Friends, we are now five days into our Bible reading year. I pray God is blessing all of you in the Scriptures. As you join me on this site, I encourage you to invite others to join you in this discipline. They don't have to start from Genesis 1:1; they can simply jump in, and they will be starting what can become a lifelong journey through God's Word every year. What's more, when you invite others, you will strengthen your own resolve.

Here is something I noticed in today's reading: Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?" And shall Sarah, at ninety, bear a child? (a paraphrase of Genesis 17:17).

And Paul writes in Romans: in hope Abraham believed against hope that he would become the father of many nations; he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or the barrenness of Sarah's womb; no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, "but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God," fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised (a paraphrase of Romans 4:18–21).

Read casually, Paul sounds as though Abraham had a perfect faith with no doubts at all. Yet both Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:10–12) first responded with laughter when they heard God's promise. Remember too that they tried to "help" God's promise along through Hagar (Genesis 16:1–2). Abraham's faith was not as robust from the start as we are sometimes led to believe.

But if we read Paul carefully, we see that he does not present Abraham's faith as flawless either, for he writes that Abraham "grew strong in his faith" (Romans 4:20). A faith that is already robust needs no strengthening; a weaker one does. God strengthened Abraham's faith.

Friends, how comforting this is. Some of us may not have robust faith, then or now. We need God's help for our faith to grow. Abraham questioned whether he and Sarah could have children at their age, but their doubt did not become settled unbelief, because God strengthened their faith. And God will strengthen yours and mine as well.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Abraham's laughter in Genesis 17:17 and Sarah's in 18:12 are both remembered in the name God gave the promised son: Isaac, meaning "he laughs." When the child was born, Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me" (21:6). The laughter of doubt became the laughter of joy — a transformation built into the child's very name.

The comment's reading of Romans 4:20 is careful and helpful. Paul's point is not that Abraham never struggled but that his faith was directed at God's promise rather than at his own capacities; he "considered his own body" honestly and still trusted God. The comment also draws a useful distinction between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is the wavering of a faith that still turns toward God; unbelief is a settled refusal. Scripture consistently treats the first with compassion — "Have mercy on those who doubt" (Jude 22) — and records God strengthening wavering faith again and again, from Gideon's fleece to Thomas's wounds.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai (Genesis 16:1–2).

Friends, Sarai says "the LORD has prevented me from bearing children..." Thus, she concludes that Abram should have children by her maid. The implication is that the Lord must want Abram to have children by Hagar, Sarai's maid. But is this a right conclusion? Hindsight is always 20–20, and we know the disastrous consequences of this one decision. And these were the days when God directly and supernaturally spoke to His servants, and even visited them in human form. Yet, both Sarai and Abram presumed wrong.

Today, we have an almost epidemic of people making presumptuous claims regarding the will of God. Even in my personal experience no less than two women insisted that it was God's will for me to marry them, and neither of them was my wife. Dr. John Hannah, my seminary professor, shared that someone at Trinity Evangelical Seminary in Chicago insisted that it was God's will that he join their staff, but he simply responded that God told him no such thing.

I recall the incident in Kings of the man of God, whom God commanded not to return to Bethel nor eat or drink there. Yet, an old prophet lied and told him that God told him otherwise. But when the man of God followed the old prophet, God judged him for accepting the words of this lying prophet (1 Kings 13:11–26).

Friends, consider the lesson of these incidents. We have all, especially as believers, been given the Spirit of God. We do not need someone to come tell us what is or what is not God's will for us. God can speak directly to us if He chooses. Unless we are unbelievers or have been stubbornly rebellious against Him, there is no reason for Him to speak to us through another person.

Therefore, if someone comes to you and tells you, "the Lord told me...", and God has not told this to you, I would encourage you to resist the pressure to immediately follow such a pronouncement. Beyond the very great possibility that such prophetic gifts ceased with the foundational apostles and prophets in the first century, you should at least question why God does not speak directly to you. He has given you His Holy Spirit. We are told that we have the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:15–16). Most likely, God did not tell this other person what they think God told them to tell you. In fact, they are in danger of misrepresenting God and will be judged for it in due course (Matthew 12:36–37). Why should you be judged along with them?!

I bring this up because certain people have been going around at church saying things like, "The Lord told me that you shouldn't say this" or "The Lord told me that you will be healed of that." This is the kind of stuff that I warned you about before, as coming out of ministries like IHOP and from the neo-apostolic & prophetic movement. Consider this warning from the Lord:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them... Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:15, 21–23).

The fruit that Jesus has in mind here is the fruit of truth, or right doctrine, such that no amount of "wonder-working" should move the believer away from this truth. In the Old Testament God even enabled false prophets to sometimes give true prophecies to test His people, to see if they would remain true to His Word (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). In the last days, the Bible says that this will happen again and many will be deceived and led away from the truth of God's Word (Matthew 24:24). Paul too gives this warning, as even in his day there were false apostles and prophets masquerading as "servants of righteousness":

For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve (2 Corinthians 11:13–15).

Friends, do not let your presumption or that of others lead you astray with disastrous consequences. Instead, hold steadfastly to the tried and true sufficiency of God's Word.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Sarai’s reasoning begins with a painful fact: she has borne no child. The danger comes in turning that circumstance into certainty about the course God intends. Genesis 16 shows how an attempt to secure the promise through Hagar creates conflict and suffering, especially for the servant whose agency is constrained by the household’s decisions. The narrative should therefore be read with concern for Hagar as well as with criticism of Abram and Sarai’s presumption. God’s later attention to her distress is an important part of the chapter.

The original’s personal examples illustrate how religious language can add pressure to a proposal. A statement about God’s will may make disagreement feel like disobedience even when the underlying matter is a marriage choice, a job, or another decision requiring thoughtful consent. The account of the man of God in 1 Kings 13 reinforces a related principle: a later claim to divine authority does not cancel a command already clearly received from God. The claimed status of the speaker does not remove the listener’s responsibility to discern.

At the same time, the claim that God has no reason to address a faithful believer through another person is too broad. Scripture regularly portrays believers teaching, encouraging, and correcting one another. Acts 18:24–26 describes Priscilla and Aquila explaining the way of God more accurately to Apollos, and the New Testament’s instructions for mutual exhortation assume that other people can supply what we need to hear. The indwelling Spirit does not make the individual Christian self-sufficient or incapable of being helped by another person’s insight.

The necessary distinction is between receiving counsel and surrendering judgment to an untested claim. A person may offer wise advice without presenting it as a private revelation that ends discussion. Conversely, a claim to revelation must not be accepted simply because it is delivered confidently or accompanied by a remarkable story. Deuteronomy 13 shows that an impressive sign cannot authorize departure from allegiance to God. Matthew 7 also joins the warning about false prophets to doing the Father’s will, so the fruit under examination includes lived obedience as well as verbal orthodoxy.

The author’s cessationist concerns are preserved as a theological position. Christians who disagree about the continuation of prophecy should nevertheless be able to agree that coercion, failed predictions concealed from scrutiny, and assertions that override Scripture are unacceptable. No one should be pressured to enter a marriage or abandon necessary care because another person claims special access to God’s plan. Discernment can be patient, public enough for accountability, and grounded in reasons that can be examined.

A practical response is to separate what is known from what is inferred. What does Scripture clearly command? What facts are established? What desires or fears may be influencing the interpretation? What counsel is available from people who welcome honest questions? These distinctions do not exclude prayerful dependence. They make it more truthful. Trusting God includes refusing to attach his authority to a conclusion simply because we urgently want that conclusion to be right.

Have you noticed that in these biblical accounts, when the roles of leadership between the man and the woman were confused, difficult circumstances followed? Adam let Eve persuade him to take the fruit, and the course of mankind was altered forever. Sarah told Abraham to go in to her servant, and Ishmael was born — the result of an act of disobedience, where the people involved were not content to wait on God's timing and took matters into their own hands.

It's easy for me to say I will be submissive to my husband, if I'm ever blessed with one, because I come from a home where the male leadership is strong. I know, however, that there are many Christian marriages where the woman leads. As long as the husband is content with that — and I know of a marriage where this is the case — the marriage can work, but in my observation that's uncommon. I believe marriage is a partnership where roles need to be clearly defined before the vows are ever spoken. That's how I understand God to have meant it in the beginning, and when Eve challenged her husband's leadership and he backed down, a pattern was set. As Genesis says, the desire of the woman is for her husband, and he will rule over her (Genesis 3:16) — a verse I read as describing a tension introduced by the fall.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The comment's underlying observation — that the Hagar episode originates in an unwillingness to wait for a promise God had already made — is well supported by the narrative and doesn't require the additional claims to stand. Genesis presents the arrangement as a solution engineered in the absence of the promised child, and the domestic damage that follows is immediate and thoroughly human: contempt, resentment, and a woman driven into the wilderness. What the text then does is worth noticing, because it runs against the grain of the "consequences of disobedience" framing: God pursues Hagar, speaks to her directly, and makes her a promise of her own (Genesis 16:7–13). She responds by naming God — the only person in Scripture to do so — as the God who sees her. Whatever judgment falls on the decision, the narrative's sympathy for the person least in control of it is unmistakable.

On the question of marital roles, complementarian and egalitarian readings are both held by Christians with serious commitments to biblical authority, and both engage the same passages carefully. Genesis 3:16 in particular is read by some as prescribing an order and by others as describing a distortion introduced by the fall — a distinction that matters a great deal for what follows from it.

Three men come to visit Abraham (Genesis 18:2). Who are they? We discover that one is the LORD (Genesis 18:22) and two are angels (Genesis 19:1). It has been proposed that the divine appearances of God, and references to "the angel of the LORD," are actually the second person of the Trinity — Jesus Christ. That references to "the angel of the LORD" (with the definite article) are references to God is borne out by a simple concordance search. Perhaps the strongest argument that this figure is specifically Jesus is the conspicuous absence of the title in the New Testament.

If Jesus is this angel of the LORD, then it was Jesus who tested Abraham in commanding him to offer Isaac. It was Jesus who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. It was Jesus who confronted Balaam and enabled his donkey to speak. It was Jesus who struck the Assyrian army in answer to Hezekiah's prayer. In a number of significant places, it was Jesus advancing God's plan from Genesis to Zechariah. In other words, Jesus doesn't simply enter the picture at the incarnation — He has been actively engaged in fulfilling God's purposes from the very beginning. As Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The identification of the angel of the LORD with the pre-incarnate Christ — sometimes called the Christophany view — has deep roots, appearing in several early church fathers and widely held among evangelical interpreters today. It is not, however, the only serious reading: others hold that the figure is a created angel serving as God's authorized representative, which would account for the passages where the angel speaks as God without requiring identification with the Son, and some Jewish interpretation developed along similar representative lines. The argument this comment offers from the title's New Testament absence is genuinely interesting, though it cuts both ways — the New Testament is also silent on the identification itself, which one might expect it to make explicit if it were assumed. What the comment's larger point does not depend on is the identification: the claim that the Son was active before the incarnation is stated plainly elsewhere (John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 10:4), whatever one concludes about this particular figure.

My thoughts on the three visitors and pending judgment on Sodom: by the end of today's reading, judgment on Sodom is pending, and the city's inhabitants aren't even aware of it. Only Abraham knows what's about to happen — and what does he do? He intercedes for them.

Isn't the same situation happening right now? We live in a wicked, ungodly world, and many people aren't aware that judgment is coming — or at least choose not to believe it. But we have God's Word, and we know a time of judgment will come for everyone on this earth. Just like Abraham, we need to intercede for the lost, praying for God's mercy and patience.

Yujin adds... One caveat worth adding — Abraham likely prayed for Sodom largely because his nephew Lot lived there. That's probably also why he kept pressing God with the question of destroying the righteous alongside the wicked — as he kept asking how many righteous people would need to be present before God would spare the city, he may well have been trying to estimate how many righteous people were actually in Lot's own household. We later learn God preserves Lot and his immediate family specifically for Abraham's sake (Genesis 19:29).

AI-Expanded Reflection

Yujin's observation is worth extending slightly, since it reframes intercessory prayer in a way that matches this comment's own broader point rather than undercutting it — Abraham's prayer may have begun with personal concern for Lot specifically, but its actual content expands well beyond that, arguing on the general principle of whether a righteous God should treat the righteous the same as the wicked (Genesis 18:23–25). A prayer motivated initially by personal concern for one relative still becomes, in Abraham's mouth, a genuine wrestling with God's justice on behalf of an entire city. Intercession doesn't need a purely selfless origin to still function as real intercession for others.