English, Discover Genesis, Lesson 12 - Genesis 12 -- PART 4: The Torah of ABRAHAM (Genesis 11:10 to 25:18). The silent beginning of God’s plan of salvation

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DISCOVER GENESIS

An exploratory Bible course for disciples of Christ

PART 4 -- The Torah of ABRAHAM (Genesis 11:10 to 25:18)

GENESIS 12

The silent beginning of God’s plan of salvation for all of mankind, and how the LORD’s promise and plan was upheld even against the treachery of his chosen. -- (DATE: Around 1876 before Christ)

OUTLINE of Genesis 12:

03. The silent beginning of God’s Plan of Salvation: Abram was commanded to emigrate and was promised blessings (12:1-3)

04. Abram obeyed the LORD and moved to Canaan (12:4-5)

05. The LORD promised the Land of Canaan to the descendants of Abram (12:6-8)

06. Why Abram moved on to Egypt (12:9-13)

07. Why the Pharaoh there expelled Abram and his wife Sarai from Egypt (12:14-20)

DISCOVER Genesis 12: At that time the LORD spoke to Abram and told him to leave behind his father and the people his father had taken with him and go forth to a land He would show him. God promised him that he would make a great nation of him and bless him and make him great. And He will bless anyone that blesses Abram and curse anyone who dishonors him, and through him God would bless all families on earth. When Abram heard the LORD, he went to prepare and leave with his wife. When Lot saw this, he wanted to come with him. -- In the end Abram left Haran at the age of 75 with his wife, with Lot and with all the possession they had acquired in Haran, both in material goods and in people, said goodbye to Terah and set out towards Canaan. When they reached that Land (which today is called Israel or Palestine) they passed the oak of Moreh, by Shechem (today Nablus), where the Canaanites lived. -- There the LORD appeared to Abram once more, telling him that he would give this land to him and his offspring. Therefore Abram built an altar to the LORD there and moved on into the hill country east of Bethel, to camp between Bethel and Ai to the east. There he built another altar to the LORD, before journeying on towards the Negev (further south in Canaan, today at the border to the Sinai Peninsula). -- While he sojourned in the land, a famine fell on Canaan. So Abram and the people with him moved to Egypt. He was very much aware that his wife Sarai was quite beautiful to behold. So much so that he feared that when the Egyptians would see her they might kill him to possess her. So he said to her that while they were in Egypt she should say that she was his sister instead. That way, if someone approached her they would not only not kill Abram, but also treat him well for her sake. As they journeyed through Egypt, the sons of Pharaoh saw Sarai and praised her beauty before their father, who then decided to take her into his house. And because of Sarai, he treated Abram well, so he had sheep, oxen, donkeys, camels and servants. -- However, because Pharaoh unknowingly dishonored Abrams marriage with his wife, the LORD God afflicted his house with a great plague. When Pharaoh learned the truth and that Abram had lied to him, he demanded to know, why he had done such a thing, before returning Sarai to him. Abram then explained to Pharaoh, that it was out of fear that he would be killed for the sake of Sarai. So Pharaoh sent Abram away from Egypt, with everything that he had come to own there, and gave orders that no one was to harm him or his possessions.

PRAYER: Our heavenly Father we thank you with all our hearts that we have this testimony in the Bible about how you started a completely new course of events after the devastating flood of Noah. Thank you that you have fulfilled your promise to Abram that through him all nations of the world will be blessed. You blessed us through the salvation, which Abram’s descendant Jesus Christ fulfilled by his death for our sins and by his resurrection from the dead for our salvation. Thank you that you began this wonderful course of events in a very inconspicuous way, unnoticed by most people on earth. Amen.

QUESTION 12: How did the LORD God make a new beginning with Abram?

QUOTES: “Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) is QUOTED in Acts 7:3 where the first Christian martyr, Stephen, said to the Jews while defending his faith in Christ: “and (the LORD) said to him (Abram), ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you’.” -- “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3) This verse is QUOTED in Acts 3:25 where the Apostle Peter addressed the Jews in Jerusalem after having healed a lame man: “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed’.” -- Genesis 12:3 is also QUOTED in Galatians 3:8 where Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia (which today is in Turkey) saying: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’.” -- Part of Genesis 12:3 is also QUOTED in Revelations 1:7 “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the families of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen”. (The quote is: “all the families of the earth”)

Additional New Testament references to Genesis 12 are the following: Genesis 12:1 (God commanded Abram to leave his country and relatives) and Genesis 12:4 (Abram obeyed God and left his country and relatives) are both ALLUDED to in Hebrews 11:8 (the writer to the Hebrews alluded to these two initial events in the life of Abram by teaching: ‘By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.’) -- Genesis 12:5 (Abram obeyed the LORD and set out to travel to the land of Cnaan) is ALLUDED to in Acts 7:4 (Stephen in his defense before the Jews who were about to execute him alluded to this verse in Genesis 12 by saying about Abraham: ‘God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living’) -- Genesis 12:7+8 (the LORD promised to give the Land of Canaan to Abram’s descendants and therefore Abram called upon the name of LORD there) is ALLUDED to in Hebrews 11:9 (‘By faith he (Abraham) went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise’).

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GENESIS 12

The silent beginning of God’s plan of salvation for all of mankind, and how the LORD’s promise and plan was upheld even against the treach­ery of his chosen. -- (DATE: Around 1876 before Christ)

The silent beginning of God’s plan of salvation for all of mankind, and how the LORD’s promise and plan was upheld even against the treachery of his chosen. -- (DATE: Around 1876 before Christ)