DIG DEEPER - EXPLORE FURTHER

HOT TAKE

Challenge everything you have been taught about God that does not align with goodness. If it is not good, it is not God.

EXPLORE FURTHER

The story of Abraham, as it is traditionally taught in much of Christianity, presents deep theological problems. It often paints God as cruel and sadistic, and faith as a precarious tightrope with one misstep leading to devastating consequences. But when we step back from this traditional framing, deeper truths begin to emerge.

First, reflect on the clear biblical statements in which God condemns child sacrifice. Leviticus 18:21 gives a direct command not to sacrifice children to Molech, a Canaanite god also known as Baal. Deuteronomy 12:31 warns the Israelites not to worship the Lord in the same ways the nations worship their gods, explicitly naming the burning of children. As a rule of thumb, when something in Scripture appears to conflict with God’s revealed character, there is always a deeper truth to uncover. So, if God has clearly denounced child sacrifice elsewhere, how could God remain consistent while commanding Abraham to do it?

Perhaps we should consider this: throughout Scripture, those who walked closely with God or were entrusted with significant purposes often faced impossible situations that concluded with profound revelations of who God is. The disciples were entrusted with a storm, and it revealed the God who controls nature. Lazarus was entrusted with the tomb, and it revealed Jesus as God with power over life and death. In the same way, Abraham may have been entrusted with a strange and seemingly uncharacteristic call—not to harm, but to reveal the God who transcends culture.

Notice also that Abraham had previously pushed back when God’s plans seemed unjust. When God announced the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham boldly negotiated for the righteous within the city. Yet here, when told to sacrifice Isaac, he offers no resistance—only compliance. This silence may indicate that years of living among the Canaanites had shaped his thinking to accept the idea that a deity could demand a child’s life. If so, God’s purpose in this command may have been to confront and dismantle that assumption.

This was not a sadistic test designed to break Abraham. God does not set us up to fail. God’s goal is not humiliation, but revelation. In this moment, God was restoring and re-storying—rewriting the narrative to reveal a truth about Himself and about us. In Abraham’s time, a god who demanded the life of a child was familiar; a God who spared a child was not. By intervening, God was distinguished as utterly unlike the gods of the nations.

Isaac was never truly meant to be the sacrifice. Christ is the one true sacrifice. Contrary to what a surface study of the text suggests, Abraham’s call was not about enduring the cruelty of losing his son, but about participating in a story that would refine his understanding of God, challenge cultural assumptions, and ultimately foreshadow Jesus’ own willing death for the world.

Just as Abraham was shaped by living among the culture of the Canaanites, our own understanding of the Bible is shaped by the context and culture we live in. Many of the lessons we’ve learned about God come from someone’s interpretation— whether that interpretation reflects God’s character well or not. Throughout Scripture, God uses people to restore truth, to tell a new story, and to undo harmful narratives. God desires to do the same in your life as you navigate your own spiritual journey.

If a teaching is not filled with grace, if it paints God as cruel, malicious, or unkind, if it ascribes to you anything less than the dignity of being God’s child, or if it demands perfection and works for acceptance, it’s worth challenging—and even more, it’s worth digging deeper to find the story behind the story. Do not stop searching the Scriptures until you uncover goodness. Do not stop exploring the stories of the Bible until you discover love. God is love.