Abraham: Successes and Failures of Faith

I. Background and Calling (Genesis 11–12)

Who he was

  • Born Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans, a sophisticated Mesopotamian city
  • Son of Terah, married to Sarai (later Sarah), who was barren
  • Part of a polytheistic culture — his calling was a radical departure from everything familiar

The initial call (Genesis 12:1–3)

  • God commands him to leave his country, his people, and his father’s household
  • Promise given: a great nation, a great name, blessing to all peoples through him
  • No destination given — he was to go to a land God would show him

II. Successes of Faith

1. Leaving Ur — the foundational act (Genesis 12:1–4)

  • Left at 75 years old with no map, no guarantee, no explanation beyond God’s word
  • Hebrews 11:8 says he “went, not knowing where he was going”
  • The New Testament holds this up as the defining moment of his faith

2. Separating from Lot in peace (Genesis 13)

  • When conflict arose between their herdsmen, Abram let Lot choose first
  • Gave up the right of the elder, trusting God to provide
  • Immediately after, God reaffirmed the land promise — faith honored

3. Rescuing Lot and refusing the king’s reward (Genesis 14)

  • Assembled 318 trained men and defeated a coalition of four kings to rescue his nephew
  • Refused to take any plunder from the king of Sodom — “not a thread or sandal strap”
  • Did not want anyone to say a pagan king had made him rich

4. Believing God’s promise of a son (Genesis 15)

  • God takes him outside and says: count the stars — so shall your offspring be
  • Romans 4:20–21 says he “did not waver in unbelief” but was “fully convinced”
  • God counted this faith as righteousness — the theological cornerstone of Paul’s entire argument in Romans and Galatians

5. Interceding for Sodom (Genesis 18)

  • One of the most remarkable prayers in Scripture — bold, persistent, respectful
  • Negotiated God down from 50 righteous to 10 before stopping
  • Shows mature faith that understood God’s justice and mercy simultaneously

6. Offering Isaac on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22)

  • The supreme test — commanded to sacrifice the very son through whom all promises were to come
  • Hebrews 11:17–19 says he reasoned God could raise Isaac from the dead
  • Obeyed without recorded argument or delay — rose early the next morning
  • God stopped him and provided the ram — “the LORD will provide” (Jehovah Jireh)
  • Called the friend of God (James 2:23); this moment sealed his legacy

III. Failures of Faith

1. The Egypt deception — Sarah as his sister (Genesis 12:10–20)

  • Famine came and Abram went to Egypt without recorded consultation with God
  • Told Sarai to say she was his sister, fearing the Egyptians would kill him for her
  • Pharaoh took Sarah into his household; God afflicted Pharaoh with plagues
  • Abram was rebuked by a pagan king — a humiliating reversal
  • Fear drove him to sacrifice his wife’s honor to protect himself

2. Hagar and Ishmael — taking matters into his own hands (Genesis 16)

  • Ten years had passed since the promise with no son
  • Sarai proposed using her Egyptian servant Hagar as a surrogate — a culturally accepted practice
  • Abram agreed without seeking God
  • Result: Hagar conceived, despised Sarai, was mistreated and fled
  • Ishmael was born — and the conflict between his descendants and Isaac’s echoes through history to this day
  • This is the classic pattern of engineering a solution rather than waiting for God

3. The Egypt deception — repeated in Gerar (Genesis 20)

  • Years later, same failure — told King Abimelech that Sarah was his sister
  • More remarkable because by this point he had walked with God for decades and had seen God’s faithfulness repeatedly
  • Abimelech also rebuked him; Abraham’s excuse was weak (“she is my half-sister”)
  • Shows that old patterns of fear can resurface even in mature faith

4. Laughing at the promise (Genesis 17:17)

  • When God told him Sarah would bear a son, Abraham fell on his face — and laughed
  • Said in his heart: “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?”
  • A moment of doubt buried in the text, easily overlooked
  • Sarah also laughed (Genesis 18:12) — then denied it when confronted

IV. What His Life Teaches About Faith

  • Faith is a journey, not a single moment. Abraham’s greatest act (Genesis 22) came decades after his calling. The failures were part of the formation.
  • The same fears recur. He lied about Sarah twice, years apart. Faith doesn’t eliminate weakness permanently — it requires continual recommitment.
  • God works despite the failures. Ishmael was not the plan, but God blessed him too (Genesis 17:20). The deceptions could have derailed everything, but God protected the promise even when Abraham didn’t.
  • Waiting is the hardest part. Nearly every failure stems from impatience — moving ahead of God’s timing rather than outright rebellion.
  • He is called righteous, not perfect. Romans 4 holds Abraham up as the model of faith-based righteousness precisely because his record is mixed. The righteousness was credited, not earned.

Primary texts: Genesis 12–25 · Romans 4 · Galatians 3 · Hebrews 11:8–19 · James 2:21–23

By Drew Haninger with editorial help from claude.io

Interactive Bible and Church Timeline

Enjoy seeing various Bible events on this interactive timeline. Click the buttons to add areas of History you which to display.

DrewHaninger.com/history

You can view any or all of the following historical time periods: Old Testament, Jesus, Paul, Mark, James, Paul, Peter, John, Jude, and two periods of church history. May this help your Bible Study. Be sure to use the auto-range feature. I first wrote this program in 1997, and recently used claude.ai to rewrite the Java code.

The Book of Ephesians

I asked google AI to write a outline of the book of Ephesians about the Church, a short outline by chapter. Here is the results: (I added the bold)

The Book of Ephesians presents the church as the body of Christ, a unified, multiethnic community created by God through the gospel to display His wisdom. The first three chapters outline the theological position of believers “in Christ,” while chapters four through six detail the practical “walk” of the church in unity, holiness, and spiritual warfare.

Chapter 1: The Church as Christ’s Body. Paul praises God for spiritual blessings, stressing that the church is chosen and adopted to be the body of Christ and the fullness of Him.
Chapter 2: The Church as God’s Household. Describes reconciliation through grace, uniting Jews and Gentiles into “one new humanity” and building them together as a holy temple.
Chapter 3: The Church as Partakers of the Promise. Paul explains the “mystery” of the gospel—that Gentiles are fellow heirs—and prays for the church to understand the depth of Christ’s love.
Chapter 4: The Church Living in Unity. Exhorts believers to walk in unity, using their diverse spiritual gifts to mature and build up the body in love.
Chapter 5: The Church as Christ’s Bride. Calls for holy living, walking in light, and compares the marriage relationship to the sacrificial love between Christ and the church.
Chapter 6: The Church as God’s Army. Outlines relationships (children/parents, servants/masters) and instructs believers to put on the “whole armor of God” to stand against spiritual forces.

The Lord’s First and Second Comings

Sometimes there are verses that show aspects of the Lord’s first and second comings such as these two verse sections:

• Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

• Luke 1:30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Let’s see if you agree on the color coding I did:   First Coming – red     Second Coming – blue

His first coming, about 2000 years ago, we celebrate on Christmas, His second coming is in the future.

— Drew Haninger December, 2025

Encouragement for Believers

Encouragement can help us go a little faster in our walk with the Lord. So let these verses be an encouragement to you.

Philippians 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Philippians 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

2 Timothy 1:12  For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day

The Book of  Romans – a Synthesis

In Bible study, many times a quick one page overview or synthesis of a book can help get an overall understanding and aid in learning the Bible. The synthesis can help organize all the many other details in a book.

  • We are saved by faith – chapters 1-8
    • Its just by Faith — Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith
    • We all are sinners — Romans 3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
    • We can be made right with God through Jesus Christ — Romans 3:24  Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 
    • God loves us and is for us, so He gave us His  son — Romans 5:8  But God showed his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
    • God wants to give us eternal life — Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    • We will never be separated from God’s love — Romans 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,, 39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  • There is hope for Israel (and us)  – chapters 9-11
    • God still loves Israel — Romans 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
  • Live for God and each other (love) – chapters 12-16
    • Let your life be transformed and renewed — Romans 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
    • Live for the Lord Jesus — Rom 13:14  But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof..
    • Oops, don’t judge others — Rom 14:10  But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at contempt thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
    • God will eventually deal with all evil — Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise (crush) Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Book of Romans – Brief Outline – First 8 Chapters

The Book of  Romans – chapters 1-8  – KJV

  • We are saved by faith – chapters 1-8
    • It’s just by Faith — Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith
    • We all are sinners — Romans 3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
    • We can be made right with God through Jesus Christ — Romans 3:24  Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 
    • God wants to give us eternal life — Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    • God loves us and is for us, so He gave us His  son — Romans 5:8  But God showed his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
    • God’s love will never be separated from us — Romans 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,, 39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus and Prayer in John 15

Jesus says in John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

Jesus is talking about abiding, a close fellowship with the Father. He is talking about how we, as believers, are like branches on a vine. He is the true vine, we obtain our spiritual nourishment from Him. This describes an organic, living and real relationship between Jesus and us, or between us and the Father.  We are simply in fellowship with Him.

The first condition, there, is, “If you abide in Me… “ Without getting into the context, there, one way to abide is to stay in the Lord, to rest in the Lord, or to remain in the Lord.  I would even say it means to do the things God wants you to do, to obey the Lord.  He says, “If you abide in Me”.  Then He says, “And if My words abide in you”.  This passage in the book of John says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you”, you can ask whatever you will and I will do it. What words is He talking about when Jesus says, “And My words abide in you”? I believe He is specifically talking about the word He is speaking. I believe it also has to include the words of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.