Genesis 16 is chiefly the story of two women and their struggles to believe God, to wait on God, to obey God in the hard times and hard places of life.
Interestingly, this chapter deals with some common struggles of even faithful, godly women still today: infertility, impatient marriage unions, inactive husbands, fear of not being provided for… and the converse temptation of trying to take control of one's situation through one's own strength or ingenuity.
Yet this chapter is imminently relevant to every man as well, as we see Abram failing to practice the godly, active servant-leadership to which he is called by God. His very absence in this chapter is a lesson!
Above all these concerns, however, this passage is relevant to every person – believer or unbeliever, professing Christian or not – who is looking to our own strength or wisdom to save ourselves. Ultimately, we are all either trying to find blessing through our own actions, or resting in God’s grace to bless us in his time, and in his own way.
As Paul will later point out in Galatians, drawing from this very episode in Genesis 16, there are really only two religions in the world: the religion of salvation through works, or the Christian religion of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
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