The stories in the Bible are full of gems.
When we read about one of the patriarchs of our faith who makes a mistake, we can learn from their errors and avoid those pitfalls.
Some mistakes are glaringly easy to recognize.
I think we can all agree that the events leading up to David’s betrothal to Bathsheba were fraught with scandal.
This one is pretty simple.
David watched from his balcony as another man’s wife was bathing, he desired her for his own wife, and plotted the murder of her husband so he could have her.
Bathsheba’s husband happened to be one of David’s most faithful soldiers fighting for his king David.
Wow, this makes me sad, and the heartache that followed for David and Bathsheba is the lesson to be learned from David’s mistake.
However, some Bible stories are not so easy to discern, and herein lies the problem.
If an individual is taught by a pastor who is off course in their interpretation of a story, they lead their flock off course.
A great example of this has occurred throughout the centuries pertaining to the story of Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
Abraham is highly honored for his faith, by Jews, Muslims, and Christians to have obeyed God’s instructions to sacrifice a son.
In fact, the desire to possess that very site is what has caused the bloody war in the Middle East today—the rock where Abraham is believed to have attempted to perform a blood sacrifice of his son.
So, let’s take a look at this Biblical account and see how Abraham really scores through the eyes of God. The story is written in Genesis chapter 22.
The King James Bible records—it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham.
The word temptation automatically leads one to think in the direction of being enticed into some sinister act, kind of like what David entertained in his mind as he watched Bathsheba bathe.
However, this is not the meaning of the word. It is made clearer in the Hebrew scripture which reads—And sometime afterward, God put Abraham to the test.
In order to understand what Abraham was being tested about, it is necessary to know a little bit about his plight.
Abraham had been walking and talking with God for about thirty-five years when God put him to this test.
Three decades earlier, Abraham had been led out of a culture that was sacrificing animals and humans to multiple Gods.
Abraham’s God was ONE God who he called the Most High.
Interestingly, Abraham’s God did not instruct him to form any type of religion. Abraham simply listened and followed directions.
However, it wasn’t just listening and mindlessly following directions. The scriptures tell of many times when Abraham had engaged in full on conversations with God, and had dialog where he reasoned with God, just like two people having a discussion in the same room.
When Abram was instructed to leave the culture of Mesopotamia behind, God told him to go to Canaan and promised that Abraham’s descendants would someday possess that land.
Like Mesopotamia, the Canaanite people also practiced a blood sacrificial religion involving multiple Gods.
However, they were different, because instead of just sacrificing animals and adult humans, the Canaanites were known to sacrifice children to their Gods as well.
This is the culture that had been influencing the thinking of Abraham for thirty-five years when God tested him to see if Abraham would do such a thing.
After walking and talking with God for that length of time, Abraham should have known the heart of the Father, but did he?
When Abraham received his instructions, he didn’t even question his orders, like he had questioned God in the past about the land that he would possess.
In fact, Abraham even had a long time to mull it over as he walked a three-day journey to commit the sacrifice of his son, and not once did Abraham stop and attempt to reason with God.
It has always been taught that this one feat was an amazing show of faith on the part of Abraham.
And, I am here to tell you, that Abraham failed the test that day.
Abraham had been influenced by his cultural surroundings, which distorted his ability to truly know the heart of God.
Abraham would have passed the test if he had said, “Father, I know that you do not want the blood of children. That evil desire is what the Canaanite God’s want, but not you.”
And, God would have answered, “well done, Abraham, you do know me.”
It is this very incident that Christ is making a reference to in the prayer that he taught to his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount when he prayed—Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
A disciple’s prayer to God should be such—Father, deliver us from the need to be tested like Abraham, and rather, open our eyes to see the influences of our Christian culture that prevent us from truly knowing you.