Abraham and Sarah-Your Can Imitate Their Faith

HE IS called "the father of all those having faith." (Romans 4:11) His beloved wife also possessed that quality.  (Hebrews 11:11)  They were the godly patriarch Abraham  and his devout wife, Sarah.  Why were they such fine examples of faith?  What were some of the trials they endured? And of what value is their story to us?

Abraham manifested faith when God commanded him to leave his home.  Jehovah said:  "Go your way out of your country and from your relatives and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you." (Genesis 12:1) The faithful patriarch obeyed, for we are told:  "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed in going out into a place he was destined to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, although not knowing where he was going."  (Hebrews 11:8) Consider what that move meant. 

Abraham  lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq. Ur was a thriving Mesopotamian center that traded with lands of the Persian Gulf and likely the Indus Valley. Sir Leonard Woolley, who directed the systematic excavation of Ur,points out that in Abraham's time most houses there were built of brick, with plastered and whitewashed walls.  For instance, the home of one prosperous  citizen was a two-story building with a paved central courtyard. The ground floor housed domestics and guests. At the first-floor level, a wooden gallery ran around the wall, providing access to rooms reserved  for family  use. With their 10 to 20 rooms, such residences were "comparatively spacious and afforded scope for a life decent, comfortable and, by Easter standards, luxurious," says Woolley.  They were "pre-eminently the homes of a civilized  people and answered to the needs of a highly developed urban life." If Abraham and Sarah left such a home with the prospect of dwelling in tents, they made great sacrifices to obey Jehovah. 

Next time: Conclusion of Abraham and Sarah-You Can Imitate Their Faith

From the Watchtower magazine, 2004