The

according to the Bible, God created humanity in his image, meaning we are meant to reflect

his character out into the world and partner with him to rule it on his behalf.

Now, to do this, humans need to be unified working together towards this sacred goal.

Because after all, we all come from the same family.

We are the family of humanity, the family of God.

Yet read the first dozen pages of the Bible and you'll find that as humanity grows, it's

instead full of corruption and violence and division.

But then, remarkably, on page 11, humans come together in unity, but not to reflect God's

character.

Instead, they want to make their own name great.

This project is called Babylon, and God ends it by scattering humanity all over the land.

He scatters those who try to exalt their own family and lift their name up to the skies.

And this brings us to the story of Abraham.

So here's a guy who's going to then be an immigrant wandering into a land, go around as a

sojourner and an immigrant there.

And he, this is the one that God wants to exalt to a great name.

And this is actually key to the drama of the Abraham stories.

So we read this, God says, I'm going to bless you and so on, give you a great name, a

great nation.

But the last line is the key linchpin on which the whole reason for the calling of Abraham

hinges.

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