this is totally cool -- using legos to illustrate Bible stories: www.thebricktestament.com
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
20 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
If you’re not familiar with these two stories in Genesis, I encourage you to click to biblegateway right this minute and read them. I was reading a commentary on Genesis 20, and the writer explains that many scholars believe this is a duplicate of Chapter 12, on the “ground that a man does not repeat a lapse of this kind.”
WHAT??? Do these scholars not understand the nature of sin?!!! Of course men — and women — all of humankind repeat mistakes of this kind. Have they read Romans 7? Yes, we should be smarter than to get into the same argument with our husband, drive at the same speed that got us the last ticket, or, certainly, visit that same site that took us down the road of destruction before. But sadly, the nature of our sinful flesh is insanity. It’s not logical.
The only thing that makes sense and makes us make sense is the gospel. So not only do I vehemently (i just love to say and write that word:) disagree with critical scholars, suggesting perhaps that they leave the library for a bit and try life for a while (sorry, now I’m getting harsh), but I am so grateful for the craft and skill of the Holy Spirit’s editing of the Bible — this story needed to be in the text twice to show us how desperately moronic we can act when we try to do things our own way.
