If God knows it all and created all, why would he create an evil spirit (Satan) that would corrupt his perfect creation?
This question is one of both deep philosophical and theological investigation, and it’s one that’s surfaced countless times over the history of those two disciplines.  We’ll hardly pretend to have the lynchpin answer for this ongoing conversation, and with that in mind, let’s begin by making several observations about God’s initial act of creation here at the outset. 

First, when Satan was created, he was not created as “an evil spirit.”  1 John 3:4 tells us that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”  Everything that God created, including the host of angels of whom Satan was a member, were created without sin.  The Bible is clear that God is incapable of producing evil.

 Second, just as God is a being with personal volition, angels (and Satan) were created with a freedom of choice.  In Isaiah 14:12, Satan is said to have spoken the words: ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north.  ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’  Satan made the unmitigated decision to oppose God by use of his freedom, distorting a gift which God meant for holy purposes, into something that would cause colossal damage to himself, and eventually humanity.

 Third, it’s certain that God knew how the events proceeding the fall of man would come about.  Isaiah 40:28 tells us that “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”  God’s understanding exceeds the limits of human comprehension.  He was not surprised by Satan’s rebellion, or his instigation of humanity to rebel.

 In the end, no matter how well the question is clarified, we will ultimately end with the question of, “why did God create things in the way that He did?”  It’s here that we begin to tread some heavily philosophical terrain; because if God is omnipotent and wholly good, then the world as He initially created it was the best possible world which could have been created. 

 When Jesus tells us that “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him,” this is because God is not coercing us to worship Him.  To force us to love Him would make God anything but good or loving; He would then be a tyrant unworthy of worship.  It is the highest definition of love that two freely acting persons should give themselves to one another, and this is what God made possible by creating the world in the manner He did.  For us to wish for a world with no evil, is to wish for a world of not more abundant love, but less.

 No one hates or suffers from evil more than God Himself.  Yet he was willing to endure it all (even to the culmination of all evil in His Son’s murder), so that He might seek and find those who would love Him without coercion, and eventually give them the object of all their desire when they love Him freely, and spend their eternities with Him in His coming glory.

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This passage has historically been cited as a double reference to both Satan and the King of Babylon who states the same about his own earthly kingdom, though not all scholars agree with this application.

John 4:23

Keeping the Bible in mind as much as possible how would you define femininity?  I am especially curious about femininity as a single woman.  There seems to be numerous verses on how to be a good wife and mother but very few on how to honor God through your femininity if you are single.
God has given us His Word as a guide for our lives, so of course He would give us an example of what godly feminity looks like, single or married, children or no children, divorced or widowed.

The first passage that comes to mind would be Titus 2. Titus is a book on conduct, the way we ought to live as models of christian living.Verse 5 says, “This instruction is so that the Word of God may not be dishonored,” and verse 8, “So that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” Verse 10, “So that we may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.” And we see in verse 11, “God’s grace has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” It is through our conduct, our obedience to the Word of God that the opponent is put to shame and God’s salvation is brought to people.

John MacArthur says, “If the saving grace of Christ is to reach all men, it’s going to depend on the character of the church. If we honor the Word, silence the critics and demonstrate that God is a saving God by our transformed lives, then the gospel will be powerfully effective.”

In Titus 2 we are given very specific roles and responsibilities, a job description if you will. We see there are instructions for older men, younger men, older women and younger women. The phrase ‘older women,’ refers to women who are past child bearing/child rearing age which during that time, a time of no birth control, women could be having children late into their forties and thus rearing them until their teenage years which means ‘older women’ are those probably above the age of 60. So, I will assume that you are among the ‘younger women’ in that passage and although it does include responsibilities for both a wife and a mother, it also includes other helpful information for living a life that is pleasing to God as a woman who is single or not. ‘so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.’

sensible – to have sound judgment, common sense, right thinking, right priorities, very basic. (i.e. knowing your priorities, thinking right and applying wisdom.)
pure - morally pure, virtuous, sexually faithful to their husband (or if they are single, to their future husband.) In 1 Timothy 2, you see the words “modestly and discreetly,” that there is thought behind your actions, your dress, your words, and that thought is: “I never have intentions of distracting someone from worshiping God or potentially causing another believer to sin.”
kind – gentle, tender-hearted, merciful, thoughtful

A perfect Biblical example of those characteristics would be Ruth. Ruth was a widow, but single nonetheless so studying her life is a great way to see how God desires a single woman to honor Him.

Ruth was loyal, sacrificial and selfless (she gave up EVERYTHING to follow after God – what do we need to give up in order to follow whole-heartedly after God?), she is a woman of action, a hard worker, responsible and diligent (she would have had to get up early in the morning and would have worked in the fields all day in the heat…), she wasn’t looking for hand outs and was willing to do whatever it would take to make sure that those she loved (Naomi – mother-in-law) were taken care of, she made no excuses, we never see her complain about her situation which was devastatingly bad from a world’s perspective, a giver (2:18), through her suffering she maintained emotional stability and made good decisions (especially important with women and our tendency to run off of emotions), she is a risk-taker (chapter 3), respectful: seeks the advise of an older, wiser follower of God and heeds her advice, she is sweet, tender, gentle, we see her patiently seeking God, waiting, listening to and loving God, she has integrity and character (3:10 – she could have had any guy she wanted), she had a great reputation (3:11 – people knew who she was and were in awe of how she was sacrificially, selflessly living; so much so that they were talking about it)… most importantly we see from the very beginning and throughout the book, Ruth’s love and pursuit of God “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”

1 Peter 3 says ‘but you worry about the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, precious in the sight of God, for in this way in former times, the holy women also used to adorn themselves.’

Focus on your pursuit of God, of becoming more like Christ rather than the external, rather than what the world and our culture tells us what defines and makes up a woman, what we should act like, look like. Look to the Bible for your answers to those questions, not the world, and you will no doubt be molded into exactly who God wants you to be.

Q. How does the “problem of evil” resolve itself in the Christian faith?  If God created everything, does that mean He also created evil?

When God created the heavens and the earth, everything He made was good (Genesis 1:31).  There was no trace of evil – no shortcoming in anything God had made.

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, enjoyed uninhibited communion with God in the garden He had given to them.  They loved Him of their own volition, and obeyed Him freely.  The Bible does not define exactly how long this continued, but at some point, evil entered this world through the lie of the serpent (Satan) to Eve.  By placing doubt into her mind as to whether God really meant what He said, he convinced her that she would be like God if she were to disobey Him.  She believed him, and ate of the only fruit in the garden which God strictly forbade.  Adam, being at her side, failed to protect her in her moment of temptation, and ate the fruit as well.  At this moment, Genesis tells us “their eyes were opened,” and they made coverings to hide their bodies (Genesis 3:7).

At the heart of the “problem of evil” is the element of human freedom.*  The Bible speaks often about role of human choice in believing and obeying him (Romans 1:18-23), and emphasizes the need for us to make a decision about whether we will follow him.  An objection which is often leveled against Christianity is that God is a cosmic tyrant who says “you do it my way, or no way at all.”  In reality, God has always given us two options: His or our own.  C. S. Lewis wrote that there are two types of people: There are those who kneel before God and say “thy will be done,” and those who refuse to bend their knee to Him, to whom God then says, “very well.  Thy will be done.”  Freedom to choose is a mark of humanness. As God chose to love us before we were born, so we, being made in His image and likeness, also have the choice to love Him. But He will not coerce us, and this is evidenced in the fact that even our first parents had the choice to believe God, or to believe the lie.

The answer then, is that God created everything, including human freedom, and humanity chose to abuse this gift.  Thus He did not create evil, and He is not responsible for evil.  Evil is the result of human beings abusing the gift of free will. And free will, though it carries the capacity to be used for evil, is also the only way in which true love can exist.  If we did not have the freedom to choose evil, then neither would we have the freedom of choosing to truly love.
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*As an aside, “the problem of evil” is often used as an attack on faith.  However, evil is an even bigger problem for the atheist than it is for the Christian.  When we posit that there is real evil, we also assume that there is real good.  But this distinction requires a real, objective moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil.  This moral law must have a source, and that source is God, as it is absurd to think that humanity would ever develope such a universal, innate moral compass by chance.  Thus the problem of evil does more to bolster the claim for God than to dispel it.

Q. How is man able to sin prior to the fall? In the Bible it calls Adam and Eve perfect but then they go and sin, does that mean even in a perfect state man sins? If God is also perfect can he sin?
Human beings are engineered, within this life, with the way we are made at this time, to be able to sin.  Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world…”  God created people with the capacity to choose, part of the being “made in the image and likeness of God”.  Most people are very positive about possessing this ability to choose, even if it can get us into trouble.  Which it has.  But the ability to choose is the preferred design for humanity, not a pre-programed ability to always make the correct choice (like a machine, a robot).  So even though Adam and Eve were perfect, they possessed the ability to disobey and become imperfect, because of their humanness.

The biblical solution seems to be, obtain a regenerated spirit (Ephesians 2:1, theologians view our human spirits as the part of us being made alive), achieve a transformed mind (Romans 12:2), and then one day, become privileged with a newly designed body, a resurrected body (1Co 15:42 “So also is the resurrection of the dead.  The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.”)  Having a resurrected body, seems to be the final step in the path to perfection (1Co 15:53).  Practical perfection, not positional perfection which we receive at the moment of salvation (Colossians 2:10 “and you are complete in Him…”  ‘complete’  pleroo  full, complete, perfect)

God is Spirit and does not have a mortal human body like ours (John 4:24), and therefore has never possessed the capacity to sin. When He did become incarnate through Jesus, as Jesus, (1Tim 3:16  “God was manifested in the flesh” NKJV ), Deity dominated and the incarnate God could not and did not sin (Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin’.).

Q. Is there an absolute proof of Gods existence or does it completely come down to faith and personal testimony? Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Invisible meaning actually can’t physically be seen, but at the end says are clearly seen by the world around us.
Let’s focus first on the verse quoted above: Romans 1:20.  In it Paul is talking about the material manifestations of God’s eternal attributes.  In other words, he says that something of who God is can be seen in the things that He has made; that the creation bears the image of its creator.  This refers not only to the planet we live on, but also to the inner-workings of we as human beings.
Only Two Ways To Look At Things
Essentially, there can be only two reactions to Paul’s point.  Either we infer a great creative mind from the incomprehensible complexity and beauty we behold in creation, or, we believe that everything (and I stress, everything) we know of life is the result of one huge cosmic accident. This latter option would declare that everything from DNA, to romantic love, to art, to iPods, to earthworms, to irony, to Bach’s cello pieces, to dirt, to college degrees, to self-esteem are all products of the same cataclysmic explosion that happened somewhere in the ancient past, long before the laws of physics (the ones we use to describe it) had come into existence.

This reductio ad absurdum, though it shows the irrational grounds of materialistic evolution, does not prove the existence of God outright.  What it does help us to do is make an inference to the best possible explanation, which is that all the complexity of life, emotion, physics, energy, and thought owe their existence to a Being more complex and wise than a cosmic cocktail of chemicals (which, by the way, would have had to come from somewhere).*
Absolute Proof
In the end, the answer to the question is that there is BOTH absolute proof and the assurance of faith and personal testimony.  Aside from any arguments related to the creation/evolution debate, we have absolute proof for God of another kind: the life of the historical Jesus. Even if God had left no visible traces of His divine nature in creation, as Paul wrote, we would still be left with the record of the God-Man himself.

The evidences from the life of Jesus form a greater proof for God’s existence than all the volumes of arguments written on God’s existence as proved from material creation.  And this is to be expected, because the focus of the Bible is not the scientific evidence we have for belief in God; it is rather the eternal Word of God, manifest in the God-Man Jesus Christ, whose life is the greatest proof for God available to us.

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* Proceeding with an argument for God’s existence from design would take a much longer than the scope of this post.  Serious inquirers would be well served to obtain a copy of documentaries such as “The Privileged Planet,” or books such as I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler.

Q. There are many different religions and faiths claiming that they are the only way to heaven. Obviously that means one is right and the rest are wrong. I’m not a very learned guy when it comes to worldviews other than Christianity, but if people believe in something then I would think there would be some concrete evidence for the foundation to their faith. Back to my question, If one is right and the rest wrong, wouldn’t there be some serious loopholes in the “wrong” ones?
Only One Religion Corresponds With Reality
All world-views have to answer the questions that all humans intrinsically ask, Where do we come from? What is our purpose? What is Morality? Why is there evil and suffering in the world? and What will happen when we die? Only the Christian worldview answers all of these questions to the clearest extent. It is the only religion which clearly corresponds to reality and whose text is so instructional and clear in explanation. Other world-views try but they all lack depth and correspondence with reality.

Buddhism doesn’t explain where evil and suffering come from it just explains what one must do to try to get away from it, and that which teaches us how to get away were taught by Buddha, who ultimately died and no one really knows if he ever overcame it. Hinduism adapts relativism, which breaks the very structure of thought to know Truth. Islam and many cults claim the Bible as their foundation of legitimacy (since many come hundreds and others thousands of years after the new testament), then they go and deny their foundation and posit contradictory information which still roots itself in the denied foundation. Once one denies their foundation for legitimacy all of their claims built on a broken foundation, lack foundation. Culture is also against many, for culture perpetuates thinking which is devoid of truth.

“He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” Isaiah 44:15-19
People Ultimately Want To Deny Jesus As God
This is an example in the Bible how man will follow foolishness to all extents. Romans 1:18-32 describes how and why people follow other religions. in 2 Corinthians 3:13-18 Paul describes that peoples’ hearts are hardened and there is a veil over their eyes and that only through Christ can one come and have their veil lifted to truth and salvation. This is why you can prove to someone God is real logically, historically, rationally but they will never accept the Lordship of Christ, because their hearts still have a veil over it. People do not accept Jesus by facts alone but through the heart and the Spirit.

So why do people not see the true God of reality? because of the darkness of the human heart to not look and accept the fallacy of an idea for personal comfort;

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”  John 3:19-20

Q. Many times it is said that God’s love is unconditional…but that is not an actual adjective used in the Bible to describe it. Is His love truly unconditional? And if not, how should it be described?
The New Testament writers possessed a variety of words for love in the Koine Greek language of their period.

For example they had the availability of using storge, a word which represents family love or the love between subjects and their king.  Philia is another word representing love, which was evident within a reciprocal relationship.  Eros was not only a deity in Greek culture, but a word for love, avoided by bible writers.  But word that they choose, agape/agapo/agapao, seemed to be a little less used.  Maybe a little less defined.  So the believers in the first century, began to give this word, through the Holy Spirit, a greater, more advanced, and elevated meeting.

E.g. Romans 5.5 tells us that this love is “poured out” not rationed by God or by His followers.  Romans 8:35 emphasizes, “who shall separate us from the love of Christ”, and then the passage goes on to name a considerable list of things that are unable to separate us from the love of God.

1 Corinthians 13:9 tells us that “agape never fails”.  Definitely setting it apart from other varieties of love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us that it is “greater than faith and hope”. Ephesians 3:19 explains that it “passes knowledge”

But probably the reason why followers of Jesus Christ confine and define this type of love to the idea of being unconditional…is because of the contextual definition provided by the bible itself as it speaks of the concept.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for all” Ephesians 5:2 “…as Christ also has loved us, and given Himself for us, and offering and a sacrifice…” Ephesians 5:25 “…as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…”

So it seems evident, that Christ’s love is demonstrated by sacrifice, a personal sacrifice resulting in His own death. This sacrifice was not given conditionally.  Jesus died for the “world”, kosmos…world of people.  He died first, and then extended an invitation.  His sacrifice, this act of love was given unconditionally, but not without qualification. Love must be facilitated through “repentance and faith”, but it is still given. Love is offered first, and that is the point, Jesus died first, without condition.

Q. You know how people say “Even if you were the only person to become a Christian God loves you so much that he would have still sent Jesus to die for you” I sometimes wonder if God really loved us so much wouldn’t you think that he would be willing to give up all of creation if even one person was going to go to hell? Imagine you wanted to have children but there was a 75% chance that they would not know about you or not choose you and if they were in that 75% they would have long miserable lives spent being tortured and alone.  Wouldn’t the selfless thing to do be to not have sex, not have kids, and not have anyone tortured?  Hell seems like that times infinity.  I don’t understand how God can love people so much and yet keep creating creatures who will end up being subjected to eternal torture.
Defining the Dilemma
The dilemma expressed in the statement above represents probably one of the most common objections brought against the Christian worldview: that “a loving God would not send people (people who He created) to Hell.”  However, embedded in this objection is a problem with the definition of the word “love” as it is here being applied to God.  Certainly, God is loving (Psalm 36:7, 1 John 4:16), but He is loving in every sense of the word, not simply in a sense which ensures our uninterrupted pleasure.

We seem ever-ready to accept the image of a God who is loving toward us in a romantic, Utopian way, yet unwilling to accept the notion of a God who loves us enough to meddle in our business, or correct us on our errant courses.  The only source of the idea that God is perfectly loving is contained in the Bible itself.  Ironically, this is the same source which informs us that God is perfectly just as well.
God’s Love and God’s Justice
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?  “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 
If we are ready to accept the idea of God as a God of love, we cannot patronize Him as a lover who wills only our continuous comfort.  To do so would be to shape and worship a therapeutic yet useless god, made in our image, and “loving” towards us on our own terms.  To ask God for His love without His guidance and discipline is to ask Him not to love us more, but less.
Probability vs. Providence
The questioner asks, “if God really loved us, wouldn’t He be willing to not have created anything in order that no one would go to Hell?”

First, if God had not created us, there would be none of us to love.  This is a nonsensical, backwards scenario, and nonsense is still nonsense even when you try to apply it to God.

Second, God does not work with probabilities.  He did not have to calculate the percentages of people who would accept Him, versus those who would reject Him.  He knew what would result from the creation, and that a great deal of people would reject Him.  Yet, because God’s glorification is all that matters from beginning to end, He deemed it proper to create a world in which some people would have the opportunity to love Him of their own volition.  Any sort of objection that this makes God an ego-centric tyrant misses the point: He is God; all honor, glory and praise is His alone.  He is incapable of selfishness because there is nothing else which deserves honor and glory more than Himself.

Third, the fall of mankind (of which Hell was a result) was the doing of man, not of God. Some would object that God could have done things another way, which might have avoided Hell altogether.  C. S. Lewis speaks to this idea directly: “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.”*
The Greatest Mystery
The fact of the matter is that you cannot dissect the character of God, elevating that which you approve, and indicting that which you do not.  The correct reaction to encountering God is not to feel emotionally satisfied by His love; it is to fall on our faces in reverent fear of His holiness.  Nor can we question his extent of His justness simply because he grants some people their greatest wish: not to be bothered by Him.  When you understand this, you will realize the real mystery is not that a loving God could allow the possibility of Hell, but how that magnificent God could allow any of us to enter Heaven.

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*Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins: New York, 1940) p.25

Q. If you honestly devote yourself to getting plugged into a church, life groups, studies on your own time, prayer and group prayers; like really dig into a church and seek after God, and adjust your life to the Word and He doesn’t reveal himself….whats the issue then? I’ve heard many testimonies about seeking and seeking and seeking after him and just never feeling his presence.
It seems as though in this instance we are dealing with a lack of feeling God’s presence in one’s life. Theologically speaking, there is no gray area with a person who is a true disciple of Christ and who isn’t. We know that through what Mark 1:15 and Acts 20:21 tell us, we can accept the free gift of salvation that God offers by repenting and believing. We also know through Scripture that once a person has genuinely committed their life to Jesus, they cannot forfeit or lose that position (Ephesians 1:13-14; Romans 8:38).

The items listed within the question itself can all be accomplished without truly understanding Christ’s message of truth. These items can all be done out of a false sense of security and sadly, in many cultures, these sorts of things are done merely out of some type of a cultural, governmental, or family obligation. Even James 2:19 tells us that “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe–and tremble!” James is stating that even demons believe in God, but they obviously have rebelled and turned their back on Him so they miss the whole point.
It’s Not About What We “Do”
For those who feel like they are trying to “do things right,” it is not about that. Romans 3:10 says that “There is none righteous, no, not one,” so we know that we can’t do anything on our own to make ourselves be in good standing with God. And others might say, I just want to feel God in my life. Well, feelings many times are subjective and temporal. We can’t expect to find answers from God in the clouds or on billboards. Faith is what the Bible says it is: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1).

We must come to the point in our lives where doing a ton of good things like going to church, helping old ladies across streets, building homes for people, and feeding the homeless aren’t going to give us the feeling of connection we need with God. Even if we are attempting with all of our might to feel God, if it is done with an improper foundation, it is useless. We must be realistic about the situation rather than emotional. Objectivity, rather than subjectivity in this case leads us to the heart of the matter: that we are sinners, undeserving of knowing, much less being able to feel God; and yet, God, showed us so much love that He sacrificed Himself for us. If our focus is on the Gospel (in greek – euangello – good message – 1 Cor. 15:1-4), then we won’t be worrying about having some type of an emotional connection with God. We will see our situation for what it really is. We will see God for who He really is. We will base our coming to God off of reason, not emotions. The emotional component will come later, as it does with any relationship.

Q. Why do people say God is “loving” when he actually commanded Abraham to kill his own son as a sacrifice to him? How is that loving?
Viewed holistically, the story of Abraham’s life is one of the Old Testament’s greatest examples of God’s undeserved lovingkindness toward humanity. God chose this obscure man from a region of nature worshippers, and called him to become the patriarch of the Israelite nation. To understand the (near) sacrifice of his son Isaac, it must be looked at in the context of Abraham’s life from start to finish.
Before He Was Abraham
Abraham (then “Abram”, meaning “exalted father”) was born in a Babylonian city called Ur, in what is today southern Iraq. His inglorious ancestry and obscure history make him a very unlikely candidate to be the father of the Israelite nation. Yet, in Genesis 12:1 God initiates the relationship which would lead to Abram’s honored place in Biblical history.

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The Unlikely Birth of Isaac
Isaac himself was the product of God’s loving, miraculous intervention in the life of Abraham and his wife Sarah. In Gen 17:15, he tells Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her.” Abraham laughed at God’s words (an understandable reaction, as he was nearly one hundred years old, and Sarah was ninety). But sure enough, Sarah conceived shortly after, and Isaac (whose name means “he laughs”) was born.
The (Near) Sacrifice
Genesis 22 is the account of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. “Take your son,” he says, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Abraham rises early in the morning, and on the third day of travel, they reach the mountain. Abraham lays the wood for the offering on Isaac’s shoulders, and asks his servants to remain behind. When Isaac asks where the lamb to be sacrificed is, Abraham simply responds, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” After Abraham binds Isaac, and is about to “slaughter him,” God stays his hand: “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Gen 22:12).

Several objections may now be raised. First, did God not know Abraham feared Him before the near sacrifice of Isaac? The simple answer is that He of course knew Abraham’s fear (or holy reverence) of Him. God did not learn anything, as if it were new information to Him. The real beneficiary of the incident was Abraham himself, who gained a new understanding of God’s providence, to the point that He named that very spot “The Lord will provide” (22:14).

Second, any objection that God was simply toying with Abraham in some cruel, sadistic way should be thwarted by examining the previous points, but also by remembering a much more familiar incident in the pages of the New Testament. There, God placed on Himself the same requirement He asked of Abraham. Laying the wood for the sacrifice on the shoulders of His only Son, He led Jesus to the hill where He would be sacrificed (it is possibly the same hill where Abraham led Isaac). The difference is that God did not stay His own hand, but again provided the sacrificial lamb “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).