•      an ancient interpreter – Paul says that the law brings wrath; yet its power is that it held transgressors guilty.  But faith is the gift of God’s mercy, so that those made guilty by the law may obtain forgiveness.  Therefore faith brings joy.  Paul thus does not speak against the law but gives priority to faith.[1]

•           reformation view – Luther saw Christians as sinners via birth but righteous through faith:  It is as with a sick man who believes his physician when he gives him the most certain assurance that he will get well.  Hoping for the promised recovery, he obeys the physicians’ orders and abstains from all that is prohibited to him and waits for the fulfillment of the physician’s promise.  This man is at once sick and healthy, sick in fact but healthy in the hope for the promised health.[2]

•           abraham – Abraham is the father of Jews, Muslims, and Christians; this lesson instructs how the patriarch is the father of such faithfulness to Christians.  The promise to Abraham came as a word of grace, not as a demand of law.  The story of Abraham certainly demonstrates by such trust in God is not misplaced.  Isaac is born to an impossibly old father and mother (v 19), Such proves that God can create whatever God may need in order to fulfill God’s promises.[3]

 

An excellent resource for this lesson and this Sunday would be Bruce Feiler’s bestseller, Abraham.  In one episode Feiler, is speaking with his life long friend, Father John: 

“The lesson of Abraham,” Father John explained, his voice plain and unornamented by years on the pulpit, “is you have to be willing to risk it all.  You have to give up everything for God.  Even in the New Testament, Jesus says unless you are willing to give up husband, wife, mother, father, and children, for the Kingdom of God, you are not worthy to follow me.  The bottom line is if you’re too comfortable, or too secure, or too into having control, then you won’t be willing to trust God . . . So God says to Abraham . . . You have to trust me with every cell in your body.  And if you do that, I will bless you.”[4]

•     The proclaimer might lift Abraham up before the listeners as a unique character who is the father—in many cases, the purported biological father—of 12 million Jews, 2 billion Christians, and 1 billion Muslims around the world . . . and he is largely unknown

•           Describe the Christian claim to Abraham—via Paul’s instructions in this lesson.

•           Final shift might be to make a connection between Abraham’s legacy and Christ’s salvific act that connects us via faith to Abraham and heirs of the promises of God.