The Bible is not a book about science—though I am convinced that science backs up the Bible. The Bible is not a book of philosophy, either, for philosophy is the attempt to figure out man’s place in the world (with man as the starting point of that search).

Rather, the Bible is the story of God’s creation and redemption of man for the purpose of man becoming God’s companion. It’s not even the story of the history of mankind. With very little deviation, it follows one family through history until we get to the savior.

Genesis 11:26-32
After Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. These are the descendants of Terah, who was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot, and Haran died in his hometown of Ur in Babylonia, while his father was still living. Abram married Sarai, and Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. Sarai was not able to have children. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, who was the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram's wife, and with them he left the city of Ur in Babylonia to go to the land of Canaan. They went as far as Haran and settled there. Terah died there at the age of 205. (GNB)

So, as we read that little paragraph, you may be thinking, “That’s not exactly the most exciting thing I ever read in the Bible … “ Partly, that’s because we get distracted by all the names. Especially if you read the part that came just before it, which was nothing but names.

It’s kind of like when you’re out in the wilderness somewhere. You’ve got your binoculars or your movie camera and you’re taking a slow panorama of the countryside. But then, something registers on your brain and you go back to something you just saw. It takes a moment, then … there. There’s a mother deer with a baby right over there. “How did I miss that?” You stop your scan and just focus on this tiny, beautiful scene.

I find this happening to me a lot as I read scripture. I’ll be humming along pretty good, and then a word or phrase will catch my eye. Sometimes it’s in a passage I’ve read a hundred times, but suddenly I’m thinking to myself, “I don’t remember ever seeing THAT before!”

Sometimes it’s in a passage like this. Doesn’t seem interested—it’s all I can do to read those lists of names—then a tiny little speed bump is thrown in. Most times I just keep going. But take a look at this little bump with me.

Why did Terah want to go north to Haran?

Why did God want Abram to leave Ur? God has made this promise—way back in Genesis 3—that he will provide a Messiah. Couldn’t he do that in Ur as easily as in Canaan?

Let me answer the second question by going back to the first one. What do we know about Terah, other than that he was Abram’s father?

In Joshua’s farewell address (in Joshua 24:2) we learn this: “And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.” (ESV)

Think about it: Shem is still alive. He’s been through the flood. He’s still there to attest to the power of the one true God, yet his descendants have abandoned that belief and taken up with multiple, false gods.

Acts 7:2
And Stephen said: "Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,” (ESV)

In Genesis, we don’t read about God’s having called Abram until he’s in Haran. But Stephen, speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit, says that Abram was called first while in Ur. What do we know about Ur? Archeology tells us that it was a center of moon worship at this time, with lots of fertility cults and ritual prostitution.

Have you ever tried to tell someone something in a crowded restaurant? Something private and important? You try a couple times, but they can’t understand you because of the music and talking diners and rattling plates. So you take them by the arm and say, “Let’s step outside for a minute.”

God had seen Abram’s heart and knew he was the man for the job. But Abram was surrounded by an enormous din of idol worship and wickedness. Now, Haran has it’s problems, but it’s a little quieter than Ur. So God gets Abram out of the noise of Ur so that he can talk to him in the relative quiet of Haran.

How could a man raised in the horrible culture Abram grew up in come to know the one true God? Martha has a cousin who works with Wycliffe Bible Translators in New Guinea. He told me that when they first went in and preached the gospel, the people were very receptive. They all wanted Jesus right away. The missionaries were very excited. But then they noticed something: the people wore totems on their belts. They had idols to the sun god and the rain god and the fertility god and whatever. Now, after having supposedly received Christ, they’d just added a cross to their pantheon of totems. They believed Christ to be a god, but just another god among many.

Maybe that was Terah. Maybe Terah believed in Jehovah God, but only as one god among the many. But maybe there was at least that seed planted in Abram with which God could work. Now, I am certain the Holy Spirit was at work in Abram’s life. Maybe Abram had an open heart and the HS had used that opening to show Abram the folly of the multiple gods and lead him to the one true God.

What do I DO with this?

5 purposes for the Hebrew people:
1. to preserve the knowledge of the living and true God
2. to preserve the knowledge of the moral law (Galatians 3:19)
3. to prepare the world for the advent and ministry of the Messiah
4. to build up a system of metaphor, type, allegory and prophecy to identify the Messiah when he came in the flesh
5. give the Messiah to the world.
—from CC Crawford

How different is that from our role in the world?
1. we preserve the knowledge of the living and true God
2. we preserve the knowledge of God’s law
3. we proclaim the advent—that the Messiah has come
4. while it seems like the metaphors, types, etc. have already been established, we live in a world that no longer recognizes them. We have to keep reestablishing this language through our own speech and our very lives
5. we still give the Messiah to the world!