. Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil, in their commentary on Genesis, describe the beginning of the Heilsgeschichte in light of the geopolitical situation in the Ancient Near East. Given the established territories, populations, and cultures of the Babylonians (at that point still as the kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad), the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and others, and given the thorough paganism of these civilizations, God would need a new tribe to begin His salvation history.

It was necessary that by the side of these self-formed nations He should form a nation for Himself, to be the recipient and preserver of His salvation, and that in opposition to the rising kingdoms of the world He should establish a kingdom for the living, saving fellowship of man with Himself. The foundation for this was laid by God in the call and separation of Abram from his people and his country, to make him, by special guidance, the father of a nation from which the salvation of the world should come. With the choice of Abram the revelation of God to man assumed a select character, inasmuch as God manifested Himself henceforth to Abram and his posterity alone as the author of salvation and the guide to true life; whilst other nations were left to follow their own course according to the powers conferred upon them, in order that they might learn that in their way, and without fellowship with the living God, it was impossible to find peace to the soul, and the true blessedness of life.

The blessing given to Abraham becomes the blessing given through Abraham, and assumes a new and greater form in Jesus. Jesus is a gift to us; His birth, life, teachings, death, and resurrection are gifts to us. In Jesus are contained numerous other gifts. The Tägliche Andachten tell us that

Der Herr segnet uns. Sein größter Segen ist das Leben and Sterben und die Auferstehung Christi, denn durch den Glauben an Christi Versöhnungswerk werden wir für gerecht erklärt. In Jesu schenkt Gott uns die Möglichkeit, als unschuldig und gerecht gesehen zu werden, und heilig und geliebt zu sein. Daneben gibt uns der Herr auch andere Gaben. Er gibt uns die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes: die Fähigkeiten, mit denen wir in der Gemeinde dienen. Er bewirkt in uns die Frucht des Heiligen Geistes: Liebe, Freude, Geduld, Freundlichkeit usw. Der Herr gibt us auch Lieb und Seele, Augen, Ohren, Vernunft und alle Sinne, Kleider und Schuhe, Essen und Trinken, Haus und alle Güter, Familie, Geld, Freunde, und alles andere.

Like the master who entrusted sums of money to his servants (Matthew chapter 25), the gift which is Jesus and the gifts which arrive through Jesus are not to be securely locked up as a treasure for ourselves, but rather shared with others.

Wir sollen diesen Segen nicht bloß einsammeln und für uns behalten, sondern Gott befiehlt uns, ihn mit anderen zu teilen. Oft sind wir das Mittel wodurch er andere segnet. Wir teilen die gute Nachtricht unserer Erlösung in Jesu mit; wir benutzen die Gaben und Frucht des Heiligen Geistes, um anderen zu helfen; und wir geben auch von unseren weltlichen Gegenständen.

While it is our responsibility to be good stewards of the blessings which God has given us, and it is also our responsibility to share those blessing with others, we simply can't do this. We are too sinful and selfish. It is our nature to keep those blessings for ourselves. Grace can flow freely through us only when the Holy Spirit is present in our hearts and minds, and overrides our selfish human nature. Therefore, we must pray for God to work charity within us, because we cannot work it within ourselves:

Lieber Heiland, segne die Welt durch uns! Amen.

The grace which flows to us is the grace which flows through us. Like Abraham, we are blessed in order to be a blessing.

As Needed

Most followers of Jesus would not immediately consider themselves to be pastors or priests. Yet all of them will occasionally be both.

Under the heading of "the priesthood of all believers," theologians note that each follower of Jesus has an equal status, but not an identical calling, before God. While the fellow up front in the pulpit has been called by the congregation to preach, teach, and administer sacraments, every other person in the pews could have been so called.

This can be made clearer by examining the words we use - words which sometimes seem to create distinctions and classes among believers, but which were intended to reflect tasks which God might occasionally assign to any believer. Consider these words:

A priest is one who stands as an intermediary between man and God. A priest represents God to man and man to God. Although the term has taken on complex meanings from the ancient Hebrews to the modern Roman Catholics, in its simplest sense, if you are praying for someone, then intercession is a priestly function, and you are at that moment a priest. Likewise, if you assure someone of God's love, that is likewise representing God to man, and you are executing a priestly function.

A minister is someone who serves. In any context, if you are helping another person, you are ministering, and you are a minister.

A pastor is a shepherd. To the extent that you care for others, take care of others, whether in the sense of provision or in the sense of leadership, you are a pastor, carrying out pastoral ministry.

A preacher is one who proclaims. To make a statement about God is to preach.

An evangelist is a messenger, specifically, a messenger who brings good news. Any word of love or forgiveness you speak is an evangelical word.

A disciple is one who is training or trained; one who is being trained or who has been trained. A disciple is a pupil, one who studies and learns, and is subject to discipline.

A prophet is a spokesperson for God. Anyone who explains God's intent or meaning to another is a spokesman or spokeswoman for God, and is prophesying.

An ordained person is one who has been appointed or officially designated for a purpose. While this word is normally reserved for clergy, there are times at which God ordains an individual to carry out a specific task, whether proclaiming doctrine or changing a flat tire, and there are times at which the church appoints or designated a person for a specific task, perhaps ushering or organizing sheet music.

As we look at these words closely, we note that their semantic fields overlap, despite the fact that the prophets and the priests, categorically, were often in conflict. This is not surprising, from a God who will "unite all things" and who sees all of His people as a royal priesthood. If you are a follower of Jesus, you may not normally think of yourself as a priest or as a pastor, as ordained or as prophetic, but at any moment, for perhaps a brief time, God may appoint you to be all of these and more.