People have the privilege of giving God's plans life

November 19, 2001

Bible Study for Texas lesson for Dec. 16

People have the privilege of giving God's plans life

__Genesis 16:1-16
___¹Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."
___Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
___When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me."
___⁶ "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
___⁷ The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
___"I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.
___⁹ Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." ¹⁰ The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
___¹¹ The angel of the Lord also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. ¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
___¹³ She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." ¹⁴That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
___¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

____By Amelia Bishop
___"And so ... life goes on." But it has some unexpected chapters.
___Abraham had come from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran and thence into Canaan.
___To escape the famine, he and his entourage had gone into Egypt, then out again. Both Abraham and Lot had prospered, which necessitated their separating to provide sufficient pasture lands for their cattle, as we saw in last week's lesson. Lot was now in the Jordan Valley near Sodom; Abraham was in Canaan.
___Genesis 14 and 15, the chapters between last week's lesson and this one, point up other attributes of Abraham pertinent to our study. He was no "ordinary desert chieftain." When war broke out between area kings and Lot was captured, Abraham raised an army and freed his nephew. He also paid tithes to Melchizedek.
___Subsequently, he had a vision wherein the Lord spoke to him, saying: "Do not be afraid ... I am your shield" (Genesis 15:1). God also repeated the covenant promise, and when Abraham questioned his childlessness, God said a son would be coming from Abraham's own body (Genesis 15:4).
___
___The couple: Abraham and Sarah
___Obviously, then, in the back of Abraham's mind, there must have been lurking with increasing frequency the promise of God that "in you shall all nations of the earth be blessed." It had been given and repeated. Abraham believed it. He had heard God say there would be a son, but he also knew he was already about 85 years old. Did he wonder if he himself was to set in motion some plan to bring this about? Perhaps.
___Meanwhile, his wife, Sarah, was apparently having the same feelings, only stronger. Thus it was that she came to him one

day, still concerned about her childless state, and suggested he take as his "secondary wife" her maid, Hagar, an Egyptian servant. (Possibly she was one of those given to the family when they were in Egypt.) As Sarah pointed out, "I can build a family through her" (Genesis 16:2).
___The first time we encounter this plan in Scripture, it seems strange to us. It wasn't to them; it was a perfectly legal procedure at the time. If a wife did not have children, the husband could take her handmaiden as a "secondary wife" for the express purpose of having an heir. Any children born under this arrangement would be considered the children of the wife because the handmaiden herself belonged to the wife.
___So it happened in this fashion. And Hagar conceived.
___Was Sarah's growing anxiety based in part on the fact that Abraham was to be the father of many nations, but she didn't know if she was specifically destined to be the mother? At this point, God has not specifically said so. Maybe she wondered. Then again, it could be that impatience--waiting on the Lord--was involved with both husband and wife. If so, could that be classified as a lack of faith? And is there any record that they asked God about this arrangement?
___At any rate, Hagar was successful. Then, unfortunately, her attitude toward her mistress promptly changed. She began to look down on Sarah, to be condescending toward her unsuccessful mistress. Apparently this was on a continuing basis. Sarah got tired of it. She went to Abraham.
___The triangle: Abraham, Sarah and Hagar
___Sarah's words to Abraham were, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering" (Genesis 16:5).
___At first glance, it seems as if Sarah was blaming Abraham for doing what she had suggested. That may or may not be partially true, but, as often happens, there's more to the picture. An ancient law provided that if a slave promoted to wife could not handle the new status properly, she was to return to her former state.
___Sarah called this to Abraham's attention, wanting him to take action. Abraham demurred. (That is understandable. What man would want to referee between two jealous women?) He turned Hagar over to Sarah. "Your servant is in your hands. ... Do with her whatever you think best" (Genesis 16:6).
___Abraham cannot be faulted for turning the decision over to Sarah, considering the long and stable relationship between them. But perhaps he did show a lack of concern for Hagar.
___After all, she had become a part of the plan, and she was carrying a child he had fathered. At the same time, the escalating problems were those she had brought on herself.
___So the decision was Sarah's. And apparently her jealousy was still boiling. She "mistreated" Hagar, although such abuse was probably not physical, but more like harassment.
___Perhaps it was "Do this ... do that" on an ongoing basis, along with pointing out Hagar's failings.
___At any rate, Hagar, an obviously independent Bedouin woman, decided she didn't need this. She left the household and fled into the desert in the direction of her homeland, Egypt.
___Encounter in the desert: The angel and Hagar
___The angel found Hagar near a spring beside the road to Shur. Although its exact location is not known, it was close to the Egyptian border.
___Authorities have pointed out that this is the first appearance of an angel in the Old Testament. Heavenly beings who serve as intermediaries between God and man were not the usual thing in Israel's concept of God. Actually, God himself had been quite active in much of Israel's history. In this instance, "the angel of the Lord" is an intermediary, although he speaks as both angel and the Lord himself.
___Incidentally, the term "angel of the Lord" is an interesting one. For example, such a personage is connected with God's gracious acts and is never a person to fear, except in the case of God's enemies.
___The questions the angel put to Hagar are two that all who seek to follow God would do well to consider. They were simple questions, simply put, but with meanings that went far beyond simple answers. They came one right after another. Indeed, they should; they are closely related.
___"Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from?" This was the first one.
___Yes, Hagar was the wife of Abraham, but she was also the servant of Sarah. The angel's addressing her in this fashion (as the servant of Sarah) seemed to bring into the conversation Hagar's responsibility to her mistress. She was supposed to be in the tent, helping Sarah, but instead, she was out here in the wilderness, apparently headed for Egypt.
___The second one followed. "Where are you going?" If she were running away from the duties which were hers, just where did she think she was going? Was running away the answer?
___In thinking about the future, she would do well to consider first her origins and where she had been. What about her responsibilities? Was she just walking off and leaving them? Yes, Sarah's treatment had been hard to deal with, but wasn't there much more to the picture than that? Didn't she have a child on the way?
___To her credit, Hagar answered candidly and directly. "I'm running away from my mistress, Sarah." But certainly his questions must have made her think, as we will see from her subsequent action. When the angel told her to go back and submit to Sarah, she apparently decided she did need to return. It may have been that his questions made her re-think her position; it may have been that a heavenly voice was speaking to her. At any rate, she consented to follow his bidding.
___Then came the angel's promise: "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count" (Genesis 16:10).
___But that wasn't all. The angel then proclaimed that Hagar would indeed have a son, that he would be named Ishmael and the Lord had indeed "heard of her misery."
___That really spoke to Hagar's heart, for it told that God watches over everyone, including a slave girl. She was moved to call the well "The well of the Living One who sees me."
___The angel described her son-to-be as a "wild donkey," free from any limitations. The prophetic words also indicated he would be fiercely independent, which would certainly appeal to Hagar. The description was not intended to be negative--it described many of the desert tribal chieftains who inhabited the area and were so much a part of its ongoing story.
___So Hagar went back to Sarah and Abraham and became a part of history.
___That history included the fact that Ishmael became the ancestor of 12 princes, many of whom gave their names to tribes or localities mentioned in other parts of the Bible. However, because of Hagar's background, the descendants of Ishmael were considered to be "lower" than the sons of Isaac. On the other hand, among Muslims, Ishmael is hailed as an ancestor of Mohammed and is buried at Mecca.
___The past is prologue
___The expression "the past is prologue to the future" comes to mind.
___Where are we, those of us who say we are Texas Baptists? We rejoice in where we have come from and rightly so.
___Now comes "Where are you going?" So much has changed. We are now "both mission base and mission field," as our state leadership has pointed out.
___Already new and exciting plans and strategies are on the table in our state offices as well as many of our associations and churches. But plans are only on paper. It is people who give them life.
___That's you. That's me. That's us.

Questions for thought and discussion
___ At this point in their lives, apparently impatience was a problem for both Abraham and Sarah. They knew of God's promise, but they just couldn't understand how it could all happen unless an heir was born, so they worked out a plan for themselves. Do you find yourself wanting to rush things along rather than waiting on the Lord? How do you decide whether you need to wait on the Lord or whether you need to move ahead?
___ Hagar behaved condescendingly toward Sarah because the latter had not been able to conceive. What causes such behavior? If you're on the receiving end, how can you handle it as a Christian?
___ Consider the second question the angel asked Hagar: "Where are you going?" Relate that to your own spiritual pilgrimage. Are your horizons expanding?
___ We saw in this week's lesson that Hagar, after the visit with the angel, felt renewed. She knew God saw her and was watching over her. Have you had occasions when this particular feeling came strongly to you?
___ Hagar "reversed her field." She went back to Sarah. She had done the wrong thing, and she knew it. Why is it so hard for us on occasion to "reverse our field"? Is it a matter of false pride, perhaps?

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