In this episode of Bible Talk, Alex Duke chats with Jim Hamilton and Sam Emadi about a towering Old Testament figure: Abram of the Chaldeans. What kind of man is he? Is he just a wandering Canaanite? Or is he something more akin to a king? They discuss all this and more in the episode.

Show Notes

1:50 / What do we know about Abram before God starts speaking to him in Genesis 12? Is he just a regular Canaanite guy?

3:05 / Explain to us the promises Genesis 12:1–3. Why are they—land, seed, blessing, kingship—so hugely important?

7:20 / Is God just telling Abraham “go get a realtor and relocate”? What’s the cost to Abraham in God’s command in Genesis 12:1ff?

8:55 / How does the immediate context of Babel inform what’s going on in Genesis 12? How is Genesis 12 a response to the whole of Genesis 1–11?

11:00 / How do these promises to Abram get interpreted throughout the rest of the Bible? Does Moses want us to connect Genesis 12 to Genesis 3?

17:05 / Should Abram have even gone down to Egypt with his wife? How should we understand this sinful and cowardly moment in Abram’s life?

21:30 / Wait a second. Sam just said in Genesis 12:10–20, Abram “is embodying Israel’s future.” How does that make sense?

23:47 / By Genesis 13, there’s a problem: Abram and Lot have too much stuff. This town isn’t big enough for the both of them. How do they resolve this problem?

30:00 / In Genesis 14, Abram rescues lot from a bunch of crazy kings. How should we understand this weird chapter of Scripture

33:23 / Sam pronounces a lot of really difficult-to-pronounce names and applies them to our lives.

36:13 / How did Genesis 14 make Jim think of Jesus? (The real glory is around 37:45.)

39:00 / What was Abram’s “Aragorn Moment”?

40:00 / Is Psalm 110 really a commentary on Genesis 14?

42:50 / When you say all these guys—Adam, Noah, Abram, etc.—how can you defend that? They’re not called kings in Scripture.

43:45 / So we’ve mentioned him already. But we need to ask the question: Who in the world is Melchizedek?

Rapid-Fire Questions

49:00 / Is Melchizedek a pre-incarnate Christ?

50:15 / Christian traditions have understood Genesis 12:7 in different ways, some even saying that the land promise is fulfilled in the modern nation-state of Israel. Is that how Moses intends for us to understand this promise?

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Image: The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1626)