I had some difficulty getting Co-pilot to generate a theme image for this post. It seems that Microsoft considers an image depicting child-sacrifice objectionable. Shocking.

One of the intellectual dilemmas about the Genesis 22 story is the issue of human sacrifice and the command of God. On one hand, God commands Abraham to make a child sacrifice, which clearly seems immoral. Yet Abraham is commended by God for being willing to obey in such an objectionable act. Was God being insincere in His command and if so, shouldn’t Abraham have said, “No, God. Child sacrifice is evil.”

We need to unpack this question because it touches our daily walk and the temptations that we face regularly.

There is a difference between testing and temptation.

The problem is that the same words, both in Hebrew and Greek, are used for both ideas. James 1 says that we should face various trials with joy in verse 3 and then says that God does not tempt us with evil in verses 13 and 14.

Temptation usually includes three elements: the tempted person (us as the main actors), the temptation (a choice of obedience or disobedience), and a tempter (an outside character pushing us toward disobedience). In the case of Eve in the Garden the elements were Eve, eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Satan encouraging her to disobey the command of God. …

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