The story of God testing Abraham by telling him to sacrifice Isaac is difficult for modern readers. Every part is foreign and revolting to us.

One thing the Bible shows us again and again is that God can use people even more messed up than we are – and that’s reassuring.

We usually think of the story of Sodom as just being about judgment, but in it we also see God’s grace at work.

From the very beginning, God’s provision for the chosen people included a wider circle than just the direct descendants of Abraham.

Abram (later called Abraham) meets a mysterious figure named Melchizedek, a priest even before the Hebrew priesthood was established.

God chooses a family that will become a nation of people as his witness to all of humanity.

While the rainbow is the sign of a promise that God will never again flood all the earth, rain continues.

God promises to never again destroy the world by flood.

The story of Noah makes it clear that evil and sin are intertwined within people, and that people can’t simply be divided into the “good guys” and the “bad guys.”

Even before one generation has passed, conflict enters life in the world, a consequence of sin.