Hello and welcome to the Women’s Weekly Bible Challenge! I’m Lisa Ann Spencer.
Today is Part 6 of the series, When God Speaks to Women.
We are going to take a brief look at Sarah. Last week we were in the middle of looking at all the references to Hagar, but God speaks to Sarah after He spoke to Hagar the first time. It has been 13 years since God spoke to Hagar, when we read that God spoke to Sarah.
Genesis 18:15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.
So the challenge last week was to find the three spellings of Sarah in Scripture and see what we can learn from her.
Using Blue Letter Bible, I found:
- Sarai – 17 times in 13 verses
- Sarah – 37 times in 31 verses
- Sara – 3 times in 3 verses
Up to this point in the story, we have already covered ‘Sarai’. Her name was changed in Genesis 16:15 and that name is never used again.
‘Sarah’ is found 37 times from this point in Genesis 17 through Genesis 49. All but one of the 37 results to ‘Sarah’ refer to Abraham’s wife except one reference in the book of Numbers.
Numbers 26:46 And the name of the daughter of Asher was Sarah.
When we cross reference ‘Asher’, we find other references to this daughter ‘Sarah’ being spelled ‘Serah’. You might like to mark in your Bible next to Numbers 26:46 these two references: Genesis 46:17 and 1 Chronicles 7:30. This ‘Serah’ came in to the land of Egypt with all the family of Jacob when Joseph was in charge of the 7-year famine.
‘Sarah’ is also mentioned one other time outside the book of Genesis, by Isaiah the prophet.
Isaiah 51:2 Look unto Abraham your father, And unto Sarah that bare you: For I called him alone, And blessed him, and increased him.
This has to be understood in light of the previous verse and the context of the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 51:1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, And to the hole of the pit when ye are digged.
Remember that ‘ye’ is plural. God is speaking to those who are true to God among Israel. This is a future prophecy regarding the time of tribulation. This portion of Scripture shows us that only the true believers in Israel can call Abraham their father and Sarah their mother because they demonstrated what it takes to please God: faith!
In the New Testament, when we searched for ‘Sara’ we found only 3 results:
- Romans 9:9
- Hebrews 11:11
- 1 Peter 3:6
CORRECTION: There is 4. I missed Romans 4:19, which I will cover in the next Blog.
These results are interesting because they all pertain to Israel, even the reference in Romans by the apostle Paul, who was made the apostle to the Gentiles. Here are a few of many references for you to write down and study Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:8; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11 ).
#1 Romans 9
Romans 9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 Who are Israelites;…
Paul just got finished saying in Romans 8:39 …that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But Paul is very grieved at the current lost condition of the nation of Israel, so much so that he could wish himself accursed from Christ!
Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
Romans 11:30 For as ye [Gentiles] in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their [Israel’s] unbelief:
The context of Romans chapters 9-11 is Israel. I encourage you to read it, and study it, and note that it is in regards to Israel. It is helpful to note the pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’. Paul explains to us that Israel stumbled, fell and were diminished (Romans 11:11-12). The nation was unable to be the light to the Gentiles as prophesied in the Old Testament. Today, in this dispensation, Paul has been called to be a light to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47) and to lost Israelites with the message of salvation by faith alone in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Let’s continue reading Romans 9.
Romans 9:4 …to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Those verses condense all the Old Testament blessings that were given by the word of God to ISRAEL. That is why Paul goes on to say in the next verses,
Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel; 7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Many make the mistake here of claiming that the church today, which is predominantly Gentiles, has now become spiritual Israel by faith. But if you remember that Abraham had another son, Ishmael, who was part of the covenant of circumcision, you will understand what Paul is saying in this passage. This is why he clarifies that ‘in Isaac’ shall thy seed be called. So only the descendants of Isaac are considered ‘thy seed’, or the children of God. Paul goes on to define what he is saying.
Romans 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 9 For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
And here we see the mention of ‘Sara’.
Paul is quoting Genesis 18:14, when One of the three visitors speaks to Abraham.
NOTE: We will see that Abraham goes on to marry again after Sarah’s death and has six more sons (Genesis 25:1-4) who are also circumcised. We know from the word of God that God chose Isaac out of all the seed of Abraham to be His chosen people.
In Romans 9, Paul goes on to say, as we will see in an upcoming study, that Isaac had two sons. God chose one of those sons as His seed, even though both sons are descendants of Abraham and circumcised. Paul is not trying to show us in this passage that Gentiles are now considered Israel!
We will come back to this passage in a future study on Rebecca, but for now let’s look at the other two references to Sara.
#2 Hebrews 11
Hebrews 11:11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
You are probably very familiar with Hebrews 11, as it is the well-known chapter on ‘Faith’ in the Bible. It is good to keep in mind that the book of Hebrews is written to Hebrews, particularly those living in ‘these last days’ (Hebrews 1:2); also known as ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’ (Jeremiah 30:7) , ‘Daniel’s 70th week’ (Daniel 9:24) or the ‘great tribulation’ (Matthew 24:21).
We do not see Sara’s great faith when we read the account in Genesis. We should recognize that after her encounter with God, who spoke to her directly, her faith increased. Sarah judged Him faithful who had promised, and she received the strength to conceive and deliver a child. We know this because the word is given to us in Hebrews. It was inspired by God, and preserved for us to read and study today. We should believe it.
#3 1 Peter
1 Peter 3:6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
It is good to remember that Peter is an apostle to the circumcision (Galatians 2:7-9), and he is writing to the Jews that have been scattered out of Jerusalem because of persecution. (Compare 1 Peter 1:1 with Acts 8:1, 4; 11:19; James 1:1.)
NOTE: It is never a good idea to pick up a random book of the Bible and begin to read it and apply it as if it were written to you. Take some time to know the author, the names and places mentioned in the book, and the doctrine being taught. God is very precise in His word, but I fear we tend to be very sloppy in our reading of it; or worse, we do not really believe the words on the page. I encourage you to be a careful student of God’s word.
So when we consider Sara as described in 1 Peter 3:6, we did not see Sara calling Abraham ‘lord’ in the Genesis account, but we did see her obeying Abraham.
CORRECTION: While we do not see an instance of Sarah addressing Abraham as ‘lord’, we do see her referring to him as her lord in her private thoughts. Genesis 18:12 “…After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”
We also see Abraham obeying Sara!
We will take a look at that next week as we return to our study of Hagar in PART 7 of WHEN GOD SPEAKS TO WOMEN. I look forward to seeing you then.
The material in this Blog is covered in this video:
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