Genesis 12:1-3, just three verses – that sounds so slight and insignificant. Yet these three verses have been called “central not only to Genesis but to the whole of the Bible's storyline.”1 If that's the case, then certainly we don't want the break we took from Genesis for Advent to make us forget what came before. In the beginning – I hope we remember – God made the heavens and the earth. God crafted the world into a cosmic temple ripe for his indwelling, and he beheld these things as “very good” (Genesis 1:31). And as he furnished his temple with varied forms of life, “God blessed them” with fruitfulness and greatness so that they could each flourish and fill their domains (Genesis 1:22). This included his own images within the temple: “God blessed them” not only with that same fruitfulness and greatness, but also with power and dominion and glory (Genesis 1:28).
That was the condition creation was meant to have: blessing. Blessing, according to Israel's neighbors, was a powerful “wish for someone to receive the good things of life.”2 God wished simply, always and everywhere, to give the good things of life to everything and everyone. He blessed his creation with existence, he blessed his creatures with life, he blessed that life with a beautiful hierarchy of glory culminating in human beings whom he blessed so extravagantly that it should make us weep tears of joy just to think it. The blessing was a share in the life of God, and, for us, also a share in his creative power and kingly rule.3 And so “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,” enthroning himself in his creation on that crowning sabbath (Genesis 2:3).
But then we disregarded our blessing. We wouldn't keep holy what was holy. We'd believe half-truths over the Whole Truth, would cherish lesser goods above Supreme Goodness, would desire skin-deep beauties while sneering at Perfect Beauty (Genesis 3:1-5). We bit off more than we could chew, we broke ourselves, and we hid from the Healer (Genesis 3:6-13). Unqualified blessing could hardly be the only word there, and so, for the first time, the word 'cursed' was heard, aimed indirectly at the guilty pair (Genesis 3:14-19). Fallen from the upward course we were made to soar, we moved out to a worsened world to try to rebuild upon “the ground that the LORD has cursed” (Genesis 3:22-24; 5:29). That curse made itself painfully known, not least when a son of Adam sold himself into sin's slavery so severely as to slay his sole sibling (Genesis 4:8). Magnifying his father's foibles when faced with his folly, he was the first man directly cursed by God Almighty (Genesis 4:9-11). Yet even in him was the original blessing not all taken away (Genesis 4:17-22).
The human family marched on through the ages, growing across the ground, succeeding in their main endeavors (Genesis 6:1). But their endeavors were so oft evil that, after untold ages of compounding corruption, only one righteous heir to the race was left to pluck from the wreckage (Genesis 6:5-11). God warned Noah in advance to build a box that could hold the seeds of a new world (Genesis 6:13-22). Then came the rain, and washed the spiders out – along with the rest of what God had made. It could hardly get further from blessing than when God lessened the land until it vanished 'neath oceans of chaos, undoing creation (Genesis 7:11-24). Only God's faithful mercy toward Noah, determined to make blessing the last word, lit the spark of a new cycle of creation. God diminished the waters of the abyss, calling forth the world once more (Genesis 8:1-13).
And to refill that world, off the ark came “every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth..., by families” (Genesis 8:19). Now that sounds new. And God offered once more original blessing, as intact as our sinful hearts and minds could bear. “God blessed Noah and his sons” (Genesis 9:1-7), and he made a covenant with all living flesh on the earth (Genesis 9:8-17). But this human family, like the first, failed to cooperate, leading father Noah to speak an out-and-out curse on one whole lineage (Genesis 9:25); and not all his best wishes for his more honorable sons could remove the wrench thrown deep into the universal-blessing idea from that, a wrench which would take millennia to work out. As one scholar remarks here, in light of such corruption and sin, “God's blessing cannot be separated from human responsibility.”4
God's goal had, all along, been “a universal blessing” of his creation.5 But could that plan even mostly succeed? In time, this one human family became a whole world, condensed and represented in a single people so fearful and proud that they built a city with its idol tower boasting equality with heaven above – and all for what? To let them dictate humanity's future, to ensure their lasting fame, to give themselves a self-won safety – in effect, to bless themselves by themselves (Genesis 11:1-4). Unimpressed, disappointed by their common corruption, “there the LORD confused the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9). And so the ancient world was scattered, as the Bible invites us to imagine it, “by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations” (Genesis 10:31).
Alas, we became, in the prophet's words, “the families of the lands” which “worship wood and stone” (Ezekiel 20:32). It had proven pointless to keep punishing all these families for their idolatrous forgetfulness of God (cf. Amos 3:2). Mabbul and Babel, flood and tower, had proven that God's dealing with humanity en masse would only work out to our detriment. These avenues to God's universal-blessing goal were dead ends. We'd need “a new divine initiative,” working apart from those previous cycles of action and reaction.6 We'd need to hear a word bright enough to “counteract the dark tones of universal judgment” boiling over in the last nine chapters.7
And so, as we've learned since mid-November, rather than use up all the world's paper telling us parallel stories of God's work with each one of these human families, the Bible traces forward from here just one family line of note – the obscure, long-suffering, and idolatrous one leading to Terah and his sons in Ur (Genesis 11:10-32). It was on this household, out of all humanity, that God set his eye, as if to say in advance, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). It was to one of Terah's sons that God spoke, whether in deep-south Ur or far-north Harran. As it would later be said: “You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram” (Nehemiah 9:7), chose him in a way none of his cousins or neighbors or anybody else had been chosen. From here on out, Abram – a nobody, by the world's estimation – would spiritually “stand at the center of humanity.”8
But that central position could only be reached by marching to the margins. God's opening overture to Abram, out of the wild blue yonder, was devastating in its ferocity, demanding a sacrifice of everything Abram valued in life: “Go! Go from your land, from your relatives, from your father's house, to the land that I'll show you!” (Genesis 12:1). These burdens are so heavy and sudden and painful that it's no wonder God doesn't let up before he gives Abram 'a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.' In what follows, God unfolds a promise using seven key pledges to create something spiritually new.9 And five times in this little speech, God uses some form of the word 'bless' – that's the same number of times we've heard of God or somebody else cursing someone or something so far, and also the number of times we've heard about God as the agent of blessing up until now.10 Now God says 'bless' five more times, gripping us with the sense that what God is saying here has as much meaning and joy as the entirety of universal history leading up to this holy moment.
God proclaims to Abram, in simple terms, “I will bless you” (Genesis 12:2) – yes, “I will bless you, and you will be blessed... with so much blessing... that it will last for all time.”11 This phrase is highly ambiguous and open-ended,12 and yet it's “the key to all other promises” that follow for Abram.13 Abram can likely expect to enjoy material prosperity arranged by God: his labors will pay off, his resources will multiply, he'll find himself in a good social position, and so Abram can expect to be “altogether joyful” (Deuteronomy 15:6 16:15). And maybe, after years of not multiplying, will God give Abram offspring after all? The potential hope here “sets up a key issue for the narrative that follows,” and we'll have to wait and see.14 Beyond that, what other blessings could be hinted at here? Abram, personally, is promised a goodness in his life – what more needs he to know?
But God isn't done talking. “I will bless those who bless you,” he adds (Genesis 12:3). That is, anyone and everyone who wishes Abram well, anybody who willingly contributes to Abram's well-being, anybody who looks out for Abram – well, all may rest assured that God will, in turn, reward them in kind.15 God's favor will rest, not only on Abram personally, but on all who support Abram and ally themselves with Abram or even just show Abram some basic human kindness. “Whoever gives [Abram] a cup of water to drink... will by no means lose his reward,” you might say (Mark 9:41). God is almost saying to Abram, “Whoever receives you receives me” (Matthew 10:40), hence “I will consider as friends those friendly to you.”16 Like the Ark of the Covenant, Abram's presence will call down blessing on wherever and with whomever he dwells in peace (2 Samuel 6:11). Abram should therefore be everybody's favorite guest; his approach should be heralded with shouts of joy! As a “promise for those outside the chosen community,” Abram will be Patient Zero in a blessing epidemic for all who receive him rightly.17 To paraphrase: “To those who honor you, I will give an abundance of good things.”18
But, also like the Ark of the Covenant, Abram can be touched wrongly, dishonorably, which turns the blessing on its head (2 Samuel 6:6-7). A mistreated Abram in your midst is a guarantee of judgment. God adds that “the one who dishonors you, I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). “If any of the dwellers of the earth greets you with evil,” one old poem paraphrases it, “I shall set on him my curse and hatred.”19 To dishonor Abram, to despise or demean him, to dismiss him as irrelevant or inconsequential, or (worse) to wish ill upon him or seek to hinder or harm him, is an offense that God hereby commits himself to take very personally. To borrow some later words from the Gospels, “the one who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16).
Now, think what that means for Abram personally. God has asked him to give up every worldly defense, and to go live among total strangers who have no bonds that might dissuade them from swindling, bullying, assaulting, even slaying him. God here assures Abram of a deterrent, that “whoever maltreats him will be punished with exceptional severity.”20 They'll learn the hard way, if they have to, that to even mildly mistreat Abram is to win outsized penalties from on high, “for they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).21
But God is very deliberate in how he phrases himself here. When God speaks about “those who bless you,” he uses the plural; but when he mentions “the one who diminishes you,” that's singular. God is hinting that those who mistreat Abram will actually be the minority, that most people he meets will typically welcome and bless him. What's more, the verbal form of 'I will curse' is a lot weaker than the verbal form here of 'I will bless.' Right down to the Hebrew grammar of it all, the blessings are so much more intense and emphatic, exuberant and vigorous, than the curse, because God is still infinitely more interested in lifting up than in casting down!22
So kindness to Abram will pay off! Hospitality to Abram will bear dividends! Those who associate themselves with Abram won't at all regret it. That's what the next fourteen chapters will work out. As one early Christian summed them up, “all who received him gladly were blessed, while those who treated him improperly fell under a curse.”23 In fact, once Abram has turned into a great nation, even a pagan prophet hired to curse that Abram-Nation at their lowest will compulsively compare them to an Eden garden and pronounce that “blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” (Numbers 24:9).
But even with this, God isn't yet finished. In the seventh of the seven parts of his call, he tacks on a sabbath “addition of still further liberality,” greater generosity to Abram,24 by means of “that promise which,” as Luther put it, “should be written in golden letters and should be extolled in the languages of all people.”25 That promise caps off a creeping blessing: first it was “a blessing on Abram personally,” then “a blessing (or curse) on those with whom he interacts,” but now at last there's “a blessing on the entire human race.”26 “In you,” says God, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Given the curious reference four chapters ago to all the animals leaving the ark “by families” (Genesis 8:19), maybe the blessing here even exceeds humanity!
Here, says the Apostle, “the Scripture... preached the gospel in advance” (Galatians 3:8). The good news is that God hasn't given up on his intentions to bless the whole creation! God hasn't forsaken us, hasn't doomed or damned us, hasn't abandoned us to the curse! God has just chosen a craftier strategy, a route down the side alley and through the back door, to smuggle his blessings to us before we can figure out how to cheat ourselves out of them. And that crafty strategy is that, rather than address all humanity en masse directly, God will choose just one man to be his vessel, his conduit, his channel through whom blessings will flow to all.27
Abram is chosen, Abram is elect – but not because God does care about anyone else. Abram is elect because God cares about everyone else! For God so loved the world that he chose one friend to use to anchor blessing back into the world, for every family on earth. God elects the particular to be cause of the universal; God chooses one for the benefit of all. God opts “to invest this narrow slice of humanity with the promise of a new future,”28 “to make Abram a mediator of blessing for the world,”29 so that “all the world's peoples shall flourish on his account.”30 As one scholar puts it, God choosing Abram here is “an initially exclusive move for the sake of a maximally inclusive end..., for mission (in the broadest sense of the term).”31
Abram is invested here with a mission, as if in a mighty word of command: “Be a blessing!” (Genesis 12:2).32 Of the seven things God says to Abram, this buried commandment is the core, the heart, the sun all the others orbit, the anchor to which all else is tied.33 All families who tread this terrestrial ball shall be blessed in Abram, but Abram is summoned to active cooperation with God's plan to use him as a channel for those blessings. He is thereby “called out by God for a mission... cosmic in its implications, involving the fulfillment of God's promise to bless his creation.”34 To that end, Abram “must engage in God's promise... and God's plan.”35 Abram must “live his life as a source” – or, better, a conduit – “of blessing to others.”36 Abram will need then to surrender himself to be remade, clay in the Potter's hands (Jeremiah 18:6). And in each interaction he has with people, he'll have a choice to make: to attend to the other's deep need so as to meet it with God's blessings, or to seek first his own protection and welfare. Abram will have to consciously become transparent and allow God's light to shine through him. To be a blessing like that is thus a vocation that will reshape Abram's entire life.
And this command, in light of the promises that follow it to unpack it, must surely blow Abram's mind to bits. Abram can understand what it will mean for him personally to be blessed, of course. And Abram can daydream what it will mean if people who meet him receive treatment from God in accordance with how they themselves treat Abram. But for all families of the earth to be blessed in Abram, and for him to be commanded to actively mediate that blessing to them? What could that mean? Is Abram to spend his days as a world traveler, circumnavigating the globe until he's been welcomed by each family there is, a slow-motion Santa Claus? Then his destination must be indefinite, a never-ending voyage that the technology of the time could never sustain (Abram has no flying reindeer!). How, then, can Abram dare embrace a command that condemns him to failure before he takes a step, yet will yield him no rest until his bones are dust? On the other hand, if Abram has a definite destination, then how can he be a blessing to families as distant as the Elamites and Ethiopians, to Gog and Magog and Tarshish, who've never heard his name? How can Abram bless those whose hands he never shakes, whose doors he never darkens, at whose table he neither eats nor drinks? How in practice can Abram live his life for the unmet? And how can he ever be a blessing to those who persist in choosing to be cursed?
In more ways than one, the promise is inconceivably gigantic for the shoulders of one man. As we said, Abram will have to become a great nation – a nation which, in some mystical way, is Abram – and then we'll have to see whether that Abram-Nation can triumph over their tempting instincts, can bless warring enemies, can seek out distant families until the hearts of all families are improbably won. But if the Abram-Nation can't overcome temptation, won't persevere in the mission of blessing, then “does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?” (Romans 3:3). Or can it yet be, as the prophet said, that “as you have been a byword of cursing..., so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing” (Zechariah 8:13)?
There are so many psalms that drip with the language of blessing, but if there's any psalm we should know, it's one of the other ones, #22. That's the one that leads off with the heart-wrenching line, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). Jesus quoted it as he hung on the cross (Mark 15:34), as he “became a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'” (Galatians 3:13). In fact, that psalm sounds suspiciously like advance notice of the crucifixion. “All who see me mock me..., they wag their heads: 'He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him!'” (Psalm 22:7-8) – which is just how the crowds and priests mocked the crucified Jesus (Matthew 27:39-44). “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:18) – that's also in the psalm, and it's what the soldiers did as they crucified Jesus (Mark 15:24).
But the psalm is a prayer for deliverance: “O LORD, do not be far off... Save me from the mouth of the lion!” (Psalm 22:19-21). What began in fearsome woe opens into a beautiful picture of the outcome if God does not “despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted” (Psalm 22:24), if the Father hears the Son's prayers, not by snatching him from the cross, but by providing new life beyond the cross. What then? “I will tell of your name to my brothers,” first of all (Psalm 22:22): Jesus' post-resurrection appearances will preach to his disciples. “From you comes my praise in the great congregation” (Psalm 22:25): Jesus will be praised as the Spirit rushes from heaven to indwell his congregation on earth. “The meek shall eat and be satisfied” (Psalm 22:26): The Church will be spiritually filled as they routinely eat Christ's Body and drink Christ's Blood from “the cup of blessing that we bless” (1 Corinthians 10:16). And then “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD” – 'remember' once they're evangelized, 'turn' because they're converted – “and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22:27). In fact, all families of the earth “shall eat and worship,” says the psalm, basking in the blessings of God to all generations (Psalm 22:29-31).
And that is what the promise to Abram was all for, that is how Abram will ultimately become a blessing, that is what it meant from the beginning. As Luther put it, “in these few simple words” in Genesis, “the Holy Spirit has thus encompassed the mystery of... the Son of God,” for “who else shall we say has dispensed this blessing among all nations except the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ?”37 He's the Greater Abram who proclaims with his every heartbeat that his Father is exalted indeed. And all the families of the earth are finally blessed in this Greater Abram, because this Greater Abram chose the cross. He allowed himself to be disparaged, demeaned, and dishonored, all while he claimed all curses back to Eden “so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14). And then the very ones whose impiety had scorned and crucified him could, by faith freshly working by love, instead be justified, be sanctified, be glorified, be “blessed along with Abraham” (Galatians 3:9). In Christ Jesus, “the nations have come to share in [Abram's] spiritual blessings” at last (Romans 15:27).
And just as Abram was promised to become a great nation for the nations, so the Greater Abram is made a Great Body of Christ, with the person of Jesus as the Head from whom the remainder of the Body grows (Colossians 2:19). The early Christians realized that the 'totus Christus,' as St. Augustine called it, means Jesus with his Body, “the whole Christ in the fullness of the Church, that is, as Head and Body..., in whom we are each of us members.”38 As those members, God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:3-4).
For if Christ is the Greater Abram, then the Body of Christ is an Abrahamic Body, a Body Blessed and a Body whose treatment determines the fate of all families. As Luther put it, “whatever will be achieved in the church until the end of the world, and whatever has been achieved in it until now, has been achieved and will be achieved by virtue of this promise, which endures and is in force to this day.”39 If God would bless everyone who blessed Abram, now God blesses whoever will bless Christ, which means welcoming and honoring his Body, the Church. And if God would curse one who dishonored Abram, then God curses whoever disdains and demeans Jesus, including those who, thinking they honor him, fail to honor his Body, the Church. As Luther observed, “the kingdoms of the entire world were destroyed because they harmed the church,” while here God “promises a blessing to those who befriend the church.”40 And so, through the ups and downs of history, “the eternal blessing of the church has remained unshaken,” and so it does still, despite our foibles and failures.41
But as an Abrahamic Body, the Body of Christ can't be content to be a mere recipient or a passive touchstone. The Body of Christ is, by nature, a Blessing Body. Ours is the mission cosmic in its implications. Ours is the summons too gigantic for the shoulders of any mere man. The Body of Christ walks the earth still because the families of the nations still need the Body of Christ to be a blessing to them – a blessing the Body cannot be without the active cooperation of its members with its Head! Like it did for Abram, the mission requires our transformation, each and all, into a new kind of person42 – a Christ-person, a Christian, a blessing-bearer.
If all families of the earth are to be blessed in Christ, which entails being blessed in and through the Church, then that rules out so many of our ancient and modern tribalist temptations to do good selectively. The blessing is for the Haitian and Somalian and Indian families no less than for the English and German and American ones, and the Church can't pick and choose. And although God may punish those who scorn the Church, that's his business. So far as ours is concerned, our Head bids us “bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28), while his holy servant Paul reminds us to “bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). Out of our mouth come words of blessing; with our hands are worked works of blessing, even for those who curse and crucify us. Because we have a purpose in the world. We have a mission. We are the Blessing Body, who continue in the world today this commission given to an astonished Abram nearly four millennia ago. We are a sign that, however the signs of the times may read, God's plan is still to bless his whole creation, and he will not give up until, through the cracks we create in the curse's shell, we flood the world with his goodness and glory. Thanks be to “the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever!” (2 Corinthians 11:31). Amen.
1 John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 43.
2 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf and Stock, 2023), 22.
3 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf and Stock, 2023), 28.
4 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf and Stock, 2023), 35.
5 Bede, On Genesis 12:3, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:246.
6 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 73.
7 Ed Noort, “Abraham and the Nations,” in Martin Goodman, George H. van Kooten, and Jacques T.A.G.M. van Ruiten, eds., Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham (Brill, 2010), 18.
8 Matthew Levering, Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism (Cascade Books, 2021), 77.
9 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 90.
10 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 74; Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 205.
11 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 31.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:246.
12 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 14.
13 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 37.
14 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprint from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 33.
15 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 256.
16 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 31.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:246.
17 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprint from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 33-34.
18 Old English Genesis A, lines 1757-1758, in Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7:125.
19 Old English Genesis A, lines 1754-1756, in Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7:125.
20 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 89.
21 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 38.
22 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 206.
23 Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 12:1-3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:185.
24 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 31.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:247.
25 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:3, in Luther's Works 2:260.
26 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 89; cf. Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 16.
27 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf & Stock, 2023), 44.
28 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 139.
29 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 133.
30 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 256.
31 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprint from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 34; cf. John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 209.
32 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf & Stock, 2023), 41-42.
33 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 373.
34 Iain Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 288.
35 Qiang Fu, How God Forms Abraham to Be a Blessing: Using Formative Narrative Approach and Narrative Discourse Analysis (Wipf & Stock, 2023), 16.
36 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 37.
37 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:3, in Luther's Works 2:260-261.
38 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 341.1, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/10:19.
39 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:3, in Luther's Works 2:265.
40 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:3, in Luther's Works 2:259.
41 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 12:3, in Luther's Works 2:265.
42 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 129.
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