God selected Abraham to be the father of the His people. The bible does not directly state why God selected him, but after reading scripture one can conclude that God selected Abraham due to his great faith. Abraham’s life lends itself as an example to all who desire to walk with God.
EARLY LIFE
Abraham was one of three sons born to Terah in the city of Ur of the Chaldeans. Research conducted by Elmer Towns indicates that Abraham was younger than his two brothers, Nahor and Haran, although the bible does not specifically indicate that (56). The exact date of his birth cannot be determined, but it is estimated to have been between 2100 and 1800 B.C. (Davis, 159). He was born after the flood and through the family line of Shem, ten generations from Noah. Through his ancestry Abraham can be traced back to Adam and God’s creation. His given name at birth was Abram which means “Exalted Father” (Alter, 73). Later, God would change his name to Abraham, meaning “Father of the Multitudes”, in order to amplify the call that God had placed upon his life (Towns, 108-109).
Growing up in Ur was not the ideal location for a believer in the one true God, Ha Elohim. Ur was located in what is now southern Iraq near the waters of the Persian Gulf. It was a Babylonian city which meant it was a polytheistic society due to the fact that the Babylonians worshiped many gods. Exposure to this surrounding lifestyle may have been the impetus behind Abraham’s father serving other gods as revealed in Joshua 24:2. The influences of idolatry were evident in Abraham’s upbringing; however the bible does not mention that Abraham himself entered into such practices. It can then be inferred that Abraham was able to resist the pagan beliefs and influences of his surroundings and remain steadfast in his belief in Ha Elohim.
God certainly recognized that Abraham was strong in his faith and as a result selected him to carry out a greater plan in life than just living among idolaters. God was initiating a plan that paved the way to salvation for future generations (Hayford’s Handbook, 6). As revealed in Acts 7:2-3, It was in Ur that God first called upon Abraham to leave his family and current city-dwelling lifestyle to follow Him in obedience to a land that was yet unrevealed.
Abraham did make the first move of his journey by relocating to Haran in conjunction with his father and other f...
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...ays were anti-climatic. He handled the burial of Sarah, who according to Genesis 23:1 died at 127 years of age. He arranged the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah. He also took a second wife and continued to have children as spoken about in Genesis 25. Also stated there is the fact that, “he gave all that he had to Isaac.” Then in Genesis 25:7-9 the scriptures describe Abraham’s death. He died at 175 years of age and buried next to Sarah.
WORKS CITED
Alter, Robert Genesis: Translation and Commentary. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc., 2006.
Davis, John J. Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003.
Hayford, Jack W., editor. Hayford’s Bible Handbook. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Inc., 2005.
Hayford, Jack W., editor. New Spirit Filled Life Bible: NKJV. Nashville, TN: Thomas
Nelson, Inc., 2012.
Peterson, Eugene H. The Message Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado
Springs, CO: Navpress, 2006.
Towns, Elmer L. A Journey Through the Old Testament. Mason, OH: Thomson Learning
Custom Publishing, 1989. Web. 6 June 2015.
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=towns_books
Abraham did end up taking his son to a mountain to sacrifice him, but at the last minute God told Abraham to stop and sacrifice a lamb instead. This event showed that God would come through for Abraham in the end because Abraham’s faith in Him was so great.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Nathaniel Abraham was eleven years old when he committed the act of murder. Under a 1997 Michigan law a child of any age may be tried as an adult for severe crimes. Abraham was the first juvenile to be tried under this statute. Accused in the murder of Ronnie Lee Greene Jr., Abraham faced first degree murder charges. Now, at the age of fourteen, Nathaniel has been sentenced to a juvenile facility until the age of twenty-one. Oakland County Probate Judge Eugene Moore hopes that rehabilitation will put an end to Nathaniel’s criminal activity. Nathaniel, a black youth from the slums of Pontiac, Michigan, grew up with out a father, or a strong family unit. He, in turn, never learned the responsibility of his actions; he was not privy to an upbringing that reinforced positive ideals. Crime & Criminology describes, in depth, the relation between family and criminal activity in youths. Page 126 (chapter four) sited two relevant facts; 1) Blacks have much higher rates of illegitimacy and female headed house holds. 2) Blacks have a much higher rate of crime than their white counterparts. In Nathaniel’s case, it can be said that his lack of a positive role model, or father figure lead to his involvement in criminal activities. His mother, Gloria, was struggling to raise three children by herself. Nathaniel’s father had left when he was born, leaving her with no one to depend on. The family moved in with an older couple who offered to help them. With limited supervision Nathaniel was a constant source of aggravation for his mother. Police reported that Nathaniel was suspected in over 22 local crimes, ranging from assault to armed robbery. He, in fact, had been arrested five days before Greene’s murder on the charge of robbery. All this by the age of eleven. In families where there is no male role model a child is far more likely to become involved in crime. The data that exists suggests a direct correlation between youths raised without a father and criminal activity.
In both Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard the inexplicable and irrational acts of man are explored. In Fear and Trembling Abraham’s actions – in the name of God – are portrayed as a leap into the religious realm of morality, achieving a sudden faith in the absurd. Conversely, in The Underground Man, the protagonist espouses a belief that one must sometimes wish “what is bad for himself, and what is not profitable;” (Dostoevsky 17) believing that not all acts are purely rational, that sometimes man is responding to something more powerful than reason or, in other words, something absurd. While Abraham’s religious realm and the underground man’s “most profitable profit” (ibid.) seem to contradict
Abram, which becomes Abraham, is called by God when he is seventy-five years of age to leave his homeland of Ur and travel to become the father of many nations. Abraham grew up in a family that sold idols in the Middle East suggesting to us that they were a polytheistic family. The significance of this is the fact that Abraham later became the first man to abandon all he has in life in order to follow God therefore making him a monotheist. Abraham is called by God to be the father of many nations and has a Covenant with God. This bodily Covenant of circumcision is upheld in the Jewish and Muslim religion. All three religions portray similarities and differences of what Abraham has done for them.
Abraham obeyed God by preparing wood and loading his donkey and took away Isaac and two servants with him. On reaching the place ordered by God, Abraham built an Alter and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son and placed him on altar, on top of the wood and picked up the knife to kill him. Abraham was stopped by the Lord’s voice from heaven telling him, he was an obedient man who honored God. The angel of God confirmed to him how God would richly bless him and give him many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore.
Being a Nurse Practitioner takes more than just wanting to earn a pay check. It takes compassion, knowledge, and the want to help others. You can change lives on a daily bases. It’s a great responsibility that should be taken head on. It all started when Nurse Practitioners become in demand in the 1960s due to the increasing need for nurses. The first program to become an NP started at the University of Colorado by Dr. Henry Silver and Dr. Loretta Ford. (Historical) By the 1970s the programs increased to about 65 nationwide. The numbers of programs has helped increased the numbers of NPs to 195,000 in the U.S. as of 2014. (Historical) Being a Nurse Practitioner is truly a profession.
With the appearance of Abraham we enter into datable history. Abraham (known as “the father of the Jews”) is also significant because the nation of Israel are his descendants.
Exodus is concerned with the relationship aspect of the Patriarchal promises. Sometimes this relationship is expressed in various ways such as a blessing or guidance. By saying "I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob", He showed that he is faithful. He is faithful to His promises, such as God promised to give the Jews the land. When Moses turns to God's promises, he is in essence saying, “God we are not worthy of your blessings, we are here because of you, and we depend on you.” God acted as a parent towards a child. He wanted the best for His children. He, out of love for his children responded to them in different ways. At times he was tough, at other times gentle. Sometimes he enforced the rules and other times he would bend them depending on the occasion. Sometimes he denied his children of certain things and other times he gave openhandedly. He wants to love us and take care of us. Moses learned from God’s parenting skills. God taught lessons to his people as a parent would do. He also rescued his children when they were in trouble by defeating the powerful Egyptians and brought us out so that we could be his people.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. This was near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His mother’s name was Nancy Hanks Lincoln; his father’s name was Thomas Lincoln. Abraham was named after his father’s father. He had an older sister named Sarah, and he had a younger brother named Thomas, but he died in infancy. Abraham Lincoln was once described by his cousin Dennis Hanks as,"...he'll never come to much, fur I'll tell you he wuz the puniest, cryin'est little youngster I ever saw." Abraham’s parents were part of a Baptist congregation. Abraham went to school every once in a while at a log schoolhouse two miles from his farm. Abraham then moved to Indiana due to troubles with land claims. When Abe was 9 years old, his mother died of “milk sickness” which was a disease that was acquired by drinking the milk of a cow that grazed on poisonous white snakeroot. His father Thomas then remarried a woman named Sara Bush Johnston. She didn’t think that Abe had enough schooling, so she sent him to school a lot more.
Babb, Lawrence. The Moral Cosmos of Paradise Lost. [East Lansing]: Michigan State UP, 1970. Print.
Revenge in The Iliad it the main theme and drives men to do things that they would not normally do. The main example of this is Achilles wanting revenge on Agamemnon. The first book of the Iliad explains that Achilles wants revenge because Agamemnon is forced to return Chryseis, his war bride, to her father, and he decides to take Achilles war bride from him. According to “Some Thoughts about the Origins of ‘Greek Ethics’”, by Nicholas D. Smith, “Agamemnon’s unjust affront to Achilles leads to and extraordinarily deadly retaliation, the ultimate outcome of which is that multitudes of these men’s innocent allies are killed unnecessarily”(smith 10). This is out of character for Achilles, who would normally be the first man into battle, not sitting one out. By “rejecting even the most earnest and impressive entreaties Agamemnon offers, and increasingly making decisions which are rationally indefensible”, he shows how much his wanting of revenge has turned him into a madman (smith 10). His only desire is to get revenge for his loss. It takes the death of Patroclus, his dear friend, to bring him back to the war, which he has left.
Although they were similar leaders, they did have a different relationship with God. Abraham from the onset did not question God at all. Anything that God told him to do, it was done. For example, God asked Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt ...
Repetition is also the concept that the Hebrew Creator-God uses throughout the story of Genesis to educate Abram about God's purpose and His nature. God is aware of the doubtful and cynical nature of Abram. Over time, God uses Abram's own repeated mistakes to build a conceptual understanding of Himself for Abram. This model provides Abram with a relevance for God in Abram's own life. Though the classic view depicts the patriarch Abraham as blindly, obedient, there is significant evidence within the story of Abraham to show that he was not so naturally submissive. The text often depicts Abram as doubtful, indignant, and sarcastic to a fault. Taking this side of the text in context illustrates Abraham as the antagonist in a battle against God. In this struggle with God, Abraham achieves excellence by learning, through repetition of his own errors and the reinstatement of God's promise, that it is in his best interest not to fight against his own personal idea of God, but to recognize, respect, and accept the true will of God.
The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, which lasted 10 years. The Grecians eventually won the war, but the outcome could have very easily shifted due to a quarrel between King Agamemnon and Achilles. Pride and anger is what the two men were fighting about. This story is a very good example of how those two simple emotions can lead to tragedy.