A nice little story?
What do the stories of the Bible say and do?
"They rehearse events that really happened."
No doubt, but is that what the stories say and do? Are these major
stories interesting little snippets of human
history? The kind of thing that leads us to say, "Well, well; how
interesting!" Or, "What a great little story. I must tell that to the
children in Sunday School."
Is that what the call of Abraham is? That's what the
David and Goliath confrontation is—an exciting little story from ancient
times? I don't doubt for moment the drama in them (I've seen some
good movies created from biblical stories) but maybe there's more to
them than that.
Maybe in the bustling ancient metropolis, Ur of the
Chaldea, somebody asked about the young guy Abram—"What happened to that
family? Haven't seen them around in several weeks."
Would they have
been surprised if they'd heard that he and his father and the whole
family upped and headed out to some place in the great unknown? "Hmmm,
not a lot of sense in that. This is the place where it's all
happening."
Ur was one of the many scattered centres of power that
substituted for that place we were going to build on the plain of Shinar
(Genesis 11). For all its glory, reputation and progressiveness it was a
fallen structure—it was not the city built by God. Abraham's move to
Canaan was more than geography; it was an indictment of the inadequacy
and blindness of human success that shoves God aside. The voice of God
told Abraham, "This is not the place and this is not the way. Come with
me and I'll show you what I mean."
The call of Abraham is more than a nice little story.
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