Abraham | Father Of The Faithful

Abraham, originally named Abram, was born (c 2000 BCE) and lived in the city of Ur, in what is now modern-day Iraq. Abraham was the son of Terah, ninth in descent from Noah, who was the main character in the Great Flood narrative found in Genesis 6-9. 

Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia. It was a wealthy, prosperous and advanced city, with culture, religion, and social statras firmly established. This cradle of civilisation was also the seat of a vigorous polytheism, chief of whom was Nanna, the Sumero-Akkadian moon god.

It is with this rich and complex background that Abraham is introduced to us in Genesis 12. God appears to Abraham, telling him to leave all that was familiar and travel to an unknown place. Hebrews 11, the great dissertation on faith, expands further, noting that it was “by an act of faith, [that] Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left, he had no idea where he was going”.

Abraham left everything he had ever known, all on the word and promise of God. He demonstrated that having faith or believing isn’t measured by an exhaustive list of facts we say we agree with but rather the act of entrusting our lives to God and acting and living in a way that shows we believe His promise to be true.

Abraham chose to enter into God’s story and this choice was the turning point in his life...

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