Abraham

Genesis 22

A student of famous illustrator and painter Gustave Dore had just finished a painting of Jesus and handed it to him for his critique. Dore studied it, his mind searching for the right words. At last he handed it back to the student. "If you loved Him more," he said, "you would have painted Him better"—Gene Geyer, Windows of the Soul, p. 172, Zondervan Pub., 1996.

That's a great statement. A person needs to know God before he can adequately paint Him with the brush, or even with words—with a verbal picture. In our continuing study of Bible characters, we are viewing a portrait gallery containing various pictures of the character of God.

Genesis 12-21

In this study of Abraham, we will focus on the apex of his life—the events leading up to Genesis 22. This chapter is extremely important to us, because

• we see evidence of why Abraham is the father of faith
• it is very critical to our understanding of Old Testament theology and the purposes of God in sacrificing His Son on the cross. (What a picture this is!)
• it reminds us that we all have at least one great test sometime during our life. (Do you believe that?)

I believe a study of Abraham's life can be great prep for this test, which differs for each of us. The big question is: how do we know we will be prepared for it? Or if we conclude we are not prepared, how can we prepare ourselves?