The Lynchpin of the Bible: Reflections on Genesis 12:1-4a

March 14, 2011 by John Holbert

Continued from Page 1

"I will bless those who bless you, but those who curse you, I will curse; and in (by, through) you all the tribes of the ground (or "families of the earth") will be blessed (or "will bless themselves," Gen. 12:3). God has given Abram the task of reconstituting the broken world of Babel and Noah and Lamech and Cain and Adam and Eve. Somehow, in the very life of this one man, the world has hope once again.

"So Abram went, as the Lord had told him" (Gen. 12:4a). Such a simple yet profound phrase! Leaving everything he knew and loved, Abram went to the land that this new God would show him, tasked with the extraordinary job of saving the world for God. All the world's hopes rest on his shoulders as he moves westward from Haran and travels from north (Shechem) to south (the Negeb) in the land of Canaan, later to be known as the land of promise. Immediately, when a famine hits this new land, the chosen one of God lies about his wife to the Egyptians and offers her up in order to save his own skin (Gen. 12:10-20)! Some savior! Such a promised one! Will God go back again to the divine drawing board?

This passage is the Bible's lynchpin, because the remainder of the Bible's story will be one attempt after the other to reconstitute a broken world; God will be persistent and creative with divine ideas that God hopes will lead at last to shalom. For us Christians, God's best attempt was the gift of Jesus, a gift that began in a garden defiled and ended in another garden just before a cruel death and an astonishing new life. But it all begins with Abram, the blessed and hoped-for blessing one.

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3/14/2011 4:00:00 AM

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Opening The Old Testament

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About John Holbert

John C. Holbert is the Lois Craddock Perkins Professor Emeritus of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, TX.

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