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Genesis 20 – Praying through the Bible #10 – A Prayer of a Righteous Liar
When you don’t know how to begin, start at the end. Not quite the beginning expected, but Genesis 20 is nothing to be expected. It is a story of conundrum, irony, paradox, and contradiction. At the end, for the first and only time, Abraham is called a prophet (19.7). At the end, for the first time, we have the words “pray” and “prayed” (19.7, 17). God’s prophet is called to pray for another even though the prophet is a liar.
Unexpectedly, Abraham again deceives a king about Sarah not being his wife; and in this deception we discover two truths. First, this is a prepared pattern (20.13). Apparently Abraham never learned his lesson (12.10-20). Second, this lie is a half-truth, since Sarah is Abraham’s half sister. Ironically God punishes the Abimelech’s nation by barrenness (20.18) because he took Abraham’s barren wife. Being innocent of knowing Sarah is married does not excuse his sin (20.3-5). Why would this king take a 90 year old woman to be his wife? Possibly hoping for an alliance out of greed or fear; fear of Abraham’s fighting force (14), or greed for Abraham’s wealth (13.2).
Abraham’s source of sin is fear (20.11). He fears a nation for not fearing God (20.11); yet that nation is terrified upon learning God is angry (20.8). He fears man because he doesn’t think God is feared, and yet Abraham doesn’t fear God for lying. At best Abraham is a conundrum of faith; and at worst a man of faith living in contradiction of faith. I am too much like Abraham and not enough like Abraham. He is willing to sacrifice his son (20); but lies about his wife. Are big, one-time decisions easier than little, day to day decisions?
I’m struck that Abraham the liar is here called by God a prophet; and is here called on to pray for the one he led to sin. It is Abraham’s big-picture faith that is credited to him as his righteousness, and not his day-to-day perfection (15.6). Strange story indeed.
Prayer challenge: Search ourselves for patterns of sin. Pray for faith to defeat those patterns, whether greed, ignorance, half-truths, fear or whatever. Pray for others who have sinned against us even if we are the source of their sin. Pray to be more fearful of disobeying God than fearful of people. Pray freely, knowing we are not perfect, and don’t need to be because of faith to be heard by a perfect God.
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