April 4

“Where then is the glorying? It is excluded.” Romans 3:27

We shall best understand the call of Abraham if we see it in its proper setting. The nations all around had not only forgotten God, but were idolaters. The whole world worshiped false gods, and Abraham’s family was no exception. In this Abraham was very different from Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who seem to have been men of backbone, strikingly different from all those around them.

They stood out against the stream and refused to be dragged along by it. Not so Abraham. He was indistinguishable from those around him. Were they idolaters? So was he. God however, chose him. It was clearly not in Abraham’s moral character that we must seek the reason for this choice, but in God himself.

If Abraham had not been just the same as all the rest, then in looking back he might have prided himself on his difference. But he was one of them. As with you and me, the difference lay in God and not in the man. So I ask you: Who should receive the glory?