The challenge of God’s call (Gen 11:27-12:9)

A Chinese friend’s son decided at eighteen not to continue with study but go into business and earn money instead. His parents wished him a university degree and a career with better long-term prospects than his entrepreneurship. However, he saw little value in further training when he could earn twice the money his classmates could with a degree – or so he argued. He also wanted the money now, to travel and buy the kind of high-end electronic gadgets that he enjoyed. It is a story that many parents recognise in some form but this desire for instant gratification, for something tangible now is built into our Western culture. It is hard to stay patient and persevere in tasks where results are not guaranteed and are promising to come only after sustained effort, if at all.

Abraham’s call and God’s promise

I am reminded of this as I reflect on Abraham’s call to leave what is secure and guaranteed behind for a promise of a country and a blessing that is uncertain (Gen 12:1-3). Abram (as he is called at this stage) is 75 years old when he takes the momentous step to follow God’s call from certainty into utter uncertainty, from something tangible and to be enjoyed now (family and its security and provision) for a promise that is at best vague (Gen 12:4). Will the country God will show him be a fertile land, worth exchanging his present security for? Is it even possible for an old man like him with a barren wife (Gen 11:30) to become a great nation (v.2)? The Hebrew word goy (rather than ‘am, ‘people’) points to the organised, political structure of an established nation,[1] thus emphasising the developed nature of this unit that is held together by more than kinship. Abraham could expect to inherit from his father, but how certain was God’s blessing? The latter is highly emphatic, repeated five times in two verses (Gen 12:2-3). In Abraham’s case God’s blessing will be recognised by others and cited as a model of blessing, ‘May we be blessed like him’ (the sense of ‘being a blessing’ in Hebrew; cf. Gen 48:20; Zech 8:13;).[2]

Walking by faith

Grand as this future sounds, isn’t this only pie-in-the-sky thinking? Yet Abraham responds with simple yet far from easy obedience. He leaves behind family ties and security for the unseen and untested promise of God (Gen 12:5). As God affirms that it is the land of Canaan that Abraham will receive, he travels from north to south (the Negev desert is the southern boundary of the land) and everywhere he goes, he builds altars and worships God (Gen 12:6-9). Perhaps this symbolises his acknowledgement that God’s promises are true and will come to pass despite obstacles (other people are already in the land – v.6). His story is in many ways our Christian story. God’s promises of an eternal life and blessings beyond what we can imagine may seem pie-in-the-sky thinking and it is untested when we set out. Like Abraham, we also make a choice between what is in front of our eyes, for immediate, or at least short-term gratification, or for God’s promise that at times looks impossible and so often in the vague future. Yet we walk in faith, not sight. Belonging to a people who, in a secular context, are increasingly reviled and belittled (the sense of ‘the one who curses you’, Gen 12:3), there will be those who recognise and desire the blessings that flow from a relationship with God.[3]

God’s grace in the process

While a walk with God is challenging, it is God’s grace that helps us along. In context, Abraham’s encounter with God seems to come in Haran (Gen 12:4), yet Gen 15:7 declares that God was active in bringing the family from Ur to Haran through the human initiative of Terah, Abraham’s father (Gen 11:31). The ties to an established place have already been loosened somewhat with that first move, while Abraham retained his connection to his father’s family for a while longer in Haran. Thus, the process came about in stages and perhaps it helped Abraham to take the momentous step when God revealed Himself. The Lord knows our hearts, our fears and worries and enables us by grace to make the costly commitment to Him.

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[1] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WBC 1 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 275.

[2] In English ‘being a blessing’ (as in the statement ‘she was such a blessing to me’) is treated as instrumental, so that a person becomes a channel of blessing for someone else. In Hebrew, however, being a blessing or a curse means using someone as an example of what it means to be blessed or cursed. See Jer 29:18, 22.  This is a point made by several scholars. E.g. Ibid., 276; R.W.L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 150-55.

[3] This latter point is made particularly by Moberly. Ibid., 150, 156.

‘Those who respond to the costly call of God to leave behind what they have, and whose subsequent way of living will set them apart from their neighbors and perhaps provoke antagonism, do not regard a divine reassurance that God will bless them and give them positive recognition as in any way trivial. Rather, it engenders a hope that will sustain them through difficult times.’ (150)

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