SARAH, MOTHER OF THE PROMISE by Rachel Green Miller for Core Christianity
Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Genesis 17:15-16
Dare to be a Daniel! Have you heard that before? Maybe you’ve read articles or listened to sermons on how you should be like this or that biblical person. I’m sure you’re familiar with the good examples: Moses, Abraham, Sarah, Ruth, Esther, Joshua. And then there are the bad ones, the “don’t be like” examples: Jezebel, Herod, Gomer, Lot’s wife.
While we certainly can learn valuable lessons from men and women in the Bible, there’s a deeper purpose to the biblical stories and people. All of Scripture points us to Jesus. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He’s the promise made to Eve and Adam in the garden. He’s the bridegroom who will return for His bride at the end of time.
In Jesus on Every Page, David Murray warns against treating the biblical stories and people as moral examples, saying it “turns the Old Testament into a legalistic list of do’s and don’ts or be’s and don’t be’s. It focuses on what we should and shouldn’t do rather than on what God has done and is doing.”[1]
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In looking for what God has done and is doing in the Scriptures, we should see that every passage, every biblical story, ultimately is about Jesus. Murray explains, “Even though every text does not name or refer to Jesus, He is implied in every text since the events and people of every text are part of His plan of redemption. Every story is connected with the overall story of salvation.”[2]
Consider Sarah, Abraham’s wife. She is often used as a model of feminine submission because, as 1 Peter 3:6 says, “she called her husband lord.” But is that all we can learn from her? How does she fit into God’s plan of redemption? How does Sarah point us to Christ? When God made a covenant with Abram, He promised to give him a son and heir (Gen. 15). God told Abram that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky. Unfortunately, there was a problem. Sarai, Abram’s wife, had never been able to have children.
