The Need for Faithfulness

What do we mean by "faithfulness"? It is not a word that I use regularly. Mostly it is in the contexts of ministry, "he/she is a faithful servant of Christ," or in marriage, "they are faithful to each other." Perhaps today we use words like "diligent" or "loyal" to express faithfulness.

I have been doing a lot of thinking on faithfulness in regards to the life of Abraham. Specifically Genesis 16, where Abe and Sarai opt for "plan B" in regards to fulfilling God's promises. At this point in the story, God has already approached Abraham and made promises to him (Gen 12:1-3), and He has already committed Himself in covenant to Abraham (Gen 15). But the narrative in Genesis 16 takes place 10 years after these promises! That means that every day that Sarai was not pregnant was another day of hope being dashed. Imagine waking up each morning, wondering if today is the day that God is going to be faithful to His word, only to find out as you lay your head on the pillow at night that another day has gone; another day of seeing God not fulfill His promise. Not only would the waiting be agonizing, but also the pressure of knowing that your body is quickly losing any chance of being able to accomplish God's promise. God had promised them a multitude of descendants (among other things), and yet Sarai was barren. Now she is 75. It is easy for me to sympathize with Sarai's "plan B". She opts for a culturally acceptable alternative: she provides Abraham with another wife in order for him to bear children through her. Unfortunately, this is not what God's initial promises entailed, and "plan B" brings problems and only superficial solutions. To finish the biblical narrative, we see that 14 years later God again visits Abe and Sarai to tell them that next year they are going to have a son. This puts Abe's age at 100 and Sarai's at 90 when Isaac is born. They waited 25 years for God to work!

I find this incredibly challenging to my own faith and faithfulness in that faith. My faith cannot rest on feelings, circumstances or probabilities. It must rest on the sure promises and character of the Lord found in Scripture. And even though Abraham's faith started in a moment in time (Gen 15:6 "Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness."), he still had to daily be full of faith in God's promises for the next 25 years. So faithfulness is trusting in God's character and word (despite hurdles, feelings, circumstances, etc), every moment of the day.

Faithfulness starts with a "one-time event", but its success is measured over the long term.

Did God Learn Something?

Troubling verses are the biblical scholar's bread and butter. And it is amazing to me how a single verse or even a single word in the verse can be used (or maybe exploited) in opening up whole new vistas in thinking.

Here is one that I have been chewing on for the last few years: Genesis 22:12. Here is the scene: Abraham is obeying God on Mt. Moriah and offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God tells Abraham to stop and provides a substitute ram. God comments on Abraham's obedience by saying, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God..." What?!? Now God knows that Abraham fears? This little, normal, common, everyday word, "now", causes the reader to pause and ask a question: did God learn something that day?

So how should we understand this verse? If God learned something that day, then we need to factor that into our traditional theologies which state that God is omniscient. This also impacts our views on whether God is "in" time or "outside" of time. It also impacts our views on whether God has direct, causal control over every detail in the universe. Here are three options for understanding this verse that I have considered.
1) One Option - Perhaps God did learn something that day and we should reevaluate our theologies on God's foreknowledge (as Open Theists do), God's sovereignty versus human free will, and also God's relationship with time. This has enormous ramifications.
2) Another Option - Perhaps God is using anthropomorphic language. In other words, God is communicating using human colloquialisms, and we should not read more into the word "now" then is needed. This opinion glosses over the word "now" and basically begs the reader to ignore it.
3) Another Option - Perhaps there is some literary purpose behind God/Moses inserting the word "now" in this place. Maybe if we were to read the preceding Abrahamic narratives and the remaining Abrahamic narratives, we would see that this word "now" functions to link segments together or to provide some rhetorical element. Perhaps someone who has spent some time in Hebrew narrative could shed some light on this (Coney, this is your open door :) )

I am a firm believer in hearing the voice(s) of the community of believers in regards to understanding a verse. So here is the question for readers of this blog: In what ways can this verse be legitimately understood? You are welcome to give your view and defend it, but I am also looking for legitimate options to understanding this verse. I have listed three ways to understand this verse above. Feel free to beat up on them or tweak them. I should also point out that in the Hebrew there is nothing fishy going on here. The word for "know" and "now" are common words that any first year Hebrew student would "know" "now" (sorry for the terrible word play).