Scripture Daily

Context No. 1911 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 7:1-8: in context

1The high priest said, “Are these things so?” 2He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’ 4Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living. 5He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child. 6God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. 7‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’ 8He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

In his defense before the council, Stephen begins with Abraham. The God of glory appeared to him, called him out of his country to a land God would show him, and promised to give that land to him and his offspring. But notice what Stephen stresses: God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on, and promised it to his offspring while Abraham still had no child. Abraham received the promise, and lived and died without receiving what was promised, believing God on the strength of his word alone.

Stephen underlines a striking fact about Abraham's faith: he received the promise, but not the inheritance. God promised him the land, and gave him none of it, not even a foot of ground; God promised him offspring as numerous as the stars, when he had no child at all. Abraham held onto the promise, obeyed God, lived his whole life as a stranger in the land he was promised, and died without ever possessing it. His faith rested not on what he received in his lifetime but on the word of God about a future he would not see. There is a challenge and a comfort here for our own faith. Much of what God promises us, we will not see fulfilled in our lifetime. We labor and trust and hope, and often the fulfillment lies beyond our own days, to be received by those who come after us, or in the age to come. Abraham did not receive the land; he saw it only from afar, and greeted it, and died in faith. And Scripture holds him up not as one whose faith failed for lack of fulfillment, but as the father of the faithful, precisely because he believed God's promise though he did not receive it. This frees us from the demand that God's promises be fulfilled on our timetable, within our lifetime, for us to keep believing them. Abraham trusted a God whose promise reached beyond his own life, and did not stop believing because he did not see. So we, too, may trust God's promises even where the fulfillment lies beyond our days, laboring and hoping in a purpose larger than our own lifetime, content, like Abraham, to see the promise from afar and greet it, believing the God who keeps his word in his own time, not ours. Abraham died without receiving the inheritance, still believing; and that believing, not the receiving, is what Scripture calls faith. We are called to the same: to trust God's word even for what we will not live to see.

Do I demand that God's promises be fulfilled within my lifetime for me to keep believing them, or can I learn from Abraham, who received the promise but not the inheritance, to trust God's word even where the fulfillment lies beyond my own days, laboring and hoping in a purpose larger than my lifetime and believing the God who keeps his word in his own time?

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