on why students shouldn't read their bibles.

            This last Thursday I had the unique opportunity to take one of the most personally impactful stories I’ve ever studied in the bible and teach it to my youth group. For almost four years now I have been helping lead the junior highers at our youth group and it has been an incredible experience. This lesson, however, has a particularly special place in my heart. Getting to turn around and share it with others is incredible. So while you, whoever you are, may not get to hear my shaky voice or see the tears in my eyes, you can still read what it is I had to say this last Thursday. I hope you enjoy, and even more importantly, I hope you encounter God somewhere in these paragraphs.

   

The Dilemma

I once read a book in which the author and youth ministries leader mentioned that he frequently encourages his students to “under no circumstances read their bibles”. He goes on to say that he is speaking “with tongue planted firmly in cheek”, but that he says this to students for two specific reasons. First, because it never fails to catch their attention and make them ask why. Second, and most importantly, because the bible is confusing. It is difficult to read, and even more difficult to properly understand. Written by numerous authors in numerous time periods and unfamiliar cultures, through various writing forms, some expositional, some poetic and so on, it is one of the most complex texts that we have available to us.

            While he and I both believe people of all ages should read their bibles, it is interesting to consider that maybe we should think twice before throwing some of the most confusing stories ever recorded at young kids without first equipping them to handle those stories well. Take for example the story of Noah and the Ark. A story most children learn early in life, whether in church or otherwise, it is one of the most morally challenging parts of the bible I’ve ever had to wrestle with. So how are the youth of today supposed to handle difficult scriptures? The bible is filled with examples like this, and if everybody else is anything like me, then they will handle it best by just not really thinking about it. It’s easier to simply acknowledge that it happened, and then quickly turn the page to happier, easier parts of scripture.

            One such narrative that I personally remember struggling long and hard with was the story of Abraham and Isaac. It takes place in Genesis 22 with God calling out to Abraham who, after living a long life so far of devotion and faithfulness towards God, has no idea what is about to unfold. Commanding him to do the unthinkable, God says to Abraham “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you” (v 2). If you’re anything like me then it’s right about here that you begin to get uncomfortable. You’re sure that God has a pretty good reason for this, you just hope nobody ever asks you to explain it. And if we’re being honest, it doesn’t seem to fit with the image of a gentle, loving, kind God that we have in our heads. In fact if we spend too much time thinking about it we may even be tempted to start thinking things like “what kind of God would do something like that?" or even “how can this God be good?”. This kind of heretical thinking is strictly forbidden and will not be tolerated in any church environment. Just swallow the child sacrifice pill and forget about it.

            Or at least that’s what many church kids grow up thinking. And it’s an understandable conundrum. We sit kids down and tell them that our God is good and he loves everybody so much more than any of us can understand. But a long time ago He told a man who had lived an incredibly faithful life, to go kill his son. But it’s okay because Abraham passed the test, so God told him he didn’t have to kill his son after all.

            What? Who in their right mind is going to accept that? The idea that a supposedly loving God would demand the sacrifice of a child simply for the sake of testing a man’s loyalty seems wrong, and if we’re honest with ourselves most of us would even say sickening. So what’s really going on here?

Building a foundation

            First and foremost, if we’re going to discuss the mysterious parts of this story it is first necessary to cement in our minds those things which are not mysterious. Namely, who is God and what is the context of the story we are discussing?

            As Christians we affirm that scripture is truth and that it is the complete revelation of God. All necessary knowledge pertaining to life and spirituality on this earth are revealed through scripture, including those parts of God which we can understand. His character for example. It is essential that we start by clearly stating who God is, and for that we turn to our ultimate source of truth: scripture.

Hebrews 1:1-4

“1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs”

            The son, Jesus Christ, is our perfect representation of his (God’s) being. Jesus came, humbled himself, and served selflessly (Philippians 2) before ultimately giving himself over to death in order to save us. He loves without end or exception. That is who God is. The same God who we read about in Genesis 22. We absolutely must accept this truth on the most fundamental level before we can move forward. In understanding these things, however, we should be further motivated to seek clarification with respect to stories like Abraham and Isaac in order to understand how those stories line up with these truths. Because they do.

Finding the Deeper Beauty.

            This particular story is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful depictions of God’s nature, but to understand it, and any other bit of scripture for that matter, we have to understand its context. Abraham lived in a world very different than the one we live in. In his day and age the world was riddled with evils that stemmed from people’s worship of other “gods”. This is not entirely unlike today’s world, save for the methods of worshipping false gods, but that’s a sermon for another day.

            The gods of Abraham’s world went by many different names, but were very similar to each other in character. They were dark, demanding, and cruel. Worshipping and following the gods of that day and age often meant submitting and giving up whatever was asked of you by these self-seeking powers. Many times this meant children.

            In Abraham’s mind child sacrifice would not have been the shock it is to us. God’s command in verse 2 to sacrifice his son would have been devastating, yes, but not really surprising. We cannot even begin to imagine what Abraham must have felt hearing God tell him this, but we can imagine him hanging his head in somber submission to what should never have surprised him at all. Perhaps he even saw it coming and so felt a knot tighten in his stomach as his greatest fear is ultimately realized: this god, to whom he had devoted his life, was just like all the rest.

            And so he obeys. Abraham takes Isaac up on a mountain in the region of Moriah. There he built an altar and bound his son to it. The situation is unspeakable. His only son, whom he loved so dearly, lay before him and the God he had served so faithfully was commanding him to slaughter the boy like a lamb.
            Often times I think we allow our familiarity with this story to stop us from feeling its full impact. So imagine for a moment that you are in Abraham's shoes.  Imagine, with heavy heart, closing your eyes and wiping his palms on your side. You open your eyes again and there in front of you lays your son. Your child. Tied down, looking up at you. You take a deep breath, raise your shaky hands high above your head, your hands which could not possibly be holding the knife any tighter...and then God intervenes.

            Perhaps it is a difficult scenario to internalize. For those of us who don't have children we struggle to understand what Abraham must have felt, and so we seem all the more distant from this tale. But the significance of what happens next is far greater. Abraham, is interrupted by an angel sent by God. Here is what happened:

But the angel o f the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

            “Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said ‘on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided’” (v. 11-14)

           

            A test. It was just a test. God comes through in the end and we can all rest easy. But there is something else. An interesting piece of context here that I failed to recognize time and time again growing up. Abraham, after sacrificing the ram, named the place “The Lord Will Provide”. Why didn’t he call it “The Lord Provided”, or even “The Lord Provides”? Instead the language here speaks of an event that is yet to come. A small but important detail.

            Let’s adjust perspectives here and look at the events that just unfolded from a different point of view: Isaac’s. An only child, Isaac went with his father to make a sacrifice to God. He climbs the mountain beside him carrying the wood on which, unbeknownst to him, he would soon be sacrificed. At some point, however, we have to assume Isaac discovered the truth. Whether Abraham explained during the journey, or he just pieced it together as the day unfolded, he would eventually come to know that he is to be the sacrifice. This is significant because he was not a toddler or a small child. Isaac, while young, was still fully capable of putting up a real fight in order to save his own life. Yet there is no record of Isaac having fought, argued, tried to escape, complained, or even having said so much as a single word in protest. His life was going to come to an end at the hands of his father.

            And so Isaac, his father’s only son, carries up a mountain the wood on which he would ultimately die, and submits to his fathers will by becoming a sacrifice. Sound familiar?

            Part of me has always wondered whether Abraham, in trying to sacrifice his son, really failed his test. What if God was really asking him “what kind of god do you think I am?” and Abraham, in his actions, responded “the same as all the others”. But that speculation is not clear, and neither is it important, so for now I digress.

            What is very clear, on the other hand, is that God was revealing himself in the moment to Abraham (and one can only imagine to Isaac as well), and through scripture to us. His message is this: I am different. God is making a clear statement that whatever all those other false gods are, He is not. Our God, the only God, the one who yearns to restore his creation in order to share in His perfect love, that God would never force Abraham to carry through with this. He would never force anyone to give up their son, their beloved son, as a sacrifice for His own sake…

…but that is EXACTLY what He will do for us. Recall now what it was that Abraham called the place where he built the altar. “The Lord Will Provide”. And provide he did, in that very place. Many, many years later, outside of the city of Jerusalem, which was built in that same region of Moriah, we find a humbled servant ascending to the place where he will be killed on the very piece of wood he carries on his back. Loved dearly by his father, Jesus Christ would willingly be offered up as a sacrifice for all of us.

           

Application

            I hope the beauty will strike you the way it did me. That the lightbulb would click on and the radiance of God’s glory would fill your heart with joy. The story of Abraham and Isaac was one of the most difficult pieces of scripture I’ve ever had to wrestle with, and has since become one of the most important pieces of scripture that I cling to. It has taught me more about my God, my Savior, and how to approach His truth in scripture. I pray it does the same for you. I pray that you would come to know God more deeply, and that “the exact representation of His being” would be constantly on the forefront of your mind, remembering that scripture is Christocentric because, when all is said and done, Jesus Christ is the point.