Great ‘Failures’ of the Bible (part 5)

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply

Title: Great ‘Failures’ of the Bible (part 5) ------------------- Date: 1/5/2003
Keywords: “Abraham”
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation.

Passages: Genesis 12:10-12; 20:1-2*

12:10. Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.

12:11. And it came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman;

12:12. and it will come about when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.

20:1. Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev, and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in Gerar.

20:2. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

Questions

1. Abraham committed the same sin twice in these two passages. What did he do?

 

2. What does this tell us about Abraham’s character?

 

3. What does the fact that God chose and used Abraham before his first attempt to pawn off his wife as his sister AND after his second attempt to do the same tell us about God?

 

Practical help

Yep — it’s true. The father of the faithful, Abraham, cowardly tried to convince Pharaoh of Egypt and King Abimelech of Gerar that his wife, Sarah, was his sister. Why? So that he would be protected!

Pretty sad, isn’t it? We would have hoped that Abraham would have been more concerned for his wife’s purity and safety than for his own hide. But at least in these two instances, he used his wife’s beauty as leverage to gain his own safety.

Are you surprised, then, that God was willing to choose Abraham when He knew all about this character flaw?

Are you surprised that God was willing to use Abraham to be the ancestor of the great Messiah AFTER the first episode of his first self-protective selfishness?

Here’s great news: God uses flawed people! Not that we should wallow in our flaws (Paul has something to say about that in Romans 6), but neither should we believe that God only chooses or uses perfect people.

He uses people who mess up — even those who, like Abraham, mess up more than once. People like me and you. Praise God for His grace, and look for ways to allow that grace to shine on the people in your world in 2003.

eXXit homepage
Index of three-minute studies
Copyright 2003 by eXXit
*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."