Abraham agrees to the request made of him by God because he feared what God would do to him if he did not abide by what God asked of him. In Genesis 22:12 it says, “For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.” Abraham knows of the hardships that God can place on people and decides that it is worth it to sacrifice his own son and trust that God has better things in store for him. I don’t think Abraham is lying in Genesis 22:5 when he says that they will go to worship, they are worshiping the Lord by a sacrifice, the lie is when he says they will come back to the servants. I believe that Abraham is lying in 22:8 but for good reasons, sometimes it’s okay to tell a white lie if it is in the benefit of the other person. I feel that Abraham didn’t want Isaac to freak out so he told him a small lie.God’s intention of making Abraham go through this ordeal is to see whether or not Abraham is truly faithful to the Lord. Abraham’s descendants were going to be so numerous, God wanted to know that Abraham was the right man for these powerful descendants that were as numerous as the stars. God had been betrayed many times before, and Abraham needed to be put through a test before he was able to gain any more blessings. I believe Abraham is praiseworthy in some occasions. When he had a son with Hagar and told Sarai to tell people that he was her brother, I don’t believe that was very praiseworthy. I think the fact that Abraham was so willing to do whatever God told him to do was praiseworthy. He sent away Hagar and his first son because God told him to. Most importantly, he almost sacrificed his own son, I don’t know many people that would do that. I feel that God is praiseworthy because he is an almighty being, his actions that he asks of people and his punishments might not be praiseworthy, but they are just.
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karlieliang 
Your post got me thinking about God choosing people to represent his image on Earth. It seems that God has an idea that by choosing one man who is faithful to “sponsor” in their life then all of that persons offspring will also be faithful, but why does He do this. He had already done it with Adam and Noah and still had to purge the Earth or parts of it because of sinful behavior. What is His reasoning?
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This is an interesting perspective. I’m wondering if Abraham was really willing to sacrifice his son out of fear of the Lord. In the chapters leading up to Gen. 22 the Lord really didn’t do anything to Abraham that would cause him to feel fear. If anything, he should’ve felt more secure having the power of the Lord behind him and perhaps the thought of losing that shield would be the scariest rather than fearing God directly
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This is a really interesting post-you got me thinking about when telling a white lie is for the right reasons. Here, Abraham does not want Isaac to be scared because he is going to kill him. Usually when I think of justifiable reasons to tell a white lie, calming someone down before killing them doesn’t come to my mind but it is interesting to consider the fact that Abraham was truly doing for himself, Isaac, and for God what was right, so lying along the way might have been okay.
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I never thought about the fact that Abraham feared God, I always thought he acted more out of obedience than fear. I agree that it was beneficial to lie to Isaac. It makes sense that Abraham did not want to tell his son that he was about to be sacrificed. When Abraham sent away Hagar and her son because God told him to, should the blame fall on Abraham or God?
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I do believe that telling a white lie for the benefit of another is okay, but if Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, that white lie would have been the last thing he told his son, which would be pretty tough to live with after in my opinion. Also, I am not sure Abraham really feared God like that. I think he followed God’s commands because God always came through with his promises and Abraham had unwavering love for God.
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