They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. (John 8:39)

How often did the Jews brag about being sons of Abraham? Did they miss the point completely?

Not completely, I know, but it’s interesting that Paul takes the time, in Galatians 4, to contrast the women that bore children to Abraham. (Side note: Sons of Sarah – Great worship band name)

For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman … which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar … So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. (Galatians 4:22, 24, 31)

They boasted about being biological descendants of Abraham and, thus, the nation of God’s chosen people.

But, biologically, Abraham also fathered an entire nation of people – through Ishmael – who were cast out, and who didn’t inherit his promises or his God.

Really, it wasn’t in being a son of Abraham that a person should have boasted, but in being a son of Sarah, the freewoman who gave birth to the son of promise whom God would use. Before Christ. Before faith revealed. It was always about promise and grace.

(And, despite everyone over the last several thousand years who would have us believe that God is a misogynist, it seems that God used a woman, even more than her man, to bring His promise to the world.)

Hindsight is, of course, what they say it is. How often do I do it? How often do I trust my title or my service to garner God’s good graces when it’s always been about promises and grace.