1. WORLD MAP

3. Perhaps it will help us to see new meaning in the familiar stories of the Bible if we look at them from a different angle. What if we let go of our 21 st century A.D. perspective on the events in the story --- and make our best possible effort to view it from a 21 st century B.C.E. perspective? What if we flip the map?

4. Brian McLaren We Make the Road By Walking Week 7 Rob Bell Robbellcom.tumblr.com What is the Bible? Part 6

5. For example, what would a 21 st century B.C.E. listener hear in Genesis 22:1 - 19? Would they focus on Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac? That is the part of the story that seems to be front and center to us in the 21 st century A.D.! It is horrifying. What kind of God would ask that of a father?!

6. But is that what the B.C.E. crowd would focus on in this story? What if their map were flipped? What if they were so accustomed to human sacrifice that the shocking element was the ram? Listen to Genesis 22:1-19, and ponder Chagall’s interpretation of the journey. Try to listen with 21 st century B.C.E. ears.

7. http://www.antiquity.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/marc-chagall-abraham-isaac.jpg Marc Chagall, c. 1931, Abraham and Isaac on the way to the place of sacrifice

8. Human sacrifice was commonplace in Abraham’s time and place. Rob Bell says: “You never knew where you stood with the gods. And so you’d offer part of your crop. And you’d offer a goat. Maybe a lamb. Maybe a cow. Maybe a few cows. Maybe some birds. The very nature of early religion is that everything escalated because in your anxiety to please the gods you kept having to offer more.

9. And what’s the most valuable thing you could offer the gods to show them how serious you were about earning their favor? A child. Of course. … It’s where religion took you. To the place where you’d offer that which was most valuable to you.” (robbellcom.tumblr.com)

10. So a 21 st century B.C.E. listener would not be shocked, as we are, that God asked for a child to be sacrificed. Nor would they be horrified that Abraham made preparations to do it. “It’s where religion took you.” They were, however, STUNNED when God intervened!

11. Bell, again: “What kind of God would ask a man to sacrifice his son? Now, an answer: Not this one. The other gods may demand your firstborn, but not this God.” McLaren: “God is better than that.”

12. Bell: “At first, this god appears to be like all the other gods. The story is like the other stories about gods who are never satisfied. The first audience for this story would have heard this before, it would have been familiar. But then it’s not. The story takes a shocking turn that comes out of nowhere. This God disrupts the familiarity of the story by interrupting the sacrifice. Picture an early audience gasping. What? This God stopped the sacrifice? Huh? The gods don’t do that!

13. Second, the God in this story provides. Worship and sacrifice was about you giving to the gods. This story is about this God giving to Abraham. A God who gives? Who provides?

14. Third, this isn’t a story about what Abraham does for God, it’s a story about what God does for Abraham. Mind blowing. New. Ground breaking. A story about a god who doesn’t demand anything but gives and blesses.

15. Fourth, Abraham is told that God is just getting started, and that this God is going to bless Abraham with such love and favor that through Abraham everybody on earth is going to be blessed. This God isn’t angry or demanding or unleashing wrath, this God has intentions to bless everybody. Abraham is invited to trust. To have faith. To believe. To live in these promises.

16. Can you see how many game changing ideas are in this one story? Can you see why people told this story? Can you see why it endured? Can you think of any other stories about a son who was as good as dead for three days but then lived in such a way that the story about him confronted the conventional wisdom of the day that the gods are angry and demanding with the insistence that God blesses and gives and provides and all that’s left to do is trust that God is really like that?”