Genesis 22:2 Offer him there as a burnt offering.
The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac has been subject to many interpretations, but I read it as what it seems to be: a test of faith. The story establishes a theme that scripture reiterates endlessly: nothing, including familial love, should come before the love of God.
If a father today acted as Abraham did, he would be locked up, and quite rightly. But many acts of faith seem nearly as wild and wrong as Abraham’s attempted infanticide. The apostles, for example, left people to whom they had serious obligations—aging parents, dependent spouses and children—to follow a penniless itinerant preacher/carpenter around the Judean hill country.
If I felt called by God to leave my family and go do something that seemed wildly irrational—sitting on a pillar in the desert like Saint Simeon, for example—would I do it? Should I?
Overreliance on reason can hold us back; rejecting reason can lead us into ignorance and sin. It’s an awfully narrow line to walk.
