Welcome to After the Fact, a Knowing Faith mini episode where we look to take a big question

and address it in just a few minutes. Typically the questions we consider will line up

with our larger topic for the season that's certainly true for our time today. We are

discussing Genesis 12 through 50 on Knowing Faith this season and joining us today is Dr.

Bruce Ware. Dr. Ware is the Rupert and Lucille Coleman professor of Christian theology at the Southern

Baptist Theological Seminary where he has been teaching for 23 years and he's the author of several

books including but not limited to God's lesser glory, the diminished God of Open Theism, God's

greater glory, the exalted God of Scripture and the Christian faith and big truths for young hearts

teaching and learning the greatness of God. Dr. Ware, welcome to After the Fact, thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Kyle. It's a pleasure to be with you. So here's our big question for today. When Abraham

intercedes on behalf of Sodom in Genesis 18, does Abraham's prayer change God's mind?

Good question. Yeah, that's a very interesting passage but it has similarities with other similar

kinds of passages. You know, you might bring to mind for example when Moses is with God on Mount

Sinai in Exodus 32 and God tells Moses that he's going to go down and destroy the people because

they're building the golden calf, then Moses intercedes. So it's interesting, something similar here

that God tells Abraham that they're going down to Sodom and so I think the purpose of that is not

so that Abraham will say something that would change God's mind. I mean, that's ludicrous at a number

of levels. The most basic one is how could Abraham say anything that God had not already considered?

Right? How could Moses in his appeal to God? Remember the covenant God in Exodus 32? Is God

going to respond? Oh, Moses, you're right. I forgot the covenant goodness. Thank you for reminding me.

This is God. He knows everything. So it's not that Abraham is going to tell him anything that he

doesn't already know. But what he does when God tells one of his servants something like this as in

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