Apr 18 2013
Our Ishmael and God’s Isaac
Genesis 15: 1-6, 16: 1-5,12, 17: 17-21, 21: 1-7
If God promised you a child would you expect it to happen through your maid? No. You would expect your wife to conceive. Abraham’s decision to have a child through Hagar the maid was an act of impatience. Even in a culture where barren women resorted to having children through servants, you would not expect a promise of God to be fulfilled that way. And Abraham knew this; that is why he initially waited for it to happen through Sarah. But he and his wife started to wonder why it was taking so long, they colluded to have a child through their maid, and Ishmael was born. Ishmael was a work of Abraham not God, and he became a source of trouble even while he was still in his mother’s womb; fruitful Hagar despised barren Sarah. And later he and his offspring became a problem for Isaac and his descendants. The angel of the Lord summed Ishmael up saying he would be a wild donkey of a man, constantly hostile to all around him (16.12).
But through all this God stuck to his promise to give Abraham a legitimate son, and Sarah gave birth to Isaac in her old age; and how different he was. Isaac means ‘he laughs’ and he brought laughter to his parents because they both knew his birth was humanly impossible, he really was a work of the Spirit. In fact when the apostle Paul compares Abraham’s two sons in Galatians 4.21-31 he calls Isaac the son of the Spirit and freedom, and Ishmael the son of the Law and slavery. And he goes on to say “We are not children of the slave woman (like Ishmael), but of the free woman (like Isaac).” Here he opens the story up to contemporary application, and we will too. More
Apr 25 2013
Relating to the Real World
Luke 7:28-50
Jesus was kissed by a sinful woman in a room full of Pharisees. It could have gone down as anyone’s most embarrassing moment. A Pharisee called Simon had invited him to a dinner. The other guests were likely to have been men of the Pharisee community. They were probably there to see Jesus up close to give him a yes or no vote. This was a lion’s den. That’s when it happened.
We don’t know how this notorious woman got in; perhaps she knew a servant and asked if she could take something to Jesus. What we do know is that she wanted forgiveness and somehow knew Jesus was the person to go to.
Poor dear, she did everything wrong; at least as far as the Pharisees were concerned. She gate-crashed a religious dinner and then gets physical with the guest of honour! Well how else do we describe it? I mean, she kissed his feet and wiped them with her hair! And every rabbi present saw it. Fortunately Jesus saw more, he saw her heart. More